Philippine president urges congress to come up with constitutional Bangsamoro bill

MANILA, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has urged Congress to come up with a Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) that would "withstand the test of judicial scrutiny," his spokesman said on Thursday.

In welcoming the passage of the BBL in both houses of Congress, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque appealed to lawmakers "to exert all efforts in ensuring that the final version of the bill would withstand judicial scrutiny."

He stressed the need to scrutinize the final version of the bill which the bicameral committee will review to reconcile the version crafted by the House of Representatives and the version crafted by the senate.

Roque then allayed concerns that the measure could suffer the same fate as the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional.

Roque said contentious provisions were discussed during the president's meeting with members of Congress and the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC).

The Bangsamoro Basic Law is a bill which seeks to establish a proposed new autonomous political entity known as the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, replacing the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. It is hoped that the BBL will help end decades of fighting and usher in peace in the southern Philippines. Enditem