Manila: A majority of Philippine lawmakers have voted in favour of a draft law that will help implement a 2014 political settlement reached between the government and a Filipino-Muslim rebel group.

Thirty-seven members of the congressional committee approved the latest version of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), while 16 others rejected it, Congressman Rufus Rodriguez, chair of the ad hoc committee that reviewed the BBL, told Gulf News on Monday.

Aquino has certified as urgent BBL’s passage because it will implement his centrepiece programme: to implement a peace settlement reached by the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after 17 years of negotiations brokered by Malaysia, a member country of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Members of the ruling Liberal Party and allies of President Benigno Aquino voted on the BBL draft, Rodriguez said.

However there appears to be some dissenters.

The draft was prepared by Congressman Rodriguez, following consultations with President Aquino on Sunday night, another source who requested anonymity told Gulf News.

It means the “real spirit” of the BBL, as drafted by a government-MILF committee before it was submitted to the Senate and the House of Representatives, was retained by the Congressional ad hoc committee, the same source said, adding that more than 700 proposed amendments were “literally ignored”.

Those who did not vote for the BBL’s latest draft complained that their proposed changes to the draft law, to make it more constitutional, were not incorporated.

Congressman Neri Colmenares of Nation First, a leftist sectoral party at the house of Representatives and with the opposition, opposed the draft and complained that the voting was railroaded.

“We proposed amendments to the BBL during the 48 meetings of the ad hoc committee. That means the amendments were not included in the draft that won a majority vote,” said Colmenares.

Last year, the Philippine government and the MILF agreed to grant enhanced self-rule to an estimated five million Filipino-Muslims in the south, in an autonomous territory much wider than the five provinces and one city that now comprise the existing 26-year old Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The Philippine government and the MILF agreed that the national government and the Filipino-Muslims autonomous region share areas of governance and taxes. Critics said these two aspects of the agreement are “radical and unconstitutional”.

The entire House of Representatives has yet to vote on the approved BBL draft before it is elevated to the Senate which has not yet revealed its own version of the BBL. Both houses of Congress will iron out their different versions of the BBL before it is passed in a bicameral vote.