“President Rodrigo Duterte is banking on Arroyo after her hostile maneuver that ousted former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez to deliver priority measures of the House.

Last Sunday, 29 July, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chair Al Hadj Murad Ebrahim waved to an assembly of supporters a copy of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), which turned out to be defective since it did not bear the signature of Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

While former Sen. Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel said an administrative remedy can be applied that would not diminish the effectivity of the law, the missing Arroyo signature does not bode well for the autonomy measure.

It was during the term of Arroyo when the unconstitutional Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) was signed.

The Supreme Court (SC), in October 2008, declared the Arroyo pact with the MILF as having violated the Constitution.

The SC, voting 8-7, declared the MoA-AD unconstitutional and illegal and its crafting “whimsical, capricious, oppressive, arbitrary and despotic.”

The aborted signing of the agreement led to discontent among certain factions of the MILF, which launched terror acts in apparent frustration.

Rogue elements of the rebel group went on a rampage that led to the death of 400 individuals and the displacement of 750,000 residents in areas that should have been covered by the aborted deal.

President Rodrigo Duterte is banking on Arroyo after her hostile maneuver that ousted former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez to deliver priority measures of the House faster particularly crucial economic measures citing her credential as an economist.

“Most of the money being spent on all the huge projects such as trains, highways is government’s money, that’s of the people of the Republic of the Philippines. That includes us, but the problem is the amount is not sufficient,” the President said in looking forward to Arroyo’s help.

“The BOL is now being hailed as a landmark law, a fact that seems to have been lost on Arroyo.

Arroyo has promised to push for Rody’s legislative agenda at the House of Representatives, which did not reflect in her apparent lack of interest in the BOL as deduced from her failure to affix her signature on the legacy law of the President.

A new copy of the law needs to be issued before Rody signs it to comply with Congress rules on the legislative process that requires bills transmitted to the President for approval must be “signed by the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and certified by both the secretary of the Senate and the secretary general of the House.”

Upon the President’s signing of the bill, “the same is assigned an RA number and transmitted to the House where it originated,” after which it is reproduced and copies sent to the Official Gazette “for publication and distribution to the implementing agencies.”

The BOL is now being hailed as a landmark law, a fact that seems to have been lost on Arroyo.

It would be up to Rody again to dispel suspicions that may arise from the Bangsamoro people regarding Arroyo’s missing signature.

It was also Rody who broke the impasse at the bicameral conference committee that threatened the approval of the then Bangsamoro Basic Law.

It was also Arroyo who frustrated what could have been a historic event in the signing of the BOL during the State of the Nation Address (SoNA).

The House power grab happened during the opening of the third session resulting in the adjourning of the assembly before the approval of the BOL.

The President, flabbergasted at Arroyo for upstaging the SoNA and delaying the BOL signing, ended up promising that he would sign it “within 48 hours” from the time his office receives a copy.

Rody delivered on his promise but not Arroyo, who literally was not on the same page as the President on the crucial Bangsamoro law.

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