Government peace panel chair Miriam Ferrer and presidential
adviser for the peace process Ding Deles must be investigated at once for
allowing the highway robbery of the Filipino people and for wanton disregard of
the Constitution in the peace agreement with the MILF which is the basis for
the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).
And if they can’t convincingly defend these issues which are
unjust, insensitive and insulting to the people, I hope they bwill still have
the delicadeza to immediately resign.
There is no other, more appropriate, term than highway robbery of
the Filipino people for these provisions in the BBL:
The P70-billion Bangsamoro grant will be a whole lot more than
what other regions are currently getting. This despite the fact that millions
of our countrymen have also been in similar dire economic conditions for
decades in other areas like parts of the Bicol region and Northern Luzon, plus
the scores of squatter families all over Metro Manila. It will be nothing less
than totally unfair to them if the Bangsamoro will be given tons of funds while
they make do with the pittance the government allocates for them.
The P70-billion will be an automatic budget which will not pass
through Congress. And only the chief minister and the parliament of the
Bangsamoro region will have sole discretion on how to spend the money. Making
it worse, and more insulting, to senators, congressmen, local officials and the
Filipino as a whole is unlike development funds and internal revenue allotments
(IRA) of local government units, the Bangsamoro budget will not be subject to
Department of Budget and Management guidelines.
In other words, the government wants to control the people’s
representatives on how our taxes and other monies will be spent or utilized for
our welfare. But they won’t give a damn how the Bangsamoro region will spend
our hard-earned money. They will just dump P75 billion of our money to the
Bangsamoro and we don’t have the right to know how it will be spent. Neither
will we have any assurance that the funds will be spent wisely, and more
importantly legally.
Simply because Ms. Ferrer and her panel bowed to the MILF’s
proposal in the BBL that the budget will be audited by the Bangsamoro region’s
own audit body, and not the Commission on Audit (COA), even if the money will
come from public funds. So what makes the MILF and the proposed
Bangsamoro region so special, so sacred to Ms. Ferrer and her panel of
negotiators that she had the nerve to allow these grossly unfair and detrimental
provisions to the Filipino people in the agreement with the MILF?
So sacred and so special that Ms. Ferrer and her panel of
negotiators even blatantly ignored the Constitution in agreeing to the MILF’s
desire that the decision of the Bangsamoro Shari’a High Court on legal matters
shall be final and executory. It is crystal clear in the Constitution that only
the Supreme Court has the final decision on matters of law and has the sole
right to review all cases. And not even Congress can pass a law to meddle with
the Constitution in any way whatsoever.
There is more than meets the eye in the government’s version of
the BBL, ladies and gentlemen. Only the MILF and their Bangsamoro region will
win. The rest of the Filipino people will be the biggest losers. 30
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