HOUSE NOW HAS 145 CHA-CHA SIGNATURES, Dispatched a team to Zambales
(STAR) By Jess Diaz - President Arroyo’s allies in the House of Representatives are slowly but relentlessly moving toward Cha-cha (Charter change).
As of last Friday, they have gathered the signatures of 145 members of the chamber for a resolution asking Congress to amend the Constitution.
"We already have 145. We are still 50 short of the target," Majority Leader Prospero Nograles told The STAR.
Nograles said they are confident that this week and next week, they would have attained their goal of gathering 195 signatures.
That number represents three-fourths of the combined membership of 260 of the House (236) and the Senate (24).
At the Senate, maverick Sen. Joker Arroyo said the President should scrap Executive Order No. 464 — which prevents Cabinet officials from attending congressional inquiries without her written conscent — before talking about Charter change,
The senator said Mrs. Arroyo is "forfeiting" the right to call for charter change when she thwarts the Senate from conducting public hearings, which are constitutionally recognized and indispensable to legislative work.
"Only those who have the highest respect and regard for the Constitution can have the credentials to ask that it be changed. How can the administration push for charter change, when it keeps on violating without remorse the very Constitution it seeks to change?" said Arroyo, who chairs the Senate committee on public accountability.
Cha-cha advocates in the House are proceeding on the assumption that 195 members of Congress, even if they are all congressmen and congresswomen, can propose constitutional amendments.
They argue that all the Constitution requires for Cha-cha is a vote of "three-fourths of all the members of Congress."
They claim that the Constitution, expressly or implicitly, does not call for the Senate and the House to vote separately and for each chamber to muster a three-fourths vote.
Nograles disagreed with Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Constantino Jaraula, constitutional amendments committee chairman, that 177 signatures would be sufficient for introducing the resolution asking Congress to amend the Constitution.
"If we do that, that will again complicate matters, because if we pass the resolution by obtaining 177 votes or three-fourths of the House membership, that means that the Senate will have to approve it also by a three-fourths vote. That is a recognition of the Senate’s stand on separate voting," he said.
According to opposition congressmen led by Minority Leader Francis Escudero, who are out to block the majority’s Cha-cha initiative, the majority bloc is now in estoppel on the issue of separate voting and on whether the House could bypass the Senate on Cha-cha.
This is because the House had transmitted to the Senate a resolution it had approved several months ago and which seeks the convening of Congress into a constituent assembly to propose amendments.
The House cannot now backtrack and claim that it can go it alone on Cha-cha by approving another resolution, Escudero says.
The signature-gathering campaign was actually launched by the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), which is headed by Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, its president-on-leave.
Kampi’s resolution, however, differs slightly from that of the ruling Lakas led by Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.
The Kampi resolution proposes the "convening of Congress to propose amendments to or revision of the Constitution." It would require that the Senate and the House come together.
The Lakas version simply asks Congress to amend the Charter.
De Venecia has said once they have 195 signatures, they would ask senators that they meet with congressmen for the purpose of proposing amendments.
He said if senators refuse, congressmen would go it alone on Cha-cha "and the Senate will become irrelevant."
In a recent forum organized by the group of militant party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna, Fr. Joaquin Bernas said it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution to require separate voting on Cha-cha.
Bernas, one of those framers, said they worked on the assumption that the parliamentary system would replace the presidential form of government.
But when the presidential system won by just one vote, they forgot to make adjustments in some provisions of the Constitution, including that on voting on Cha-cha, he said.
He stressed that to insist on joint voting would be to destroy the spirit of bicameralism in the present system of government.
Senator Arroyo, meanwhile said the issuance of EO 464 caused the "rare and extremely selective" appearances of executive officials.
Before EO 464, executive officials appear before the Senate hearings. After EO 464, their appearances became rare. "If it will benefit them, they attend; if not, they invoke 464 to justify their non-appearance," he added.
When the President thwarts that, she violates the Constitution, thereby forfeiting the right to call for Cha-cha, Senator Arroyo said.
Arroyo, who also chairs the Senate committee on public services, expressed disappointment anew when National Telecommunications commissioner Ronald Solis and Philippine National Police chief Director General Arturo Lomibao failed to attend last Thursday’s hearing on alleged media crackdown and warrantless arrests made during the state of national emergency.
"The senators in attendance were stumped. No one could give the side of the government because the officials that would implement it did not appear in the hearing initiated for the purpose of remedial legislations if needed in the light of issues," Sen. Arroyo said.
Arroyo said Solis and Lomibao "obstructed legislative work" on the "very pressing issue," the exercise of constitutionally protected freedom of the press, a superior right in the hierarchy of the Bill of Rights.
The President lifted the 10-day old proclamation 1017 but not the five-month old EO 464 because the Senate hearings might uncover executive shenanigans.
