July Cha-cha plebiscite unlikely — Comelec's Garcia

Commission on Elections chairperson George Garcia said Friday that the projected plebiscite for the people's initiative to amend the 1987 Constitution in July is ‘unlikely’ to happen.

In an interview with the reporters, Garcia said the commission has yet to gather enough signatures from towns and cities for the plebiscite to happen in a 6-month timeline.

“May nakita akong (nagsabi na) June, may nakita rin akong July. Mukha pong napakalapit naman, masyadong ine-estimate, Masyadong napapangunahan yung Commission on Elections sapagkat magve-verify pa po kami ng signatures later,” said Garcia.

(I saw someone said June, and I also saw some said July. It looks like it's very close, it's too estimated, and the Commission on Elections is being led too much because we'll still have to verify the signatures later.)

“Base sa ating monitoring, 253 po ang ating distrito. E mukhang wala naman pong 253 na distrito ang nagkakaroon ng mga signatures na nasusubmit sa local Comelec natin. Ang usapan, dapat lahat ng distrito sa buong Pilipinas,” he added.

(Based on our monitoring, we have 253 districts. And it seems that none of the 253 districts have the signatures submitted to our local Comelec yet. It should be from all the districts in the Philippines.)

July projection

Garcia issued his remarks following reports that the proponents of the People's Initiative (PI) for Charter change (Cha-cha) were said to be aiming to have the plebiscite by July as they expect to reach the required number of signatures by then according to Albay Representative Joey Salceda.

“As far as it was explained to me by the proponents, they want to hit it before July, July plebiscite,” Salceda said in Tina Panganiban Perez's report on Unang Balita on Friday.

To which, Garcia said: “Hindi pwedeng matali ang Comelec sa timeline ng kahit anong grupo o tao. We’ll have our timeline in accordance with umiiral na patakaran at batas. At the same time, yung sinasabi nilang dates, nabasa ko rin ‘yan, pero ang katotohanan, paano nila masasbi yung timelines gayong wala pa namang fina-file sa Comelec?”

(The Comelec cannot be tied to the timeline of any group or person. We'll have our timeline in accordance with existing policies and laws. At the same time, the dates they say, I read that too, but the truth is, how can they create the timeline when nothing has been filed with the Comelec?)

He added that the anticipated plebiscite in July could be possible if it had been submitted in the first week of January.

"Siguro po pag na-submit nila yan as early as January first, first week baka mahabol pa pero nasa pangatlong linggo na tayo ng Enero. At again, ngayon po ay nagsusumit pa lang ng signatures sa mga election officers at at the same time di pa ganon kadami," he said.

(Maybe if they submitted it as early as January first, the first week might catch up, but we are already in the third week of January. And again, now signatures are being submitted to the election officers and at the same time, they are not that many.)

Verification of signatures

At the same time, Garcia said the verification of the signatures would take so much time to ensure the transparency and validity.

Meanwhile, Garcia said that as of Thursday, the local offices in cities and municipalities have gathered at least 726 registration forms.

As stated in the 1987 Constitution, amendments can be directly proposed by the people "through 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, a mode called people’s initiative."

Once the number of required signatures are met, proponents of the said people’s initiative will have to file their petition with Comelec the poll body where it will undergo further scrutiny and verification of signatures, among others. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News