Constitutional commission proposed for Charter change

A proposed executive order creating a 25-man constitutional commission that will work at revising the 1987 Constitution has been submitted to Malacañang, House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said.

The proposed body would be composed of legal experts, including former Supreme Court Justice Reynato Puno, who would be tasked to lead the shift to federalism, Alvarez announced on Tuesday night at the meeting of Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa) at the Manila Golf and Country Club in Makati City.

“This afternoon I forwarded the draft of the Executive Order to the Office of the President creating the constitutional commission,” said Alvarez.

Under his proposal, the commission would help Congress, acting as a constituent assembly, in amending the Constitution to convert the unitary form of government to a federal system. Alvarez said he hoped President Duterte would be able to sign the order and appoint members of the body within the month.

“So by October the constitutional commission will start their work to draft the revised Charter and perhaps in six-months’ time we also—if we are able to finish the 2017 national budget—we can already convene both Houses of Congress into a constituent assembly,” he said.

The commission will present its draft of the new Charter to Congress, sitting as a constituent assembly, for further deliberations and debate, Alvarez said.

If the constituent assembly can complete the final revisions by next year, the task of educating and informing the people about the revised draft can be done by 2018 in preparation for its submission for ratification synchronized with the mid-term elections in 2019, Alvarez said.