Speaker Romualdez eyes people's initiative to decide Cha-cha vote

Speaker Martin Romualdez of Leyte said Monday that the House of Representatives was keen on launching a people’s referendum to determine how the House and the Senate should vote on proposals amending the 1987 Constitution.

Romualdez noted that while the 1987 Constitution provided three modes for amending the Charter, it did not explicitly state whether the House and the Senate would vote jointly or separately.

Under the 1987 Constitution, any amendment to or revision of the Constitution may be proposed by:

• the Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members (constituent assembly)
• a constitutional convention during which 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, and
• a people’s initiative upon a petition of at least 12% of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least 3% of the registered voters therein.

“There are three modes to amend the Constitution, but we have had problems in addressing it, procedural problems," said Romualdez during the Philippine Economic Forum in Iloilo. "I'm going to be sharing with you things that I've not shared with the public... I will actually be pre-empting our all-party leaders' caucus this afternoon and sharing it with you here in Iloilo. We are thinking of addressing the procedural gap or question as to how we amend the Constitution.
 
“We will highly recommend that we embark on a people-centered initiative to cure this impasse, so to speak, on how we vote. And I hope that we can undertake this as soon as possible so we could have some clarity on the procedures. We'd like to have that [procedural problem] resolved by and through a people's initiative,” Romualdez revealed.

But as to the mode of amending the Charter, Romualdez reiterated that he preferred the constituent-assembly route as this would enable Congress to immediately pump-up economic activity by lifting restrictions on foreign ownership of vital industries and public utilities, which is currently limited to 40%.

“We feel that the Constitution should be prospective and not reactionary. Right now, it is very prohibitive, the most prohibitive in the region. We would like to lift these restrictions and allow the legislature just to regulate the economy just like other nations do,” Romualdez said.

“So, this is what we'll be embarking on in the ensuing months. And we will be working hand-in-hand with economic managers to see what are the priorities and what we should do. But I just wanted to share this with you,” Romualdez added.

Back in March, the House of Representatives approved on third and final reading Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) 6, which calls for a constitutional convention to amend the 1987 Constitution.

The House approved RBH 6 on final reading less than two weeks after it was filed.

Romualdez defended the approval's swiftness, saying, “This is not about politics, but the economy. This is not about elections. but alleviating the plight of the poor.”

A similar effort in the Senate had yet to gain ground. — DVM, GMA Integrated News