Party-list solons wary of Chacha

FIFTY-TWO party-list lawmakers on Tuesday opposed the convening of a constituent assembly to amend the Constitution, saying they feared their positions would be abolished.

Agham Rep. Angelo Palmones and Kasangga Rep. Teodorico Haresco said Charter change should be carried out after the 2013 elections, and by the delegates who had been elected to a constitutional convention.

“The constituent assembly will definitely abolish the party-list system,” Palmones said.

“What will happen to the marginalized sector? We have other priority issues. Chacha should be set aside.”

Haresco said the constitutional convention should take care of making changes to the fundamental law of the land, while Congress should focus on the country’s more urgent needs.

House leaders assured the party-list lawmakers that a constituent assembly would focus only on changing the Constitution’s economic provisions and not make any changes to the political system including the party-list representation.

The Constitution says the marginalized sectors must be represented in Congress, with at least 20 percent of the House seats going to party-list groups. There are 52 party-list congressmen in the 283-member House in the 15th Congress.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. met with House leaders on Tuesday to choose which among the 150 bills would make it to the list of 20 priority measures.

The bills on Charter change and reproductive health were among those being given priority, Belmonte said.

Belmonte, Deputy Speaker Jesus Crispin Remulla, Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, Minority Leader Edcel Lagman, Deputy Speakers Lorenzo Tanada III, Pablo Garcia and Ana Isabelle Climaco, and House Secretary General Marilyn Yap will sift through the 150 bills and choose 20 that will be submitted to Malacañang for certification as urgent.

But the Palace on Tuesday repeated its position that Charter change is not a priority of the Aquino administration.

Deputy Presidential Spokesman Abigail Valte said no proposal on Charter change was discussed in the first full Cabinet meeting held by President Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday.

Mr. Aquino called his first full Cabinet meeting for the year to discuss the priority measures he would present to a meeting of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council at the end of the month.

“I think the position remains the same,” Valte said.

Earlier, Valte said President Aquino saw no urgent need to amend the Constitution.

“Nobody has presented an argument that validates [Charter change] is urgent, and that not doing so will place the country at risk,” Valte had said.

But Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago on Monday said it was the right time to discuss Charter change proposals, especially since the President had vowed he would not seek any other elective post after his term ended in 2016.

“It clears the air of any political agendas which could pollute the Charter change initiative,” she said. Christine F. Herrera and Roy Pelovello, Manila Standard Today