DAVAO CITY—Advocates to extend the transition period of the Bangsamoro government are set to file today, Thursday, March 18, 2021, at Malacañan Palace a petition signed by more than 1 million signatories, optimistic that President Duterte would accede to their request for an extension.
Organizers of the online petition signing said they rushed the printing of the petition to submit it to the Office of the President coinciding with the 53rd anniversary of the infamous Jabidah Massacre in Corregidor Island.
As of 11:20 a.m. on Wednesday, the signatories reached 1,110,383, with even non-Muslims, such as Orlando Cardinal Quevedo of the Archdiocese of Cotabato City and Sen. Risa Hontiveros, affixing their signatures. Even in the lone province of Sulu, where the governor and his congressman-son expressed their opposition, was the first to ever sign the petition came from Indanan, Sulu. Other signatories include members of non-Moro tribes in Maguindanao and residents coming from as far as Northern Luzon.
Prof. Agdulhadi Daguit, president of the Federation of Bangsamoro Coordinating Councils of the Philippines, said a delegation of Bangsamoro officers and key leaders of civil- society organizations and peace advocate groups in Mindanao, would submit the petition in Malacañang, which granted them the 2:00 p.m. schedule. Daguit teaches at the University of the Philippines Institute of Islamic Studies.
He said a group of about 100 would conduct a brief program at the Palace grounds to demonstrate the “Bangsamoro’s wholehearted trust in the President to hearken to our call to certify as urgent the bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate.”
Lawyer Mary Ann Arnado, secretary-general of the Mindanao People’s Caucus, who is also among the organizers of the petition signing, said they timed the submission of the petition with the infamous Jabidah Massacre “to remind us all that 53 years ago, in 1968, the Moro youths have awakened to the call for peace in Mindanao, and now, the same Bangsamoro homeland is still struggling to have that lasting peace.”
Hashim D. Manticayan, president of the League of Bangsamoro Organizations, said the “overflowing” support to the petition indicated three things: “the faith of the majority of the Bangsamoro people to the changes made by the Bangsamoro Transition Authority [BTA] and the Bangsamoro government, the complete trust of the Bangsamoro on the leadership of President Duterte that he would listen to their plight and that this is for the lasting peace in Mindanao.”
“If not for the weak Internet signal in many areas, we could have easily get more than 2 million signatures, more than a majority of the Bangsamoro population,” he said. The five provinces, including the recently annexed Cotabato City and the 26 barangays of North Cotabato, have an estimated population of 4.3 million.
Organizers have said that the BTA, which functions as the interim legislature of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, recently passed in February this year the Bangsamoro Civil Service Code, and was yet to pass other priority codes during the transition period slated to end next year. These are the Bangsamoro Education Code, Bangsamoro Electoral Code, Local Government Code and Revenue Code.
The BTA though disclosed that some priority codes on local government and education were already referred to their respective parliament committees, and the electoral and revenue codes are being finalized by the Cabinet.
The BTA was granted a three-year transition to end in 2022, which the current Bangsamoro government has told the national government was insufficient to finish the commitments by both parties, the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to the peace agreement. Under the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which was the final peace agreement, the former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao would be reconstituted to form the larger Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.