President Duterte added two experts to the consultative committee (Con-com) tasked to review the 1987 Constitution.
The appointments of retired Navy Commo. Rex Robles and lawyer Jose Martin Loon came more than two weeks before the Con-com’s self-imposed deadline for the first draft of the proposed federal constitution on April 30. The initial draft will be presented to the public during the regional consultations due to start in May.
The Con-com said in a statement that it welcomes the new members.
“They will be a big help to Con-com in accomplishing its mandate,” the statement read.
The appointment of Robles and Loon brought to 22 the number of Con-com members.
The final draft of the proposed constitution is set to be submitted to the President on July 19, days before the Chief Executive’s State of the Nation Address on July 23.
Robles, a member of the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1965, is one of the founders of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement and was identified in news reports as a close confidant of the late Angelo Reyes, a former Armed Forces chief and Cabinet official.
According to the Ayala law firm web site, Loon was engaged by business tycoons Inigo and Mercedes Zobel as their executive assistant and legal counsel. He is a member of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, Quezon City Chapter, and teaches law at the Manuel L. Quezon University Law School and Political Science at the Ateneo de Manila University.
In May 2015 he also made history when he became the first Filipino to receive a Master of Laws degree in National Security Law from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.
He was a senior aide and consultant to Sen. Alan Peter S. Cayetano from 2010 to 2014.
He is also one of the founders of Aquende, Yebra, Aniag, Loon and Associates, or Ayala law firm.
Loon graduated in 2013 with a Juris Doctor degree from the University of the Philippines College of Law. The President also appointed John Castriciones as the ad interim secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform.