MANILA: If the Philippines Congress does not pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), extremism could rise in Mindanao, the chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) warned on Tuesday. The BBL follows the peace agreement signed by the government and the MILF in 2014.
Foreign fighters continue to arrive in Mindanao, said MILF Chairman Al Hajj Murad Ebrahim.
“They’re coming in from the porous borders in the south (Mindanao), from Malaysia, Indonesia,” he added.
“And it’s not only Malaysians and Indonesians… There are some Middle Eastern people coming in.”
The MILF received information that a Canadian of Arab origin, not older than 25, entered recently and went to Patikul in Sulu to join the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), Ebrahim said.
“So this challenge with extremism is really very high, and… we really need to cooperate, everybody, in order to counter extremism,” he added.
Daesh continues to be a threat to the Philippines because it is being displaced in the Middle East, he said.
“We’re all aware of what happened in the Middle East. I think nobody wants it to happen here,” he added.
The chances of another Marawi siege cannot be ruled out because extremists “can still partner with many other small groups, like Abu Sayyaf and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF),” Ebrahim said.
“We’ve seen the destruction in Marawi. In more than 40 years of conflict in Mindanao, this never happened,” he added.
“There has been no city or community that was turned into rubble completely. And this happened… when we’re already in the final stage of the peace process.”
While the MILF is doing its part to prevent terrorists from gaining ground on the island, “the best and most effective counter to them is when the peace process will succeed,” he said.
“We can’t decisively win the war against extremism if we can’t win the peace in the halls of Congress.”
The assistant secretary for peace and security, Dickson Hermoso, told Arab News that the BBL “will be passed based on the reaction of the majority of the people on the ground.”
He added: “They want the BBL, based on consultations by the Senate and congressional committees. There’s overwhelming support from the Bangsamoro people.”
The Senate plans to pass the bill by March 22, before it goes on recess, Hermoso said, expressing hope that it will be signed into law by the president before the end of next month.
Political analyst Ramon Casiple said he expects the BBL to be passed soon, but warned that if not, another Marawi siege is possible.
The president may call for a special session of Congress just to see the bill passed, Casiple added.
MILF warns of heightened extremism if Congress does not pass law
MILF warns of heightened extremism if Congress does not pass law
House Republicans barely defeat Venezuela war powers resolution to check Trump’s military actions
WASHINGTON: The House rejected a Democratic-backed resolution Thursday that would have prevented President Donald Trump from sending US military forces to Venezuela after a tied vote on the legislation fell just short of the majority needed for passage.
The tied vote was the latest sign of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s tenuous hold on the majority, as well as some of the growing pushback in the GOP-controlled Congress to Trump’s aggressions in the Western Hemisphere. A Senate vote on a similar resolution was also tied last week until Vice President JD Vance broke the deadlock.
To defeat the resolution Thursday, Republican leaders had to hold the vote open for more than 20 minutes while Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt, who had been out of Washington all week campaigning for a Senate seat in Texas, rushed back to Capitol Hill to cast the decisive vote.
On the House floor, Democrats responded with shouts that Republican leaders were violating the chamber’s procedural rules. Two Republicans — Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — voted with all Democrats for the legislation.
The war powers resolution would have directed Trump to remove US troops from Venezuela. The Trump administration told senators last week that there are no US troops on the ground in the South American nation and committed to getting congressional approval before launching major military operations there.
But Democrats argued that the resolution is necessary after the US raid to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and since Trump has stated plans to control the country’s oil industry for years to come.
The response to Trump’s foreign policy
Thursday’s vote was the latest test in Congress of how much leeway Republicans will give a president who campaigned on removing the US from foreign entanglements but has increasingly reached for military options to impose his will in the Western Hemisphere. So far, almost all Republicans have declined to put checks on Trump through the war powers votes.
Rep. Brian Mast, the Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee, accused Democrats of bringing the war powers resolution to a vote out of “spite” for Trump.
“It’s about the fact that you don’t want President Trump to arrest Maduro, and you will condemn him no matter what he does, even though he brought Maduro to justice with possibly the most successful law enforcement operation in history,” Mast added.
Still, Democrats stridently argued that Congress needs to assert its role in determining when the president can use wartime powers. They have been able to force a series of votes in both the House and Senate as Trump, in recent months, ramped up his campaign against Maduro and set his sights on other conflicts overseas.
“Donald Trump is reducing the United States to a regional bully with fewer allies and more enemies,” Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during a floor debate. “This isn’t making America great again. It’s making us isolated and weak.”
Last week, Senate Republicans were only able to narrowly dismiss the Venezuela war powers resolution after the Trump administration persuaded two Republicans to back away from their earlier support. As part of that effort, Secretary of State Marco Rubio committed to a briefing next week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Yet Trump’s insistence that the US will possess Greenland over the objections of Denmark, a NATO ally, has alarmed some Republicans on Capitol Hill. They have mounted some of the most outspoken objections to almost anything the president has done since taking office.
Trump this week backed away from military and tariff threats against European allies as he announced that his administration was working with NATO on a “framework of a future deal” on Arctic security.
But Bacon still expressed frustration with Trump’s aggressive foreign policy and voted for the war powers resolution even though it only applies to Venezuela.
“I’m tired of all the threats,” he said.
Trump’s recent military actions — and threats to do more — have reignited a decades-old debate in Congress over the War Powers Act, a law passed in the early 1970s by lawmakers looking to claw back their authority over military actions.
The war powers debate
The War Powers Resolution was passed in the Vietnam War era as the US sent troops to conflicts throughout Asia. It attempted to force presidents to work with Congress to deploy troops if there hasn’t already been a formal declaration of war.
Under the legislation, lawmakers can also force votes on legislation that directs the president to remove US forces from hostilities.
Presidents have long tested the limits of those parameters, and Democrats argue that Trump in his second term has pushed those limits farther than ever.
The Trump administration left Congress in the dark ahead of the surprise raid to capture Maduro. It has also used an evolving set of legal justifications to blow up alleged drug boats and seize sanctioned oil tankers near Venezuela.
Democrats question who gets to benefit from Venezuelan oil licenses
As the Trump administration oversees the sale of Venezuela’s petroleum worldwide, Senate Democrats are also questioning who is benefiting from the contracts.
In one of the first transactions, the US granted Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil broker, a license worth roughly $250 million. A senior partner at Vitol, John Addison, gave roughly $6 million to Trump-aligned political action committees during the presidential election, according to donation records compiled by OpenSecrets.
“Congress and the American people deserve full transparency regarding any financial commitments, promises, deals, or other arrangements related to Venezuela that could favor donors to the President’s campaign and political operation,” 13 Democratic senators wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Thursday in a letter led by Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.
The White House has said it is safeguarding the South American country’s oil for the benefit of both the people of Venezuela and the US
