By Antonio L. Colina IV, Manila Bulletin

Davao City – Davao City Representative and House Appropriations Committee chairman Karlo Alexei Nograles said the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) said members of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments are considering to make the Bangsamoro as a federal state under a new federal form of government.

“We are taking into consideration that the Bangsamoro territory will be one federal state. So they belong to a state,” said Nograles, who is a member of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments.

He said that there were no discussions yet on the possible number of federal states and what regions will compose it.

He added the expanded 21-member Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) must work on draft of an enabling law without tackling provisions that have something to do with amending the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

The enabling law, once passed, will pave the way for the creation of a new Bangsamoro entity that will replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM.

“So, right now this administration does not want that mistake to happen, kaya nga very strict ang instructions na ang BTC will propose amendments to strengthen the ARMM but without necessarily tackling or hitting the provisions that have to do with amending the constitution,” he said.

Nograles, a representative for three terms, recounted how the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) failed to pass in the previous Congress as there were a lot of contentions raised in some of its provisions.

“The problem with BBL during the last Aquino administration, a lot of constitutionalists, a lot of legal luminaries, a lot of lawyers were already beginning to question how can we move forward with BBL when it runs counter to our Constitution. The fear was, if we had passed the BBL, it might have been struck down by Supreme Court for being unconstitutional,” he said.