MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading the bill that operationalizes the constitutional convention that will introduce amendments to the 1987 Constitution.
House Bill 7352 was approved on final reading on Tuesday, more than a week after the House passed on final reading Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) 6 calling for a constitutional convention.
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The measure garnered 301 affirmative votes, with seven negative votes and zero abstentions.
READ: House flexes supermajority power to approve con-con resolution on final reading
With the passage of HB 7352 on final reading, the House supermajority has now passed the buck to the Senate on whether the 19th Congress will amend the Charter, specifically to lift the economic provisions that restrict foreign ownership in the country.
HB 7352 details the procedures for changing the Charter through a hybrid constitutional convention (con-con). Under the approved bill, con-con members will be made up of appointees from Congress and delegates from each district selected by the voting public through an election held simultaneously with the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections in 2023.
Already criticized for the large expenses that will be incurred from holding the convention and electing its delegates, the bill also provides for a P10,000 daily allowance for all 316 members of the convention who will serve their terms from Nov. 21, 2023 to June 30, 2024.
Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (Cagayan de Oro), chair of the constitutional amendments committee, previously estimated the total cost of holding the convention to be at least P9.5 billion, which already takes into account the total honorarium to be paid to the members of the convention.
Rep. Raoul Manuel (Kabataan Partylist), who voted no to the measure, has said that the costs of holding a convention are “too much foregone resources that could be used to ensure services for people in need.”
Expect not just economic tweaks
Manuel also expressed concern over how the convention could be used as a platform for political maneuvering and for partisan interests to affect the delegates voting on amendments to the Constitution.
“When there is a delegate elected to be a part of the constitutional convention, they can still be influenced and approached by any political party to be their voice or to represent their position inside the (convention proper),” Manuel said in Filipino during plenary debates of the bill.
Rep. France Castro (ACT Teachers Partylist) also said that the constitutional convention can still railroad political amendments despite being branded by its supporters as "concon para sa econ (concon for the economy)."
“It’s clear to us all — including sponsors of this measure — that the law, jurisprudence and historical precedents that the powers of the Constitutional Convention is plenary or all-encompassing, and Congress cannot limit this power,” Castro said in Filipino.
Rep. Arlene Brosas (Gabriela Women’s Party), who also voted against the bill, warned that “overhauling the post-EDSA Constitution” is part of the agenda of the Marcos administration and that it would be the height of innocence to believe that the president did not approve of its speedy passage.
“It takes two to Cha-cha in this case, and with this accompanying bill finally hurdling the House … with record speed and efficiency, grand sinister designs for the benefit of those in power must really be afoot,” Brosas said.
Senate deadlock?
Both the con-con resolution (RBH 6) and HB 7352 are now pending at the Senate where ranking senators like Senate President Migz Zubiri have been lukewarm on changing the Charter at this time.
While Sen. Robinhood Padilla has been pushing for the constitutional amendments route to tweak the Constitution, Zubiri has said in a radio interview that the upper chamber cannot muster enough votes to approve Charter change given that almost half of all senators are against it.
Padilla himself also said in a text message to reporters on Monday that it is unlikely for the Senate to garner enough votes to approve a bill on Charter change, especially if the measure will not even reach the plenary floor.
Rep. Edcel Lagman (Albay, 1st District), who also voted against the bill, said that the passage of the measure is an “exercise in inordinate futility because no less than the Senate President disclosed that the Senate cannot muster the extraordinary requisite vote to join the House in calling for charter change via a constitutional convention.”
Lagman added that a deadlock of impasse between the two chambers of Congress could have been avoided had the House called for a joint session with the Senate before passing RBH 6.
Rodriguez called on Senate on March 6 to "keep an open mind" on amending the Charter and "heed the mandate and call" of the lower chamber, around 95% of which voted in favor of the con-con bill.