GMA sure to push for Charter change if elected as congresswoman - JDV

MANILA, Philippines - President Arroyo will certainly push for Charter change (Cha-cha) if she is elected congresswoman of Pampanga’s second district, Pangasinan Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr. said yesterday.

“She will work on Cha-cha to shift the nation to the parliamentary system so she could be prime minister. That has been her obsession,” the former House speaker told reporters over the weekend.

De Venecia led the Cha-cha offensive in the House in late 2006 when he and Mrs. Arroyo were still allies.

He said their effort to amend the Constitution to change the system of government from presidential to parliamentary had the blessings of Mrs. Arroyo.

“Before that, we had the Pirma initiative, which the Supreme Court scrapped. And then we had Plan B, to convene as a constituent assembly (con-ass),” he said.

He said even after he was replaced by Rep. Prospero Nograles as Speaker, the President’s allies continued to pursue Cha-cha.

The Supreme Court junked the Pirma initiative, which Raul Lambino led, in October 2006, describing it as a “gigantic fraud” and “grand deception.”

Lambino, a former lawyer of De Venecia, is now a senatorial candidate of Lakas-Kampi standard-bearer Gilbert Teodoro Jr.

In December of that year, De Venecia and his colleagues voted to convene as a con-ass to propose constitutional amendments even without the participation of the Senate.

Three days after taking the vote, they backtracked when religious leaders threatened to hold a huge rally to express their opposition to Cha-cha.

According to the former speaker, Mrs. Arroyo asked them to retreat “because she was afraid that the religious led by bishops would march on Malacañang and topple her.”

Under Nograles, the House has taken the same tack. In June this year, Nograles and his colleagues approved Resolution 1109, which seeks to convene “members of Congress,” even if they are all congressmen, as a con-ass to consider Cha-cha proposals.

The Speaker had said they would meet as a con-ass after the President’s State of the Nation Address in July, but con-ass has not materialized.

Nograles himself was not convinced that the House could bypass the Senate on Cha-cha. He had filed his own Cha-cha resolution, which sought to amend the Charter’s economic provisions and which he said would be sent to the Senate after the House approves it.                   – With Aurea Calica