By William B Depasupil/Manila Times
An official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has called on the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), to find other ways to achieve peace, stressing that the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) does not guarantee peace in Mindanao.
Fr. Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the CBCP Permanent Committee on Public Affairs, over the weekend rebuked Mohagher Iqbal, chief of the MILF negotiating panel, for claiming that the Catholic Church is supportive of the proposed Bangsamoro law.
“Granting that the Catholic Church is supportive of the BBL as alleged by Iqbal, will it change the mindset of our legislators, especially those (who are) against (the measure)?” Secillano said in an article on the CBCP website.
“Why can’t the government and Iqbal start exploring other ways to peace that will be acceptable to all?” he added.
During a recent forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, Iqbal named Ateneo de Davao president Fr Joel Tabora, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio G Cardinal Tagle, Cotabato Archbishop Orlando B Cardinal Quevedo and Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma Jr, as allegedly among those pushing for the bill’s passage.
Secillano said the fate of the measure is in the hands of lawmakers, who will vote on whether to pass it.
Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives have maintained that the BBL bill needs revisions to overcome some legal defects.
“Didn’t Iqbal notice that the legislators’ opposition to the BBL is not necessarily buoyed by the electorate’s rejection of the draft law, but because of their own rational appreciation that the BBL does not guarantee peace in Mindanao?” Secillano said.A vocal critic of the BBL, he argued that everybody wants a conflict-free and prosperous Mindanao but it is wrong to say that those who reject the BBL are against peace.
CBCP president and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas has also rejected the idea that peace in Mindanao is possible only through the BBL.
Villegas described the solution as “simplistic.”
