By Butch Fernandez
Senate President Franklin Drilon admitted on Friday he was not “overly optimistic” that senators can meet the agreed timetable to pass the Palace-backed Bangsamoro basic law (BBL), creating a new entity for Muslims in Mindanao, before Congress adjourns next month.
“I am not very optimistic that the BBL will be in place by June 11,” Drilon disclosed at the forum hosted by the BusinessMirror and DWIZ.
He said the Local Government Committee, chaired by Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., which is crafting the Senate version of the BBL, is yet to hold two more public hearings on the bill seeking to grant greater autonomy to the new entity that would replace the soon-to-be-abolished Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
“The committee of Senator Marcos is still to conduct hearings on June 2 and 3,” Drilon said, adding that he has yet to find out if Marcos would be able to submit a committee report soon after that.
But even if Marcos’s committee renders a report for plenary consideration and approval immediately after the two remaining hearings, Drilon is still not very optimistic they would meet the June 11 schedule for BBL passage.
“Even if we pass our [Senate] version of the BBL bill, we still go to the bicam, so that is where we are,” the Senate President said, referring to the bicameral conference committee tasked to reconcile differing provisions of the Senate and the House-approved versions of similar bills.
Still, Drilon held out hopes that the BBL could be in place by October late this year.
“When it becomes very clear we could not pass the bill [as scheduled], we will just have to go back and see to it that we can have this measure in place before October of this year,” he said, adding: “Why in October? It is because in October, the certificates of candidacy would have to be filed for the 2016 elections [by then] and if we do not have a law passed by that time, then the ARMM would have to be governed by the existing charter, which obviously we want to change, so that is the second deadline that we have to contend with.”