By Ali G Macabalang
Cotabato City – The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) has drafted and endorsed to Congress a bill seeking P30-billion reparation for private properties destroyed in the infamous May 23, 2017 Marawi siege and its consequent five-month fighting between state forces and Muslim militants.
Lawyer Saidamen Pangarungan, former three-term governor of Lanao del Sur, said a draft of the bill was received on Wednesday by IBP national president Abdiel Dan Elijah S. Fajardo, who endorsed it through a resolution on the same day.
Pangarungan and lawyer Bayan Balt, past president of the IBP-Lanao del Sur chapter, presented the draft to Fajardo in Manila.
Balt, in an interview with the Manila Bulletin, said he and Pangarungan will personally bring the draft to the Senate and House of Representatives for consideration within this week.
“The next move for us to seek an audience in Malacañang and brief the President about the bill with a hope that he may certify it as urgent measure,” Balt said.
He said the drafting of the bill was initiated by incumbent IBP-Lanao del Sur chapter president Mino Macalandap, who reportedly took cognizance of the government’s seeming lack of specific attention to the need for reparation to commercial centers, residences, and other private houses damaged in the five-month fighting.