ASENIOR lawmaker has called for a discourse among congressional leaders as a means to end the Charter change (Cha-cha) “word war” between the House of Representatives and Senate.
Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. of Cavite appealed to House and Senate leaders to observe parliamentary courtesy, as he said differences in their opinions on the Charter change initiative could have been avoided had the Senate first voted on the measure before announcing that it does not have the numbers to push for such.
According to Barzaga, the word war started when Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said the delay in the implementing guidelines’ enforcement of three laws: the Public Service Act, Retail Trade Liberalization, and Foreign Investment Act, appeared to be caused by the Lower House’s push to revise the Constitution’s economic provisions.
“It’s not our fault [that there was a] delay in the enforcement of the implementing guidelines of the three laws. The heads of the chambers of the lawmaking body are quarreling before the public,” Barzaga told Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers Friday on the latter’s radio program. “The issuance of the implementing guidelines of the aforementioned three laws is the act of the executive independent of the action of the House, and also of the Senate.”
Barzaga, one of the lawmakers calling for the amendments to the “restrictive” economic provisions of the Constitution, said the House is in a hurry to have the initiative approved, as it wants to save money by holding the election of Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) delegates simultaneously with the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections in October.
The administration lawmaker recalled that the delegates who crafted the 1973 Constitution were elected simultaneously with the 1971 local elections.
If the Senate really does not have the numbers, Zubiri could have just ordered Sen. Robinhood Padilla not to proceed with the public hearings anymore, as it will only be a “waste of time.”
Barzaga felt that instead of prematurely announcing that it does not have the numbers, the Senate leadership should have just waited for the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments chaired by Padilla to vote on the Cha-cha measure in the committee level and if approved, debates and discussion shall be made in the plenary later on.
The solon also defended the neophyte senator from critics questioning the former actor’s qualifications to head his panel, saying there is no rule that the chair of the Constitutional Amendments Committee must be a lawyer.
While the House Resolution 6 of both houses calls for the election of Con-con delegates to exclusively discuss amendments to the economic provisions, House leaders have admitted that no one can stop the delegates from introducing political amendments once the body is convened.
‘Ball now with Senate’
WITH the House’s overwhelming formal support for immediate constitutional reform, Representative LRay Villafuerte of Camarines Sur said “the ball is now in the Senate’s court” on whether the bicameral Congress is ready to help sustain the Philippines’s post-Covid economic growth momentum by ditching the 1987 Charter’s antiquated provisions that have been choking foreign direct investment (FDIs) streams for boosting economic activity and generating jobs.
“Given the supermajority vote in the House for both the resolution and its accompanying implementing on constitutional reform via the Con-Con (Constitutional Convention) route, the ball is now in the Senate’s court on whether to consider fixing in timely fashion the anachronistic economic provisions of the Constitution that have for long put a dampener on FDI inflows,” Villafuerte said.
“Our senators need to give this latest constitutional reform initiative a chance,” he insisted, “if only out of consideration for the passage in quick succession by the House of Representatives of the resolution establishing a Con-Con to propose economic amendments to the 1987 Charter, and the accompanying bill on its operational details such as the composition of the would-be framers and the election of delegates to coincide with the October 30 balloting for barangay and SK officials.”
The congressman was referring to the approval on third and final reading by 301, or almost all of the chamber’s 314 members last March 8 of Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No. 6, and by the same number of votes last March 14 of House Bill (HB) 7352, which is meant to be the implementing law for the former.
“We have done our part in the House with the nearly 96-percent vote for RHB 6 and HB 7352,” he said. “It is now up to our senators to consider the Con-Con option in time for the selection of the elective delegates in a balloting to coincide with the polls for barangay and SK officials due on October 30.”
The House-approved resolution and companion bill provide for a hybrid Con-Con with 251 members, comprising elective delegates at one delegate each for the country’s congressional districts, and appointive members to be chosen by the Senate President and Speaker to represent the judiciary, business, academe, farmers and fisherfolk, military, women and youth, senior citizens and persons with disabilities, as well as other basic sectors.
‘It’s for the economy…’
FOR Villafuerte, “a timely consideration of the Charter Change proposal now pending with the Senate committee on constitutional amendments will reveal to our people whether senators are indeed lukewarm about constitutional reform, as claimed by Zubiri, or a majority of them actually share our conviction that FDI inflows will remain sluggish despite our country’s status as one of the region’s outperforming economies post-pandemic, for so long as we hold on to the constitutional limits on foreign ownership or participation in Philippine businesses.”
He claimed the timely consideration of the Con-con proposal will give the Commission on Elections (Comelec) enough time to hold the election of delegates simultaneously with the barangay and SK polls on October 3, and will be on target with HB 7352’s plan for the would-be Con-Con to convene from November 30, 2023 to June 30, 2024.
However, in case the Charter Change proposal via the Con-Con route cannot muster enough votes, “we in the House would respect such a decision by a majority of our senators, and let this latest initiative on constitutional reform ‘kick the bucket,’” Villafuerte declared.
Zubiri said the other weekend that constitutional reform is not a priority in the Senate, because even if “I were to push it…truth is…we don’t have the numbers for Charter change.”
Despite assurances by some House members that they only want to amend the 1987 Charter’s restrictive economic provisions that discourage investors, Zubiri said: “We cannot control the flow of discussions among Con-Con delegates” once it is set up, and stop the framers from introducing changes to abolish the Senate and form a unicameral form of government.
Villafuerte allayed Zubiri’s fears of a possible switch from the current bicameral Congress to a unicameral legislature, in appealing to the Senate President and his other colleagues to have “open hearts and minds” on badly-needed constitutional reforms, as “the Con-Con proposal in the House neither has a hidden agenda to marginalize them in the voting on would-be amendment proposals, nor to abolish the Senate.”