Pimentel: Senate, House ‘momentarily set aside’ disputes on Cha-cha

Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/MARIANNE BERMUDEZ)

The Senate and the House of Representatives have agreed to “momentarily set aside” their differences and instead focus on specific amendments or revisions to propose in the 1987 Constitution, Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said on Thursday.

Pimentel said the agreement was reached after he met with House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, Sr. along with Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III on Wednesday night.

“We have decided to focus on the revisions that have to be made rather than how these changes will be effected,” the Senate leader said.

The Senate and the House have been at loggerheads on how Congress should vote on amending or revising the Constitution as congressmen believe that the two chambers should vote jointly while senators insist it should be done separately.

But Pimentel said the differing legal views on how to amend the Constitution “should not distract us from the crux of this exercise: to make revisions to the charter that will help improve our people’s lives.”

“I believe it is abundantly clear that a review of our Charter is long overdue, as repeatedly stressed by the resource persons at the Senate hearing tackling constitutional amendments,” he noted.

“But we need to determine first what exact amendments or revisions will benefit the people. After this we can tackle how we will go about enacting these amendments in a manner that maximizes citizen involvement and is consistent with the law,” added Pimentel, president of PDP-Laban, which has been at the forefront of the campaign advocating for a shift to a federal form of government.

Pimentel pointed out that during the January 17 hearing of the Senate committee on constitutional amendments and revision of codes, some legal luminaries also believed that it was high time to review and make changes to the more than three decades-old Constitution.

Retired Supreme Court (SC) Justice Adolfo Azcuna, a member of the 1986 Constitutional Convention, said that the present Constitution is the “longest running” Constitution of the Philippines that is unmodified, and which not a single comma has been changed.

“Should you amend or revise the Constitution? Yes, because it’s already 30 years,” Pimentel’s statement stated, quoting Azcuna.

Pimentel also noted former SC Chief Reynato Puno’s position during the hearing that the 1987 Constitution should be given a “look over, a no-nonsense review.”

“Conditions have changed. The political, the social and the economic configuration, not only of the Philippines, but the whole world have changed. We now have globalization. We now see the effects of the revolution caused by technology,” Puno had said.              /kga