Sen. Robinhood Padilla (File photo from the Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Robin Padilla filed a resolution on Monday explicitly saying that the Senate and the House of Representatives should vote separately to amend the 1987 Constitution.
His Resolution of Both Houses No.7 (RBH7) sought to amend Section 1 of the Constitution’s Article XVII (Amendments or Revisions) to have both houses of Congress voting separately.
Section 1 states that “Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by the Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its members” or through a constitutional convention.
The chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments then proposes to change Section 1 to reflect that “Congress by a vote of three-fourths of both houses in joint session assembled, voting separately.”
“There is a need to amend the aforementioned provision in order to be consistent with the intention of the framers of the Constitution to adopt a bicameral legislature and to leave no room for interpretation as to the manner of voting which over the years have caused disputes among both the Senate and House of Representatives,” the resolution reads.
The Senate and the House have been in a verbal tussle over the controversial people’s initiative (PI) for Charter change allegedly initiated by the lower chamber.
The Senate is particularly against the proposed joint voting of Congress allegedly attached to the signature sheet.
In an interview over ANC’s “Headstart” earlier Monday, Padilla emphasized the need to resolve the issue of voting jointly or separately before Congress tackles other aspects of amending the Constitution.
“This is a never-ending legal issue. Even in the judiciary, several comments have been made. If we just absorb those comments, we’ll get confused. So I hope the 19th Congress will address this with finality the issue of what’s contained in Article 17 Section 1,” he said in Filipino.