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SENATE
Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. has opposed any
move to extend the term of President Arroyo by using the
proposed federal system contained under Joint Resolution
10 that was backed by at least 16 senators.
Pimentel
voiced fears that such a move will only undermine or
even spell the death of the federalism proposal because
it is obvious that the Filipino people want to directly
elect a new Chief Executive.
In a
statement, Pimentel pointed out that the people are wary
that a shift to a parliamentary system will be taken
advantage by the ruling party to enable President Arroyo
to stay in power beyond 2010— which will circumvent the
constitutional ban against the reelection of the
incumbent head of government.
“I will
oppose any attempt by any group to make the federalism
proposal secondary to any other proposal to restructure
the form of government because it will only tend to
create divisions in this country,” he earlier told a
forum on federalism at the
Ateneo University
in Quezon City.
Pimentel
cited empirical basis to the observation that the people
do not want to give up their right to directly elect the
highest leader of government.
The
senator recalled that when he was working on the Local
Government Code, as chairman of the Senate Committee on
Local Government during the 8th Congress, he received a
lot of hate mail and other negative feedback over a
provision calling for the election of the chairman of
the barangay by the seven members of the barangay
council from among themselves after they were directly
elected by the village residents.
“You can
just imagine if you apply that change in the manner of
electing leaders to the national level where the head of
government or president will no longer be elected at
large,” he said.
Still,
Pimentel voiced hopes that both the Senate and House of
Representatives would approve as early as possible Joint
Resolution 10, which calls for the convening of Congress
into a Constituent Assembly to amend the 1987
Constitution and lay the ground for a federal system.
He
explained that even if the proposal is approved by the
14th Congress, it will probably be implemented only
after 2010 and, therefore, will not affect the holding
of the 2010 presidential, congressional and local
elections.
But at
this point, Pimentel said he could not declare with
certainty the time frame for the adoption of a
parliamentary system. “I don’t have a definite answer to
that because this has to be adopted by both houses of
Congress, as well as Malacañang. I don’t know what they
have in mind,” the senator from Mindanao said.
“I am
hoping we can do it before the end of 2010. But
definitely, even if it is approved before 2010, the time
frame will be much later, because we have to put up the
infrastructure for implementation of this proposal.”
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