House panel bucks plan to amend Charter

The House of Representatives will suspend any move to amend the 1987 Constitution amid the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the chair of the House committee on constitutional amendments said on Thursday.

Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said he would push for the deferment of measures that seek to amend the Charter in order to allow Congress to focus on government efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19.

“I am inclined to recommend to the Speaker (Alan Peter Cayetano) that we shelve Cha-cha (or Charter change) indefinitely so we can focus on measures to fight this pandemic, help our affected people and prepare the nation for postlockdown and post-coronavirus disease, or the new normal life,” he said in a statement.

Renewed pitch

An earlier Inquirer report said the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) had directed its regional offices and supporters to gather up to 2 million signatures over the next two months in support of amending the Constitution, with the campaign shifting online to meet a July deadline.

But Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, a key member of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), has distanced himself from the revived constitutional amendment effort, according to Rodriguez.

In an earlier statement on May 8, Año made a renewed pitch for federalism, saying this was in line with the government’s “Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa” (BP2) program to encourage Metro Manilans to return to the provinces.

“The DILG welcomes the institutionalization of the BP2 program since this has always been our battle cry in our campaign for constitutional reform (Core) which is equal opportunities for growth and progress for all. It has been a fact that development is lopsided in favor of Metro Manila,” he said.

“It is time to spread progress to the different regions of the country,” Año added.

Provisions

A total of 12 resolutions are pending with the House committee on constitutional amendments.

Among the salient provisions of the amendments being pushed by the IATF-EID on federalism and Core is a proposed shift to a federal form of government by dividing the archipelago into self-governing regional states.

The proposed “clinical amendments” also include a tandem election of the President and Vice President, as well as a ban on turncoatism and political dynasties.

But with the current pandemic, Rodriguez said the campaign was a “waste of time, effort and money.”

He said the House would not act on any related measure “while the Filipino people are suffering and are in danger of getting infected by the coronavirus.”

“So my message to Cha-cha advocates and their DILG patrons is: Stop it, it won’t fly while there is a pandemic,” Rodriguez said. —MELVIN GASCON