DAVAO CITY — The Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which is expected to be passed by Congress within the first quarter next year, is still at risk of being questioned regarding its constitutionality before the Supreme Court, Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte said.

Mr. Duterte issued the warning as he called for a constitutional convention to enable a shift into a federal form of government.

“We need to establish a constitutional convention to set up a federal form of government now while the Bangsamoro people are still amenable to it as an alternative to the BBL,” Mr. Duterte said.

The last constitutional convention was held in 1986 which drafted the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

Mr. Duterte said a legal battle over the BBL after it is enacted could prompt a “second round of bloody war” in the Islamic areas in Mindanao.

The mayor has been leading the call for a shift to federalism, which he said will give Mindanao better and more direct access to resources for development.

Meanwhile, Engr. Windel P. Diangcalan, programs division head of the Bangsamoro Development Agency, said years of conflict have caused displacement in Mindanao. As a result, most areas, specifically the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), have been left behind economically.

With a gross regional domestic product (GRDP) per capita of P14,566 compared to the national average of P68,897, ARMM needs a 21.4% annual growth rate for several years in order to catch up with the rest of the country.

While this is almost impossible, Mr. Diangcalan said, the future Bangsamoro territory can aim for a higher growth rate of 9.7% by 2015 and 12.8% by 2016, higher than the 6.7% projected national growth rate level in the next two years.

“While it is not near 21.4%, it is at least higher than the country’s growth rate,” Mr. Diangcalan said, adding that it would most likely take 20 to 30 years for the Bangsamoro to catch up with the rest of the country.

The Bangsamoro Development Plan has lined up projects that are expected to yield significant impact on the Bangsamoro economy such as the Bangsamoro Sustainable Agriculture Program focusing on the development of the halal food industry and organic farming.

For her part, Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, government’s peace panel chair, said that the “proposed Bangsamoro is not a federal state. It is an autonomous region, as provided for in the 1987 Constitution. We want the Bangsamoro to be created as soon as possible through the law that Congress will pass, hopefully very soon. Charter change that would make our political system federal can happen later, if this is what the people want.” — with Vince Alvic Alexis F. Nonato (Repost from https://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Nation&title=bangsamoro-law-constitutionality-still-faces-queries&id=99732)