EO 464 enabled the PNP chief and the NTC official to evade the Senate inquiry, wherein the Senate wanted them to show television footage that in their judgment incite sedition or cause destabilization. — With Christina Mendez
Charter reform information drive launched
The advocacy campaign on constitutional reforms shifts to higher gear as the presidential commission for Charter change advocacy begins barnstorming Luzon and the Visayas to spread public awareness of the need to amend the 1987 Constitution. Various teams of the Charter Change Advocacy Commission will be dispatched beginning today to bring the issue of constitutional reforms to the northern communities of Baguio City, Zambales, Bataan, Pangasinan and Quezon City for the rest of the week, AdCom secretary-general Rita Linda Jimeno said.
Jimeno said an AdCom team will launch the provincial sorties at the Baguio City Convention Center, where barangay officials from as far away as Nueva Ecija are expected to attend the forum on Charter change. Similar sorties will tackle the matter of ridding the 1987 Constitution of outmoded provisions that have fostered political instability and retarded economic growth in the last two weeks of March in Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon as well as in the Visayas.
This advocacy drive is complemented by a similar information campaign spearheaded nationwide by the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), the umbrella organization of some 1.7 million local government unit (LGU) officials nationwide, and various sectoral groups. "AdCom is mounting this information drive in keeping with the Arroyo administration’s commitment to deepen public understanding of, and marshal popular support (for) systematic changes in our flawed political and economic structures that stand in the way of rapid growth with social equity," Jimeno said.
Jimeno, a member of the presidential consultative commission on Charter change (con-com), said almost 74 percent of the drive’s participants favor a parliamentary form of government, while 18 percent support the retention of the presidential system and 72 percent want a federal structure in lieu of the existing unitary system.
Following a three-month work period, the 55-member con-com submitted to President Arroyo on Dec. 16, 2005 a package of proposed amendments to the Constitution covering the shift to a unicameral parliamentary system, provision for greater decentralization and local autonomy leading to the establishment of a federal republic and the relaxation of "protectionist" Charter provisions that hold back the entry of foreign investments.
Besides Baguio City, another AdCom team will go to the town of Iba, capital of Zambales, to explain the benefits of Charter reforms and how the people may directly effect such changes as provided for in the Charter. A third team will be in Balanga City in Bataan on March 14 and proceed the next day to San Fernando City in Pampanga. On March 16, an AdCom team will be visiting Urdaneta City, Pangasinan. Later that afternoon, the AdCom panel will attend a forum sponsored by the Daughters of St. Paul. — Cecille Suerte Felipe, Mike Frialde
As of last Friday, they have gathered the signatures of 145 members of the chamber for a resolution asking Congress to amend the Constitution.
"We already have 145. We are still 50 short of the target," Majority Leader Prospero Nograles told The STAR.
Nograles said they are confident that this week and next week, they would have attained their goal of gathering 195 signatures.
That number represents three-fourths of the combined membership of 260 of the House (236) and the Senate (24).
At the Senate, maverick Sen. Joker Arroyo said the President should scrap Executive Order No. 464 — which prevents Cabinet officials from attending congressional inquiries without her written conscent — before talking about Charter change,
The senator said Mrs. Arroyo is "forfeiting" the right to call for charter change when she thwarts the Senate from conducting public hearings, which are constitutionally recognized and indispensable to legislative work.
"Only those who have the highest respect and regard for the Constitution can have the credentials to ask that it be changed. How can the administration push for charter change, when it keeps on violating without remorse the very Constitution it seeks to change?" said Arroyo, who chairs the Senate committee on public accountability.
Cha-cha advocates in the House are proceeding on the assumption that 195 members of Congress, even if they are all congressmen and congresswomen, can propose constitutional amendments.
They argue that all the Constitution requires for Cha-cha is a vote of "three-fourths of all the members of Congress."
They claim that the Constitution, expressly or implicitly, does not call for the Senate and the House to vote separately and for each chamber to muster a three-fourths vote.
Nograles disagreed with Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Constantino Jaraula, constitutional amendments committee chairman, that 177 signatures would be sufficient for introducing the resolution asking Congress to amend the Constitution.
"If we do that, that will again complicate matters, because if we pass the resolution by obtaining 177 votes or three-fourths of the House membership, that means that the Senate will have to approve it also by a three-fourths vote. That is a recognition of the Senate’s stand on separate voting," he said.
According to opposition congressmen led by Minority Leader Francis Escudero, who are out to block the majority’s Cha-cha initiative, the majority bloc is now in estoppel on the issue of separate voting and on whether the House could bypass the Senate on Cha-cha.
This is because the House had transmitted to the Senate a resolution it had approved several months ago and which seeks the convening of Congress into a constituent assembly to propose amendments.
The House cannot now backtrack and claim that it can go it alone on Cha-cha by approving another resolution, Escudero says.
