BY WENDELL VIGILIA and RAYMOND AFRICA
THE House of Representatives, sitting as the Committee of the Whole, yesterday approved Resolution of Both Houses No. 7 seeking amendments to “restrictive” economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution.
Congressmen adopted RBH No. 7 at the committee level ahead of the Senate subcommittee on constitutional amendments which is still deliberating on its counterpart measure, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri’s RBH No.6.
Zubiri said it will be a “big challenge” for the Senate to get the votes of three-fourths of its members to approve RBH No. 6 after the minority bloc said there are around seven senators who will oppose its passage, and because of “trust issues.”
House members have been egging senators to pass the Charter change (Cha-cha) measure before Congress goes on a Lenten break this month, as Zubiri earlier promised after saying President Marcos Jr. prefers that a plebiscite on the proposed amendments to the Constitution be held next year simultaneous with the midterm elections to save public funds.
The House leadership, however, said it would be better to have the measure approved by both houses of Congress this month so that it could be sent to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) as soon as possible for the holding of a plebiscite since holding it alongside the 2025 midterm elections would only “politicize” the issue.
RBH No. 7, which is almost the same as RBH No. 6, was approved by the plenary through voice voting on the motion House deputy majority leader Neptali Gonzales II.
Gonzales said the House is set to start plenary debates on the proposed amendments on Monday so that RBH No. 7 can be put to a vote for approval on second reading on Wednesday.
He affirmed that the House leadership is still going by its timeline of approving the amendment proposals before Congress goes on a Holy Week break on March 23.
“We will target second reading approval of RBH No. 7 next Wednesday,” Gonzales told a press conference with fellow House leaders. “I don’t know about the Senate.”
Unlike in the committee level, Gonzales said the second reading will be faster “because it will be limited to the interpellation of the members.”
DIFFERENT VIEWS
Zubiri said that aside from trust issues, senators have different views on the need to amend the Constitution as the strict economic provisions have been remedied through the passage of measures, including the amendments to the Trade Liberalization Law, Public Service Act, and Foreign Direct Investments Act.
Senate deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros earlier said she and at least four other senators, including Aquilino Pimentel III, Cynthia Villar, Nancy Binay, and Grace Poe, have been openly opposing Cha-cha. She said that based on their political mapping, the number of senators who will oppose Cha-cha will reach seven.
Under the rules, both houses of Congress should be able to secure the vote of three-fourths of its members to approve Cha-cha. The Senate needs at least 18 votes to pass Cha-cha, but with seven senators supposedly voting against it, the upper chamber is seen not approving it.
Zubiri said even if he finds it challenging, he will not ask the help of the President to convince his colleagues to vote in favor of Cha-cha.
“Because it’s more of an independent issue by Congress and the Senate,” he added.
He said the matter of how to tackle RBH 6 in the plenary is now being ironed out by the Committee on Rules.
Zubiri, in a statement in February last year, said Cha-cha is not in the agenda of the Senate, and senators support the President’s statement that the country’s problems can be addressed without amending the Charter. He said that during that time last year, around 20 priority measures were discussed at the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council and Cha-cha was not one them.
But in a sudden turnaround after meeting with the President early this year, Zubiri said Zubiri now sees the need to introduce amendments to the Charter since the Public Service Act is being questioned before the Supreme Court.
It is for that reason that he, Legarda, and Angara filed RBH 6, he said.
VOTING
RBH No. 6 and No. 7 are both titled “A Resolution of Both Houses of Congress proposing amendments to certain economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, particularly on Articles XII, XIV and XVI,” pertaining to public services, basic education, and advertising.
Proponents of the bill seek to lift the 40 percent limit on foreign ownership in the three sectors to attract more foreign direct investments to the country and create more jobs for Filipinos by adding the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” to the three constitutional provisions, Articles Section 11 of Article XII (National Patrimony and Economy), Section 4 of Article XIV (Education, Science and Technology, Arts, Culture, and Sports) and Section 11 of Article XVI (General Provisions).
The only difference between the House and the Senate’s version is the provision found in RBH No. 6 which expressly states that the voting on the amendments should be undertaken separately by the two chambers because the Constitution, while requiring a three-fourths vote of all members of Congress, is silent on how the voting should be done.
The House’s committee approval of RBH No. 7 was made after six days of hearing testimonies from numerous resource persons and experts, including former Cabinet members, former lawmakers, academics, Filipino educators and professionals based abroad, former Supreme Court justices, economists, and framers of the 1987 Constitution.
House majority leader Manuel Jose Dalipe, senior deputy speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr., deputy speaker David Suarez, who are the principal authors of RBH No. 7, alternately presided over the marathon hearings that started last February 26.
‘NOT CHARTER’S FAULT’
The three-man militant Makabayan bloc voted against the measure, saying amending the Constitution is not the answer to the country’s problems.
“It’s not the Constitution’s fault we are in this situation now. The fault lies in the policies we’re implementing on the economy, education and other fields,” said Rep. France Castro (PL, ACT) said in Filipino.
Rep. Raoul Manuel (PL, Kabataan) said the rationale of the proposed amendments is the “belief” that economic competition would be good for the country even if such “dogma rejects that there is an even playing field in the whole world and in our country and the free market is not as free as we want it to be.”
Rep. Arlene Brosas (PL, Gabriela) said while RBH No. 7 “does not directly delete the constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership, it transfers to Congress the power to do so through legislation.”
“Inserting the phrase ‘unless otherwise provided by law’ in a constitutional restriction practically allows Congress to change the Constitution whenever it wants to,” she said.
“Congress has a long record of passing and prioritizing policies favoring liberalization, privatization, deregulation.”
FLAWED
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, a leader of the opposition who also voted against the measure, said RBH No. 7 is flawed procedurally because it does not follow any of the three modes of amending the Constitution under Article XVII.
He said RBH No. 7 “virtually provides for a fourth mode of amending the Constitution by ordinary legislation without amending Article XVII of the Constitution on amendment and revision of the Constitution and without amending Section 19 of Article II of developing a national economy effectively controlled by Filipinos.”
“It is not even a constituent assembly in its traditional concept because under the traditional concept of a constituent assembly where representatives and senators assemble jointly, not as legislators enacting laws, but as constituent members of a unicameral constituent assembly to introduce amendments to the Constitution,” he said.
Lagman said the measure is also substantially flawed because the reduction or removal of the nationalistic provisions of the Constitution “is not necessary since the conducive economic environment for foreign direct investments has yet to be put in place by addressing the problems of ease of doing business, rampant official corruption, unpredictability of government policies, slow internet speed, and high power cost.”