‘Lawmakers can extend their term through Cha-cha’

Members of Congress are not prohibited by the Constitution from extending their terms through Cha-cha (Charter change), a Laguna congressman said yesterday.

In making the assertion, Rep. Danton Bueser contradicted the statement of his House boss, Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., that it is not proper for senators and congressmen to benefit from whatever they do as lawmakers.

"We cannot even increase our salaries," De Venecia said.

Bueser said the constitutional prohibition "against incompatible and forbidden offices extends only to appointive government positions that have been created or the emoluments thereof increased during the term of which the representative or senator concerned was elected."

"It does not apply in our case, since our positions as representatives are elective, not appointive or newly created," he said.

Bueser and all members of the House of Representatives, senators, governors, mayors, and all other local officials stand to benefit from the no-el (no elections in 2007) and term extension proposal of the presidential consultative commission (con-com) on Cha-cha.

Under the con-com proposal, the congressional and local elections scheduled for May 2007 would be canceled and the stay in office of lawmakers and local officials would be extended by three years to June 30, 2010.

In the case of lawmakers, they would automatically become members of the interim parliament, while President Arroyo would be both president and interim prime minister until the shift to the full parliamentary system in July 2010.

Con-com officials have initially claimed that no-el was intended to promote "political peace" over the next five years in preparation for the shift to the new system of government.

But they later admitted that it was really aimed at buying the support of lawmakers and local officials for Cha-cha to ensure the success of the move to revise the Constitution. — Jess Diaz, Paolo Romero