House postponing Charter change deliberations
MANILA, Philippines — The House Committee on Constitutional Amendments will recall the charter change resolution it earlier approved after the Department of the Interior and Local Government – Inter-Agency Task Force on Constitutional Reform submitted proposed Charter reforms.
House Committee on Constitutional Amendments chair and Cagayan de Oro 2nd District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez announced on Tuesday on the sidelines of the briefing of the inter-agency on its proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution.
“The committee report that we have approved which was complained to be secretive, that would be recalled because there is now a new entry of these proposals and we believe that these are also good proposals to study before we send these constitutional amendments to the Senate,” Rodriguez told reporters.
Rodriguez said they will not proceed yet with the plenary discussion on the earlier approved resolution and instead reopen public hearings to discuss the inter-agency’s proposal as well as the House committee’s proposal.
“We go back to the drawing board,” Rodriguez said.
The House committee approved the resolution during a closed-door meeting in December.
The resolution proposes, among others, to extend the term of the congressmen and local government officials from the current three years to five years, and to add the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” on economic provisions in the Constitution.
“We are going to therefore not proceed yet with the plenary discussions on the proposed amendments, bring back our constitutional—the committee amendments that we have proposed and approved in the committee—and we are going to reopen so we can hear the proposals by the members of Congress and also go back to public hearings with the presence of media,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez assured that the proposals will be heard before the chamber adjourns on March 11.
“By March, we should be able to approve it so when we resume in May, it will be already the Plenary Constituent Assembly. So we are not rushing this anymore,” the lawmaker said.
But the timeline has yet to be approved by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, Rodriguez said.
Under the inter-agency’s proposal
The proposal of the inter-agency body covers various sector such as economy, governance, and election, among others.
Rodriguez said among the proposals of the inter-agency is the constitutionalization of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Mandanas v. Ochoa case.
A document provided by the agency explains that the ruling “clarifies that the share from the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) of the local government unit does not exclude other national taxes like custom duties.”
Other proposed amendments include:
-Creation of a Regional Development Authority
-Political and electoral reforms which include development of political parties as democratic public institutions, regulation of campaign finance, anti-turncoatism, and anti-political dynasty
-Liberalization of economic provisions under the 1987 Constitution
