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MALACAÑANG distanced itself on Tuesday from a House bill
calling for a snap presidential election to resolve
questions on the mandate of a sitting president in times
of crisis.
House
Bill 3859, authored by Nueva Ecija Rep. Eduardo Nonato
Joson, was endorsed Monday by members of the House
Committee on Suffrage, chaired by Makati City Rep.
Teodoro Locsin Jr.
“Calling
for a snap election and amending the Constitution—Malacañang
has nothing to do with it,” said Presidential Legal
Counsel Sergio Apostol.
He said
there is another bill in the Senate calling for the
amendment of the Constitution to change the structure of
the government.
“The
Constitution is very clear. The term of the President is
fixed so you cannot shorten it unless you amend the
Constitution,” Apostol said in an ambush interview.
On the
other hand, Romulo Macalintal, presidential adviser on
electoral reforms, said the proposal for snap elections
is good for the President because she can run.
“But
since it is unconstitutional, they have to amend the
Constitution before that proposal becomes effective.”
As
the snap elections advocates see it, the process would
be a less politically traumatic way of changing a
president than resorting to people power.
Under
the measure, the president shall be elected to a term of
six years. However, Locsin said that in the case of the
incumbent President, her term would end upon the calling
of a snap election, in which case, she will be qualified
to run for the remainder of her term.
Locsin
was quoted as saying that since we have never
experienced handling social unrest arising from hunger
of a massive scale, and given the current conditions,
“let’s have this in our arsenal, so that nobody goes out
and says, ‘Let’s go to the streets.’ We’ll immediately
say: “No, you go to Comelec [Commission on Elections].”
Locsin
said he wanted the bill “hanging” there, although he did
not think it would be approved unless a crisis arises.
Joson
filed the bill in February, arguing that a snap election
would prevent “opportunists and anarchists” from
bringing the country to “tragedy and perfidy.”
The bill
came about in response to street protests calling for
President Arroyo’s resignation over the scuttled
$329-million national broadband network deal. |
