Palace: Government must step up charter change info campaign

MANILA, Philippines — The results of the recent Pulse Asia survey showed that the government must intensify its campaigns to make the people understand the proposals to change the 1987 Constitution, Malacañang said Wednesday.

The survey, conducted from March 23 to 28, found that 64 percent of Filipinos are against the moves to amend the charter.

It also indicated that only 49 percent of Filipinos are aware of the proposals to change the present constitution.

“This implies there is still a lot of work to be done by the government in informing, educating and reaching out to our countrymen regarding constitutional reforms,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in a statement.

“The Duterte government is thus working tirelessly in promoting to the public the workings of a federal setup, a campaign promise of the president to bring government closer to the people.”

The same survey also showed that 66 percent of Filipinos are against the proposed shift to a federal form of government from the present unitary system.

The Consultative Committee tasked by the president to review the constitution, for its part, remained confident that the perception of Filipinos toward charter change would shift once the proposed constitutional reforms are presented to the public.

READ: Consultative panel confident Filipinos' perception of Cha-Cha will change

‘Forcing Cha-Cha not the way to go’

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, chair of the Senate committee on constitutional amendments and revision of codes, said that the findings of the survey indicated that forcing charter change to the people is not the right way.

“This lack of support for Cha-cha and federalism even in Mindanao, which is supposed to benefit from this push and is reflected in the survey results, simply means that rushing charter change and forcing it upon the citizens is not the way to go,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, meanwhile, stressed that the rising number of Filipinos against amending the constitution only show that they do not see charter change and federalism as solutions to poverty, unemployment and lawlessness.

“The survey must serve as a wake-up call for the administration and the proponents of federalism in Congress that what the people want is a real solution to the problems that confront them daily,” he said.