MANILA, Philippines?Speaker Prospero Nograles may just be dreaming.

A bipartisan uproar Tuesday greeted Nograles? proposal Monday to short-circuit usual norms and amend the economic provisions of the Constitution just like any other bill requiring a simple majority to pass.

National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales proposed another mode to amend the Constitution: a ?Cory-style? constitutional commission.

Gonzales argued that the constitutional commission created by President Corazon C. Aquino in the early months of her ?revolutionary government? following the ouster of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 took only a year to revise the Charter.

?It was cheap, uncomplicated and very quick,? said Gonzales.

Press Secretary Cerge Remonde and Cabinet Secretary Silvestre Bello III laughed aloud when asked for comment. ?With all due respect, that statement of Secretary Gonzales on political matters is entirely his own,? Remonde said.

A three-fourths vote of Congress is required to amend the Constitution under the constituent assembly (Con-ass) mode.

?Institutionally, we are bound to consider any measure that is sent to us here by the House,? Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile told reporters.

But Enrile, along with Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Juan Miguel Zubiri, Panfilo Lacson and Joker Arroyo, does not believe that House Bill 737 could be passed in both chambers just like any ordinary piece of legislation.

The bill authored by Nograles calls for amendments to the Constitution to allow aliens to own land to attract foreign investments and spur economic growth.

Critics said the Nograles bill is but one of the Charter change (Cha-cha) ploys to adopt the parliamentary system using the Con-ass mode and extend the term ending next year of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and other elected officials.

Villafuerte resolution

Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte also has proposed a Con-ass with both chambers voting as one?a measure the Senate, clearly outnumbered, has roundly opposed as unconstitutional.

Villafuerte said Tuesday he had made small amendments to his resolution, which now specified that the three-fourths vote needed to propose changes would come from the combined number of the members of the Senate and the House.

He also said it would still be Nograles who would decide whether to file the measure or not.

Court rejection likely

?It can?t be just a majority vote because this will be thrown out by the Supreme Court,? Enrile said of the Nograles proposal.

Enrile also said that he did not think that Congress would have time to approve such measure before the June 2010 elections.

?But there is always a dream,? the Senate president said.

Enrile said it would be difficult to obtain three-fourth votes in the Senate on such measure given that minority bloc senators were unlikely to support the bill and majority oppose it.

Santiago said the Nograles proposal suffered from ?doctrinal confusion.?

The feisty administration senator said amending the Constitution is not part of the legislative power of Congress but ?inherently? belongs to the people who take part in a plebiscite to give this authority to Congress.

?The power to pass an ordinary bill is not the same. You can?t translate it with the power to change the Constitution. It?s like comparing a dilis (small fish) to a whale,? said Santiago.

?I don?t think at this time the Senate will entertain this,? Senator Arroyo told reporters. He also found the House measure ?hypocritical,? pointing out that foreign investments will come even with the Constitutional limitation.

No basis for innovation

?Let?s buckle down to work,? said Zubiri. ?We have one year to go before election.?

House Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora said he does not know what Constitution Nograles used as a basis for his ?innovative? mode.

The Philippine Constitution, Zamora said, authorizes only three ways to amend the Constitution: through a constitutional convention, a people?s initiative and a constituent assembly.

?Where is the fourth mode? It should be based on law and the Constitution and both have none. He must be using a Nograles constitution,? Zamora told dzMM radio.

Representatives Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel, Eduardo Nonato Joson and Teofisto Guingona III stood up to block the start of debates on HB 737 during Tuesday?s session, but got nowhere.

?Fr. Bernas says?...

Nograles stood pat on his resolution, saying that Fr. Joaquin Bernas, his professor in constitutional law, supported it. ?He says it is not illegal to do it that way,? he told reporters.

?I hope that this procedure would be brought up to the Supreme Court so that we will know once and for all whether this mode is correct or not correct,? he said.

Senate can?t block move

Nograles said he did not think the Senate could block Con-ass.

?There are many lawyers who believe that cannot be done, that one house saying no will stop that kind of mode. That?s why some of us believe when you talk of three-fourths of Congress, that means three-fourths of all members of Congress whether that comes from the Senate or House as long as they are members of Congress. That is a perfectly valid and legal question,? he said.

But Villafuerte is also against Nograles? bill. ?There?s no such thing as fourth mode, it is unconstitutional,? he said, adding he would personally question it before the Supreme Court.

?Dangerous?

?When we start amending the Constitution, we are already acting on our constituent powers, and we cease to become legislators,? said Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez.

Rodriguez claimed that the administration allies have resorted to this tactic because they know that they would not get the 197 votes to form a Con-ass even after gathering roughly 180 signatures backing Villafuerte?s bill.

?It is quite innocent,? he said. ?But this is dangerous. Anything can happen in a Con-ass.?

Game plan

Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay, president of the United Opposition, said HB 737 was part of a ?game plan? of pro-Arroyo lawmakers to seek the Supreme Court?s intervention in pushing Charter change. With reports from TJ Burgonio and Marlon Ramos