Drilon: No Cha-cha during Noy’s term

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Franklin Drilon sees no hope of Charter change (Cha-cha) being tackled by Congress in the last three years of the Aquino administration.

Drilon, who is expected to be the next Senate president, said Congress has several priorities on its plate and these do not include amending the Constitution.

Taking his cue from President Aquino who has vowed not to support moves to amend the Constitution, Drilon argued that any Charter change proposal from now until 2016 will be futile.

“Number one, when you debate on Cha-cha, your attention is diverted to that very critical political exercise and you tend to neglect those measures that I mentioned,” Drilon said, referring to priority legislation defined during the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council.

“Number two, there is always that doubt that when you touch Cha-cha on the last three years of the sitting president, he wants an extension of term. The President, I tell you, has always indicated that he keeps on counting the number of days remaining in his term. I can believe him that he does not want any term extension, but you know, politicians, people and media’s mind are very fertile,” he added in an interview over ANC yesterday.

Proponents of Cha-cha like Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile argued that amendments could be tackled, specifically the provisions on foreign ownership limitations in order to bring in more investors into the country.

It was only less than two years ago when Enrile and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. started discussions about the possibility of amending specific economic provisions of the Constitution.

At the time, Drilon participated in the discussions and even proposed that the Senate and the House of Representatives introduce the proposed amendments through separate bills or resolutions, which would be acted upon by the respective chambers separately just like any other piece of legislation.

But during yesterday’s interview, Drilon said that amending the Constitution at this time would not be acceptable to the people who most likely do not want it “touched by those lousy congressmen, senators who have selfish interests.”

“For the last three years, we have achieved a good economic growth through good governance without touching the Constitution. Because of that and it is left to those against changing the Constitution to point out the actual experience for the last three years where our economy improved without touching the Constitution,” Drilon said.

Drilon added that instead of spending time debating on proposals to amend the Constitution, Congress should tackle a number of critical pieces of legislation that are in the pipeline and the confirmation of appointments of the remaining members of the Cabinet who have not yet been acted upon by the Commission on Appointments.

He cited the framework agreement on the Bangsamoro, amendments to the Mining Law and the rationalization of fiscal incentives as among the measures that the Senate will have to address at the appropriate time.

“We also need to confirm a number of Cabinet members who have not yet been confirmed, such as (Social Welfare) Secretary (Corazon) Soliman, (Justice) Secretary (Leila) De Lima and (Environment) Secretary (Ramon) Paje,” Drilon said. – With Rhodina Villanueva