‘Senate rules on Cha-cha on the right track’

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate rules on amending the 1987 Constitution are “on the right track” and ready even before the sub-committee wraps up its discourse on the Resolution of Both Houses 6 (RBH6) pushing Charter change, a senator said.

Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva, chairman of the Senate committee on rules, said the rules are simple and straightforward.

“We’re definitely on the right track, and we’ll be ready before the culmination of the subcommittee hearing,” Villanueva said in a message to Senate reporters.

“After our hearing, we asked the secretariat to collate and present to the members of the rules committee our draft committee report, then I’ll sponsor it on the floor and approve it,” he added.

The Senate subcommittee on constitutional amendments chaired by Sen. Sonny Angara conducted four public hearings on Feb 5, 12, 20 and March 5.

The hearings tackled the general provisions of a proposal to amend the specific economic clauses of the Constitution, particularly those concerning public service, the education sector and the advertising industry.

The hearings were attended by legal luminaries, business executives and representatives from the education sector.

The subcommittee also plans to invite experts from the advertising industry.

Angara said the subcommittee is planning to conduct hearings on RBH6 in the provinces to bring the discussion on Charter change to the people when Congress resumes session from April 29 to May 24.

The RBH7, which is the counterpart of RBH6 in the House, seeks to amend the restrictive economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution. It was approved on third and final reading at the House of Representatives before Congress went on a Lenten break on March 22.

Before the break, Sen. Francis Escudero pressed the Senate to craft rules and regulations before pushing through with another hearing on Charter change.

Escudero cited Section 144 of the House rules, which provides that any proposal to amend or revise the Constitution should be made through a resolution. Escudero was supported by Sen. Risa Hontiveros.

Senators are firm that constitutional amendments must be approved separately by the Senate and the House, thus they strongly oppose the people’s initiative, which advocates Congress to vote as one and jointly, thereby diminish the power of 24 senators against 316 congressmen.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III said he filed Senate bill 2595, or an act providing for a system of people’s initiative and referendum, since the spirit of the law providing a plebiscite to ratify amendments to the Constitution must be called for that purpose.

Earlier, Sen. Cynthia Villar said “there’s a chance” that seven senators, including herself and four other allies of President Marcos, would vote against the proposed measure to amend certain economic provisions of the Constitution.

“They claim they are only after the economic provisions. But when they open up the Constitution, nobody can stop them from changing other provisions, including the political portions. That’s not good,” Villar said.