MANILA, Philippines — A lawmaker said Wednesday that holding an election for constitutional convention delegates alongside the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections in October would cost “only around P1.5 billion,” based on a consultation with Commission on Elections chairperson George Garcia.
“It’s only a matter of putting one more line for the delegates,” Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (Cagayan de Oro) explained in his sponsorship speech during a plenary session at the House of Representatives.
Rodriguez added that the constitutional convention proper and the plebiscite’s ratification of the new Charter are expected to cost P5 billion and P3 billion, respectively.
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This means the government would have to spend an estimated P9.5 billion in total to change the Charter through a constitutional convention, based on the estimates of the constitutional amendments committee which Rodriguez chairs.
These were bared during the second reading of the Resolution of Both Houses 6 — a measure sponsored by Rodriguez that consolidated different proposals in favor of amending the Constitution through a constitutional convention.
Estimates from the National Economic Development Authority previously pegged the cost of holding the election of delegates at around P231 million, which could go as high as P28 billion if the delegates are elected in a separate poll.
Insisting that the P9.5 billion expense is necessary amid various economic problems tightening Filipinos’ belts, Rodriguez said that changing the Charter now can help address unemployment and poverty through the jobs that could be created from foreign investments.
“It cannot be business as usual. There (will) always (be) issues like this if we do not change the constitution and we retain a high unemployment rate,” Rodriguez said during the plenary session.
The election of delegates is also better done alongside the election of barangay officials, which is required by law to be non-partisan, Rodriguez added.
Other lawmakers in favor of Charter change, such as House Speaker Martin Romualdez, have been batting to relax the economic restrictions enshrined in the 1987 Constitution to supposedly attract more foreign investors.
This is despite President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. expressing his reservations about changing the Charter now, which he said was not a priority.
During the plenary session, Rep. Arlene Brosas (Gabriel Women’s Party) questioned the resolution’s apparent lack of justification for Charter change.
“I am training the spotlight on the text of the resolution because it should have laid down the merits of entertaining Charter change when Congress should have been deliberating on far more urgent measures, such as inflation, reduction proposals, significant wage and salary increases and subsidies for farmers,” the lawmaker said.
Brosas added that “no foreign investor” will prioritize raising the minimum wage of workers in the Philippines.
“The reason why foreign capital goes out of a country is because of cheaper wages in other countries. If the wages in the Philippines are raised, they will look for other countries where workers are paid less,” Brosas said.
The proposal for a constitutional convention, which was approved by the constitutional amendments committee on February 20, is in favor of a "hybrid" constitutional convention model, which was suggested by former Chief Justice Renato Puno to ease concerns over possible partisanship in the selection of delegates.
Under a hybrid constitutional convention, its members will be drawn from the delegates that voters will elect in every district, as well as Malacañang- and Congress-appointed experts.
The committee is set to discuss next week the accompanying bill to the Resolution of Both Houses, which will involve further budget deliberations related to the measure.