MANILA,, March 3 — If we are to believe that passing the Bangsamoro Basic Law into law will not solve the conflict in Mindanao, according to Prof. Miriam Ferrer, then why the heck they still stay at the government peace panel?
Professor Miriam Ferrer, who chairs the side of government peace panel ( Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process) has been under fire due to perceptions that she and fellow negotiator/peace adviser Ging Deles are “lawyering” for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
How they were convinced (by their MILF counterpart) to include in the proposed law that the future Bangsamoro entity can have a separate military force and P75 billion windfall for the Bangsamoro government creation plus an initial budget of P27 billion in 2016 is a good start for a non-stop question hour(s).
Now comes this statement attributed to Ferrer that enacting the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) into law even in the form desired by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will not guarantee peace in Mindanao.
Ferrer said passing the draft BBL into a law will not totally solve the conflict in Mindanao as there are still other armed groups that are sowing chaos in the region.
“BBL is not equal to peace, it’s too narrow a view,” Ferrer stressed in an interview at the sidelines of a journalism seminar in Anilao, Batangas, on Sunday.
There are still a lot of reforms that must be introduced and more armed groups that must be dealt with before peace can even have hope in Mindanao, according to Ferrer.
But, the government panel head said, enacting the BBL would at least eliminate the MILF among the government’s concerns in Mindanao, and “it’s a big thing, because you know how difficult it is if they (armed groups) unite.”
Ferrer also said they are open to discussing the changes in the draft BBL that the Congress wants to introduce but they are waiting for the Office of the President to initiate the talk with the legislators.
“Maybe it’s just a matter of explaining the provisions being objected to by the legislators or changing some of the words in the BBL if they are causing confusion,” she said. (with PNA report)
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