THE House Committee on Constitutional Amendments remains keen on passing the draft federal constitution under the Duterte administration in order to address the shortcomings of the 21-year-old Freedom Constitution.
In a radio interview, House Committee on Constitutional Amendments Chairman Vicente S. E. Veloso said if the draft is not completed under the President’s term, it may take “many years again” before the Constitution is revised.
This, despite the return of the draft federal constitution to the committee level. Veloso assured there will only be one meeting to change the line of succession to the Vice President instead of the Senate President.
“Ang punto ko, tapusin namin ito as fast as possible kasi ang daming pwedeng mangyari [My point is, we should finish this as soon as possible because many things could happen],” Veloso said.
“And besides, ’pag wala na itong si Duterte [when Duterte is gone], it will take us many, many years again to tinker with our existing Constitution and to come up with necessary amendments or revisions kasi [because] this is 21 years old na pinapasan natin na krus [this is a 21-year-old cross that we are bearing],” he added.
Veloso said the committee will try to meet during Congress’s break. This means when Congress sessions resume, the draft will be discussed in the plenary.
He said his committee will tackle the draft constitution from the opening preamble of the proposed revised constitution until the end of their proposed revised constitution.
The proposed revised constitution from the committee, Veloso said, was drawn from the Gonzales-De Vera draft and the proposal from the Constitutional Commission (Con-com) led by former Chief Justice Reynato Puno.
“What we submitted as committee report for discussion, deliberations on the floor or the plenary is a raw draft. Hindi pa naman ito talaga ’yung sinasabi ko na [this is] not cast in stone,” Veloso said.
In September Veloso said passing the draft federal constitution will only take less than two months if it were left to the House of Representatives (HOR) to decide. Veloso noted the Senate does not seem interested in the draft.
Veloso added that part of the reason it will not be an uphill climb for the approval of the proposed constitution is that around 100 congressmen already supported it, based on their informal discussions.
He said the committee can already start discussing the “Puno draft.” Veloso said based on Sen. Aquilino Martin L. Pimentel III, the HOR can convene to create the law and the Senate can do its part separately. Any disagreements can be resolved in a bicameral committee.
Veloso said certain congressmen are already listing down the names of the senators who they will campaign against in the May 2019 elections.