House, Senate OK separate Cha-cha

Lawmakers agreed yesterday to revive discussions on amending the 1987 Constitution – at least its economic provisions – through a bicameral constituent assembly.

The consensus emerged during the first legislative summit initiated by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. held at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel in Mandaluyong City.

In the meeting, leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives also agreed on a common list of 100 priority bills needing swift action in the coming months.

Under a “bicameral constituent assembly” proposed by Sen. Franklin Drilon, the Senate and the House would vote separately on proposed amendments discussed in each chamber. The changes would be tackled through the usual legislative process but the output would have to be ratified directly by the people in a plebiscite.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said that while this Charter change approach is untried in the country, it has been the favored mode in the US.

“We will amend the Constitution through bicameral constituent assembly where both chambers will vote separately,” Drilon said in a press conference after the summit.

“We will use the legislative process, (the) lawmaking procedure, in amending the Constitution and

then on that point, we will be exercising our constituent function through a bicameral assembly. We’re glad there’s unanimity in this,” he said.

“But we will touch only the economic provisions, not the political structure, only the economic provisions,” he pointed out.

Drilon said the approach “was consistent with our bicameral legislature” but admitted it “has never been tested before.”

Enrile said there will be no rush in the new Charter change effort. “We will think about it very, very carefully.”

When asked for a possible deadline, Belmonte said there is “a common agreement on what should be tackled with respect to the Constitution” and that he does not anticipate the process to drag on.

There are three modes of Charter change allowed in the Constitution, namely, constitutional convention, constituent assembly, and people’s initiative.

In a constitutional convention mode, delegates or framers of the Charter are elected while in a constituent assembly, both chambers of Congress convene as one charter-amending body. Simple amendments or “propositions” are subjected to people’s vote in a constituent assembly mode.

The constituent assembly mode had been the preferred route of the last three administrations in their respective efforts to have the Constitution amended, largely because it was less cumbersome.

The Constitution states that amendments proposed in a constituent assembly must have the votes of three-fourths of the members of Congress for them to be adopted. However, it is silent on whether the Senate and the House should vote separately or jointly.

Drilon said attempts in the past to convene a constituent assembly failed because senators felt their more numerous House counterparts could easily outvote them.

“The issue of voting is the biggest stumbling block and now it’s gone,” House Majority Leader and Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales II said in the same news briefing.

Gonzales, chairman of the Senate committee on constitutional amendments, will be part of a committee that will make final the procedures for Charter change. The other members of the committee are Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, and Drilon.

The body’s recommendation will be presented in the second legislative summit to be scheduled when Congress resumes session in November.

“This (Charter change) process will be done by both Houses, it will be transparent, there will be public hearings, we will invite experts so the possibility of some vested interests creeping into the discussion will be minimized, if not prevented,” Drilon said. Enrile said all sectors would be represented in the discussions.

“When we talk about deficiencies, badness, wrongness or what, if we could improve the constitutional provision bearing on the economic life of this country, then we should do it. If there’s nothing wrong, and we find there’s nothing wrong in our examination of the Constitution, then we don’t proceed. That’s the tendency of this proposal,” he said.

‘President on board’

The lawmakers, however, will still have to contend with President Aquino who has repeatedly said that amending the Constitution crafted by appointees of his mother – the late President Corazon Aquino – is not a priority.

Enrile said Aquino has not been formally informed of the decision of Congress but sooner or later, he has to be “put on board.”

Belmonte noted that in the past, it was the sitting president who was most interested in Charter change.

“He (Aquino) will see that there are no ulterior motives. We just want to make the country more competitive and attract more investments here and so forth, and these are his common goals,” Belmonte said.

He said the President is very much aware that past endeavors to amend the Charter had “always been associated with the political ambitions of various peoples, particularly the sitting executives of the time and definitely he wants to distance himself from that kind of thinking.”

“But since this is super limited to certain things which will make us more competitive in the current world, we hope to be able to get him. He really has an instinctive aversion based on his past experiences,” Belmonte said.

Meanwhile, Belmonte said the legislative summit is aimed at preventing “deadlocks” without sacrificing healthy and incisive debates on issues.

“We hear complaints about the legislative deadlock that oftentimes frustrate many a good legislative measure. We know that deadlocks are but natural consequences of two independent institutions sharing a delegated sovereign power,” Belmonte told leaders from both chambers at the start of the summit.

“But we cannot blame a system which has been working fine so far. Hence, it is a matter of putting more focus on our efforts through shared priorities, which hopefully may facilitate legislative work and maximize the use of our limited time and resources,” he said.

He said the country has lingering domestic challenges that need to be swiftly addressed, such as weak investments, inadequate infrastructure, inadequate levels of human development, and the poor state of the environment and natural resources.

“Certainly, the government should find solutions to the country’s problems and should not be the source of the country’s ills. Our country’s development cannot be stymied on matters of poor policy or lack of it,” he said.

Enrile stressed that the summit was not meant to supplant the executive and that both chambers recognize the powers of Malacañang to define policies and programs for the country.

“I am glad that the discussion was very open, transparent and candid and all of us agreed that we are doing this not for any self interest or parochial concerns but in recognition of the need of the country and its people to address the problems, to find a way to hasten the solution of these problems and to move this country faster forward to the future,” Enrile told a news conference.

Belmonte said both the Senate and the House have approved a total of 22 bills on third and final reading.

He said the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council has identified 34 measures as urgent. Each chamber has also identified 52 priority bills.

Enrile said the controversial Reproductive Health bill and the Freedom of Information bill are on the list of priorities of both chambers.

Also in the list are the Anti-Cybercrime bill, Lowering the Age of Criminal Responsibility of Minors, Institutionalizing Kindergarten Education, Filipino Volunteerism Act, Terrorist Financing Suppression Act, Revitalizing the Coconut Industry Act, the Student Loan bill, and Sustainable Forest Management bill. –Paolo Romero (The Philippine Star)