The signature-gathering campaign was actually launched by the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), which is headed by Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, its president-on-leave.
Kampi’s resolution, however, differs slightly from that of the ruling Lakas led by Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.
The Kampi resolution proposes the "convening of Congress to propose amendments to or revision of the Constitution." It would require that the Senate and the House come together.
The Lakas version simply asks Congress to amend the Charter.
De Venecia has said once they have 195 signatures, they would ask senators that they meet with congressmen for the purpose of proposing amendments.
He said if senators refuse, congressmen would go it alone on Cha-cha "and the Senate will become irrelevant."
In a recent forum organized by the group of militant party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna, Fr. Joaquin Bernas said it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution to require separate voting on Cha-cha.
Bernas, one of those framers, said they worked on the assumption that the parliamentary system would replace the presidential form of government.
But when the presidential system won by just one vote, they forgot to make adjustments in some provisions of the Constitution, including that on voting on Cha-cha, he said.
He stressed that to insist on joint voting would be to destroy the spirit of bicameralism in the present system of government.
Senator Arroyo, meanwhile said the issuance of EO 464 caused the "rare and extremely selective" appearances of executive officials.
Before EO 464, executive officials appear before the Senate hearings. After EO 464, their appearances became rare. "If it will benefit them, they attend; if not, they invoke 464 to justify their non-appearance," he added.
When the President thwarts that, she violates the Constitution, thereby forfeiting the right to call for Cha-cha, Senator Arroyo said.
Arroyo, who also chairs the Senate committee on public services, expressed disappointment anew when National Telecommunications commissioner Ronald Solis and Philippine National Police chief Director General Arturo Lomibao failed to attend last Thursday’s hearing on alleged media crackdown and warrantless arrests made during the state of national emergency.
"The senators in attendance were stumped. No one could give the side of the government because the officials that would implement it did not appear in the hearing initiated for the purpose of remedial legislations if needed in the light of issues," Sen. Arroyo said.
Arroyo said Solis and Lomibao "obstructed legislative work" on the "very pressing issue," the exercise of constitutionally protected freedom of the press, a superior right in the hierarchy of the Bill of Rights.
The President lifted the 10-day old proclamation 1017 but not the five-month old EO 464 because the Senate hearings might uncover executive shenanigans.
EO 464 enabled the PNP chief and the NTC official to evade the Senate inquiry, wherein the Senate wanted them to show television footage that in their judgment incite sedition or cause destabilization. — With Christina Mendez
Charter reform information drive launched
The advocacy campaign on constitutional reforms shifts to higher gear as the presidential commission for Charter change advocacy begins barnstorming Luzon and the Visayas to spread public awareness of the need to amend the 1987 Constitution. Various teams of the Charter Change Advocacy Commission will be dispatched beginning today to bring the issue of constitutional reforms to the northern communities of Baguio City, Zambales, Bataan, Pangasinan and Quezon City for the rest of the week, AdCom secretary-general Rita Linda Jimeno said.
Jimeno said an AdCom team will launch the provincial sorties at the Baguio City Convention Center, where barangay officials from as far away as Nueva Ecija are expected to attend the forum on Charter change. Similar sorties will tackle the matter of ridding the 1987 Constitution of outmoded provisions that have fostered political instability and retarded economic growth in the last two weeks of March in Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon as well as in the Visayas.
This advocacy drive is complemented by a similar information campaign spearheaded nationwide by the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), the umbrella organization of some 1.7 million local government unit (LGU) officials nationwide, and various sectoral groups. "AdCom is mounting this information drive in keeping with the Arroyo administration’s commitment to deepen public understanding of, and marshal popular support (for) systematic changes in our flawed political and economic structures that stand in the way of rapid growth with social equity," Jimeno said.
Jimeno, a member of the presidential consultative commission on Charter change (con-com), said almost 74 percent of the drive’s participants favor a parliamentary form of government, while 18 percent support the retention of the presidential system and 72 percent want a federal structure in lieu of the existing unitary system.
Following a three-month work period, the 55-member con-com submitted to President Arroyo on Dec. 16, 2005 a package of proposed amendments to the Constitution covering the shift to a unicameral parliamentary system, provision for greater decentralization and local autonomy leading to the establishment of a federal republic and the relaxation of "protectionist" Charter provisions that hold back the entry of foreign investments.
Besides Baguio City, another AdCom team will go to the town of Iba, capital of Zambales, to explain the benefits of Charter reforms and how the people may directly effect such changes as provided for in the Charter. A third team will be in Balanga City in Bataan on March 14 and proceed the next day to San Fernando City in Pampanga. On March 16, an AdCom team will be visiting Urdaneta City, Pangasinan. Later that afternoon, the AdCom panel will attend a forum sponsored by the Daughters of St. Paul. — Cecille Suerte Felipe, Mike Frialde
posted by OlongapoCity Zambales at
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