House urged to fix flaws in interim franchise bill

The House leadership should fix the “constitutional defects” in the proposed bill seeking to grant a temporary license to ABS-CBN to operate while Congress deliberates on its application for a fresh 25-year franchise, an opposition lawmaker said on Friday.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman warned his colleagues that the House risked the possibility of a veto by President Duterte if the chamber did not cleanse House Bill No. 6732 of any legal infirmity, including a potential violation of the Constitution, which states that no bill shall be passed “unless it has passed three readings on separate days.”

The 302-member House breezed through the approval of the provisional franchise bill on first and second reading on Wednesday, eliciting objections from legal experts who argued that no bill should be passed on first and second reading on the same day.

The House is expected to pass the bill on third reading after the three-day notice period.

But Lagman said the House leadership should rectify its error in the second-reading approval of the bill as it might raise a “serious constitutional challenge” for violation of Section 26 of Article VI of the Constitution.

That provision states that “No bill passed by either House shall become a law unless it has passed three readings on separate days, and printed copies thereof in its final form have been distributed to its members three days before its passage, except when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate enactment to meet a public calamity or emergency.”

This provision is restated almost verbatim in the House rules.

Lagman cited an opinion written by constitutionalist Joaquin Bernas that “in order to ensure a more thorough study of the bills, Section 26 (2), copying the text of Article VIII, Section 19 (2) of the 1973 Constitution, not only requires that there be three separate readings but also that the separate readings be on ‘separate days.’”

On the other hand, bills certified as urgent by the President may bypass the three-day notice period and may be passed on second and third reading on the same day, per House rules.

Lagman said the House leadership could not invoke this rule in the case of House Bill No. 6732, as the latter was not certified urgent by the President.

Reacting to the constitutional questions on Thursday, Deputy Speaker Neptali Gonzales II stood by the House move, arguing that “what the Constitution requires is that the first, second and third reading must be done on separate days.”

“It does not require three separate days. I submit that the first and second reading may be done on separate days or ON THE SAME DAY, depending on the decision of the plenary, without violating the Constitution for as long as the third reading will be three days after distribution of printed copies,” he said.