House panel Oks hybrid Con-con

MANILA, Philippines — Voting 17-2, the committee on constitutional amendments of the House of Representatives approved yesterday a substitute bill that will consolidate four measures introducing Charter amendments and pave the way for a constitutional convention.

The substitute bill that the panel headed by Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez endorsed would implement Resolution of Both Houses 6 of the Congress of the Philippines, calling for a Con-con to propose amendments to, or revision of, the 1987 Constitution.

The substitute bill will be sourced from House Bills 4926, 6698, 6805 and 6920.

Rodriguez explained that “sectoral representatives will constitute 20 percent of the delegates to the constitutional convention to be jointly appointed by the Senate President and the Speaker of the House.”

According to him, the committee secretariat has inputted and distributed the refined draft, which details the hybrid composition of the constitutional convention, and amendments to the qualifications of delegates.

“Those from the basic sectors will follow the organizations as defined under Republic Act 8425, otherwise known as the Social Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act,” he added.

Rodriguez said the appropriation language of the substitute bill has also been rewritten to adapt to the style and form used in appropriation measures.

The Rodriguez panel likewise approved, subject to form and style, the committee report on the substitute bill. The bill will be referred to the House committee on appropriations led by Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Zaldy Co for its funding provisions.

51 elected, 40 appointed

A total of 91 delegates – or three each from the country’s 17 regions and 40 experts to be handpicked by the highest officials of the land – have been proposed to compose the “hybrid” constitutional convention.

Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. suggested that 51 delegates are to be elected in their respective regions which, as per Resolution of Both Houses 6 that the House of Representatives has approved, will coincide with the Oct. 30 barangay elections.

The remaining 40, meanwhile, will be “appointed by a committee composed of the President, the Vice President, the Chief Justice, the Senate President and the Speaker who shall elect among themselves who shall be the chairman of the committee on appointments.”

All sectors of society, the LGBTQIA+ included, shall be represented in their own field of expertise or endeavor, and whose “appointees shall be of good moral character with known probity and considered as experts in their respective fields.”

There will be representatives from health, agriculture, transportation, information technology, disaster resilience, economics, foreign investments, environment, labor, infrastructure, law and other related fields.

The same is true with one appointee each for the sectors representing “indigenous peoples, senior citizens, persons with disability, solo parents, LGBTQIA+, women, youth and other sectors which the appointing authority may consider necessary.”

Barzaga proposed an amendment before the House committee on constitutional amendments to anchor its substitute bill, former Chief Justice Reynato Puno’s proposal for a “hybrid” Con-con.

He said this setup does not violate the Article XVII Section 3 of the 1987 Constitution: “The Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of all its Members, call a constitutional convention, or by a majority vote of all its Members, submit to the electorate the question of calling such a convention,” read a part of the fundamental law of the land.

The Cavite lawmaker said the charter does not specify how many delegates to a constitutional convention should be chosen, noting in past conventions, “the legislation calling for the convention specified how the delegates would be chosen.”