“This number covers only the consultations conducted by the peace panel in Mindanao up to early 2015,” OPAPP Secretary Teresita Quintos Deles said. “It does not cover the number of consultations carried out by other officials/units of OPAPP, nor the number of consultations carried out by Congress, through its respective chamber committees, especially the House Ad Hoc Committee on the BBL, not just in Mindanao but all over the Philippines.”

“The fact is that the draft BBL has broken all congressional records in the number of consultations carried out on a legislative bill. The fact is that certain Senators never paid it a bit of attention until the tragedy of Mamasapano gave them a platform to grandstand on the pain of its victims,” she added.

Out of these 553 consultation activities, the peace panel met 10 times with representatives and supporters of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), six (6) times with members and representatives of the Sultanates in Mindanao, thirty-two (32) times with representatives and groups of indigenous peoples (IPs), 100 times with leaders and officials of local government units (LGUs).

From all of these engagements and interactions with the different stakeholders, the peace panel took into consideration their positions, insights and suggestions as inputs to the peace negotiations, the signed Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro in 2012, and the CAB which served as the basis for the BBL.

Parallel to these, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Bangsamoro Transition Commission were also reported to have conducted their own consultations.

GPH peace panel chair Professor Miriam Coronel–Ferrer said that these extensive and meaningful consultations were significant enough to ensure that the draft BBL submitted to Congress was made more inclusive and more substantive as a legislative document.

“Even before the peace negotiations resumed in 2010, it has always been our practice and mandate to include all possible constituency and stakeholders in the table because the product of this peace process will determine, not ours, but their future and the fate of the Bangsamoro,” Ferrer said.

In a position paper dated 18 May 2015 which was submitted to the Senate, the GPH peace panel noted that the House Ad Hoc Committee on the BBL held 51 public hearings and consultations while the Senate Committee on Local Government, chaired by Senator Ferdinand Marcos, conducted only 12 public hearings and one briefing.

During the Vice-Presidential Debate held at University of Santo Tomas (UST) last Sunday, Senator Marcos claimed that the government peace panel did not conduct wide-based consultations for the Bangsamoro peace process in Mindanao. “Ang kinausap lang ng gobyerno ay ang MILF. Hindi ang mga kababaihan, LGUs, at MNLF. Dapat lahat ng sektor ay kasama,” Marcos claimed.

Deles said that the government made sure the peace process was kept open and transparent to all stakeholders.

“Not many people were very interested in the peace process then, but those who have always been closely monitoring its progress would recall that we always have media sessions after the talks to update the public on the state of the process,” she said. (OPAPP)

- See more at: http://news.pia.gov.ph/article/view/3001460455845/more-than-550-consultations-on-bangsamoro-peace-process-done-by-gph-panel-alone