Govt Does Not Intervene in DPR-initiated HIP Bill: Jokowi

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo clarified that the government did not intervene in issues related to the bill on the Pancasila Ideology Guidelines (RUU HIP) that had recently stirred up controversies.

“This (HIP bill) is 100 percent initiated by the DPR (House of Representatives), so the government does not intervene in it at all,” said the President as noted in a statement published via Setkab.go.id on Friday, June 19.

He also asserted the government’s stance when welcoming a number of retired military and police officers at the Bogor Presidential Palace, West Java on Friday.

The government, he underlined, did not even know the contents of the bill yet. After receiving input from the public, the state head decided not to send a presidential letter that approved the deliberation of the Pancasila bill to the DPR. In other words, the deliberation was postponed.

“We have not yet prepared the problem inventory list (DIM) because we don’t know the goals of the bill since this is initiated by the DPR,” he underlined.

Many parties urged the cancelation of the deliberation of RUU HIP as it did not include the Temporary People’s Consultative Assembly Decree or TAP MPR No. 25/1966 on the prohibition of communism in Indonesia. 

According to Jokowi, the TAP MPRS No. 25/1966 could not be annulled because it was the highest existing legal umbrella, and that the government was highly committed to closing all doors to communism in the archipelago.

Read: MPR: Prabowo Forms Team to Study Pancasila Ideology Bill

DEWI NURITA