PRESIDENT Noynoy Aquino may have run out of new things to tell this year’s 63 graduates of the Philippine Military Academy so he again assailed two senators for, he said, blocking the Bangsamoro Basic Law meant to resolve the strife in Muslim Mindanao.

Addressing the PMA “Gabay Laya” Class of 2016 during their graduation over the weekend, the President made sumbong: “Our aim is to bring justice, peace and development in Bangsamoro. What hurts the most is that there are two members of the Senate who deliberately blocked the passage of the BBL… It is up to you to judge who among us fell short and who is really being true to you.”

He was referring to Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, who had raised constitutional questions against the measure, and Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., chair of the committee shepherding the bill who had written an entirely new version.

The Commander-in-Chief could have discussed the insurgency problem, our security entanglement with the United States, the maritime dispute with China, upgrading of our military capabilities, et cetera.

But he chose to zero in on two political enemies. He refused to see that the demise of the BBL in the Congress, not just in the Senate, was the result of what doctors would call a multiple organ failure.

President Aquino was diverting blame when he wrote on the BBL’s death certificate the names of Enrile and Marcos on the space for “Cause of death.”

It is significant, amusing to many, that the President failed to notice that the controversial measure also failed to gain approval in the House of Representatives known for its subservience to Malacañang.

■ BBL a blueprint for new Moro state

SENATOR Enrile was right in raising constitutional questions. It would have been unpatriotic, if not treasonous, for the President and his congressional cohorts to force the BBL’s approval in violation of the Constitution.

The BBL leads to the perilous path of giving the enlarged Bangsamoro (Moro nation) all the attributes and capabilities of a nascent state that could spin off from the MinSuPala (Mindanao-Sulu-Palawan) area.

After the Bangsamoro is given its own defined territory for its thriving population, plus its own federal parliamentary government (that is asymmetric to the unitary republican setup in the rest of the country), all it would need as a new emerging state is recognition of a number of nations.

Recognition is a cinch as, even at this early stage, several major players are already pledged to help make the Bangsamoro a viable politico-economic entity.

In short, the BBL is the blueprint for a new state waiting to be plucked out of the womb of MinSuPala.

But we think senator Marcos should not try fending off blame for the BBL’s being overtaken by the bell by pointing out that it is a bill of local application and that the Senate, therefore, cannot move until the House has passed it.

Marcos should not play the local bill card too prominently as that could estopped him, and others, from later demanding that the BBL after approval should be subjected to a national plebiscite.

If he and others agree that the BBL is a bill of local application then the plebiscite should be confined to the local area replacing the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao that was created by mandate of the Constitution.

■ Plebiscite must be national, not local

WE HAVE always argued that the BBL, if approved, must be ratified in a national, not local, plebiscite. Way back in 2014, we said in Postscript (12/04/2014): “As the Filipino saying goes, the pain of the little finger is felt by the entire body.

“Should the required plebiscite on an autonomous Bangsamoro sub-state being carved out in Mindanao be held only in its area? Or should the entire body politic, the whole nation, be asked?

“You do not ask only the operators and the customers of a karaoke joint in a mixed residential area if they should be left alone. You also ask the neighbors what they think, what they want done with the karaoke.

“Under the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) signed between Malacañang and the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front, even residents of contiguous areas would not be asked in the plebiscite, much less those in the rest of the country.

“It is a serious concern of all Filipinos everywhere that a federal-type Bangsamoro clothed with what look like extra-constitutional powers could spin off in time as a new state separate from the Philippine republic.”

We said that the BBL’s demise, which Mr. Aquino grieves over, was an offshoot of a multiple organ failure, not the handiwork of two senators conspiring to kill it.

In this regime were finger-pointing has become the “iwas-pusoy” style of evading responsibility, the President himself cannot escape taking most of the blame.

The President (like in the grim Mamasapano march to death of elite police officers) embarked on the Bangsamoro adventure alone. There was no prior consultation with the Congress and the relevant stakeholders in MinSuPala.

One wonders what it was that President Aquino ardently wanted all for himself in the event the Bangsamoro undertaking (as it was in the Mamasapano raid) succeeded.

It was only when the BBL got into serious trouble in the Congress and with Mindanao sectors that had been left out that President Aquino sent his runners to initiate hurried consultations and do a fireman’s job of stamping out the brushfire.

Keep in mind that the BBL is a big-budget agreement between Malacañang (not of the entire tripartite government) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (not the entire Muslim community).

It was doomed to fail, with or without two opposition senators in the picture. For how could the President gain ready congressional and public approval of such an undertaking that is non-inclusive, selfish, and of questionable constitutionality?