COTABATO CITY, Philippines – The three recent Congressional consultations on House Bill (HB) 4146 in the south have generally yielded a rejection of the proposed law’s intent to postpone the Aug. 8, 2011 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and allow the President to appoint officers-in-charge (OICs) for the 26 ARMM elective slots, according to journalists who covered the events.

This, despite reported “arm flexing” or “horse-trading” schemes allegedly used by Aquino government officials to garner key Moro leaders’ support to the highly debated bill, observers also said.

Journalists belonging to various print, broadcast, and electronic media rated the result of the hearings according to the numbers of participants supporting or dissenting during the hearings.

They said the March 10 hearing here of the joint House Committees on suffrage and electoral reforms, and Muslim affairs gathered an estimated 2,500 crowd inside and outside the venue – ARMM’s Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Center, some 1,800 of whom expressed rejection to HB 4146, 650 manifested their support, and rest were “undecided observers.”

In Marawi City’s March 12 consultation, they said, the delegates inside the fully-packed venue – the Lanao del Sur Provincial Capitol gymnasium – swelled to more than 8,000 where 95 percent of whom rejected the proposed law, and the rest were either supporters of proponents or mere observers. (Joseph Jubelag and Ali G. Macabalang)