BBL IS STOPPED BUT NOT DEAD: FERRER
Iligan City, Philippines
March 8, 2016
Normalization in the GPH-MILF disputed areas may take longer than originally envisioned after the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro.
Retired Major General Leo Crescente Ferrer of the Joint Normalization Committee told the audience during the Forum on Normalization, Healing and Reconciliation held at Plaza Alemania here March 8 that “although the BBL (Bangsamoro Basic Law) was stopped, it is not dead.”
Ferrer said that due to the delay in the enactment of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), there are programs for the normalization process that cannot yet be implemented.
These are the Decommissioning of MILF Armed Forces, Establishment of the Bangsamoro Police Force and the Redeployment of AFP Units, he narrated.
He said all the three cannot be implemented because the creation of the Bangsamoro Police is embodied in the BBL -Decommissioning of MILF Armed Forces and Redeployment of the AFP Units cannot be implemented without the Bangsamoro Police Force which shall take over in law enforcement and maintaining peace and order.
However, there are ongoing programs than can continue to be implemented without the BBL, according to Ferrer.
Among these are the Transitional Security arrangements such as the Creation of the Joint Normalization Committee, Joint Peace and Security Committee, Joint Peace and Security Teams, Socio-Economic Program, Forming MILF Camps into productive units, Transitional Justice and Reconciliation, Confidence Building Measures, Skills Training for MILF Combatants through TESDA, Livelihood projects for 12 former combatants who are too old for Skills training and other programs that can be continued, Ferrer concluded. – The New Ranao Star –
