Most senators back lifting economic limits in Charter

THE Senate has undergone a sea change to its position on Charter change, with the majority of the 23 senators now favoring amending the Constitution’s economic provisions based on an informal survey of the Manila Standard.

Except for Senator Joker Arroyo, who maintains that the 1987 Constitution remains “adequate,” the senators are now gravitating toward the position of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile to institute “surgical” amendments to amend the Charter’s economic provisions that are deemed out of step with globalization.

“It will be one amendment at a time and there will be no wholesale change,” Senate president pro tempore Jinggoy Estrada said.

Estrada said the plan was for the Senate and the House to pass a joint resolution being pushed by Enrile and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. itemizing the specific provisions in the Constitution that will be amended and voted upon by the two houses separately.

The proposed amendments center on the 40-percent foreign equity ceiling on the utilities, mining, land development and transport, as well as opening the services sector, media, education and mining to foreign ownership.

Such constitutional initiative was immediately suspect and opposed during the Arroyo administration, but Senators Panfilo Lacson, Alan Peter Cayetano, and his sister Pia Cayetano and Franklin Drilon have all expressed support for the Enrile initiative.

Drilon, being the president of the Liberal Party, is expected to bring on board not only fellow Liberals Ralph Recto, Francis Pangilinan and Teofisto Guingona III, but also independent Senators Lacson, Antonio Trillanes and Sergio Osmena III.

Lacson and Trillanes told the Manila Standard they supported the economic amendments.

Even newly proclaimed Senator Aquilino Pimentel III said he shared the same Charter change-agenda long espoused by his father, former Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr.

The rest—Edgardo Angara, Manuel Villar, Miriam Santiago, Ramon Revilla Jr. and Lito Lapid—have been on record as pro-Charter change since the Arroyo administration.

Enrile admitted there had been no formal discussions in the Senate on the proposed economic amendments.

Still, he said, “I am confident that if I argue the case, they [his colleagues] will understand that amending the Constitution is for the good of the country.” –Rey T. Salita, Manila Standard Today