MARAWI CITY, Philippines – Amid overwhelming rejection by Maranaos of House Bill (HB) 4146 at a hearing here over the weekend, Aquino administration officials have said the measure ought to be passed so as to rid the Autonomous Region in Muslim (ARMM) of graft practices and private armies, and pave the way for a “meaningful autonomy” in the region.

Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Jessie Robredo briefly addressed over 8,000 locals who protested the bill’s intent to defer the ARMM polls in August 2011 to May 2013, and allow the President to appoint officers in-charge (OICs) as “caretakers” of 26 elective regional positions.

Robredo said the Aquino regime would want to pursue more reforms in the ARMM that started with last year’s financial audit on the region’s spending and initially discovered an alleged misuse of P1 billion fund under the regime of detained regional Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan.

Robredo said that under the present administration of ARMM acting Gov. Ansaruddin Adiong, “some reforms” have taken place but there still are needs to rid the regional governance of the “remnants of the past.”

He said the passage of HB 4146 would enable the Aquino government to fix the electoral system in the region, starting with the dismantling of politicians’ private armies.

But the local chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) said the intent of the planned reform would not be derailed by the holding of the elections, because elections would not prevent the government from charging anyone it thought had committed wrong.

Basari Mapupuno, local IBP chapter president and former law dean at the Mindanao State University, the DILG under the Aquino government has been “ironically meddling into the affairs of the autonomous region on the basis of a decree issued by former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.”

Mapupuno was referring to Presidential Administrative Order No. 273, which was decreed by Arroyo in November 2009 relegating to the DILG the region’s administrative supervision from the Office of the President.

The order was issued shortly after the infamous Maguindanao massacre on Nov. 23, 2009, for which members of the Ampatuan clan have been indicted.

Advocates of electoral reforms and moral governance have lamented the “double standard” scheme of President Aquino’s allies in justifying the passage of HB 4146.

Jimmy Tulawie, a Tausog student here, said the ARMM poll delay proponents seemed “very biased” against “remnants of the past” but “they should realize that Zaldy Ampatuan gained Malacañang anointment in the 2005 elections on recommendation of the Presidential Screening committee headed by then Secretary Ging Deles, now a key proponent of HB 4146.

Tulawie said the proponents’ touted campaign against private armies should also “start with their local allies like Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan,” who had earlier admitted before journalists having under his watch “more than 5,000 armed sympathizers,” 2,000 of which are CVOs organized and sworn-in by then Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro in 2009. (With additional reporting from Ali G. Macabalang)