Says PBBM feels issue ‘getting out of hand’
SENATE President Juan Miguel Zubiri yesterday said President Marcos Jr. told him in a meeting before he left for Vietnam on Monday afternoon that he would appeal to the House of Representatives and other proponents of the people’s initiative (PI) to amend the Constitution to already stop the campaign.
Zuburi said the President feels the situation is “getting out of hand,” amid the escalating word war among senators and congressmen.
In a privilege speech, Zubiri said he met with the President at the “Bahay Pangulo” in Malacañang Palace yesterday morning. He said Marcos was with former Senate president and now Chief Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile and former chief justice and now Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin.
“In light of the Senate’s unanimous and staunch rejection of the undemocratic people’s initiative, I had the opportunity to meet with President Bongbong Marcos this (Monday) morning). I was asked to see him at his home in Bahay Pangulo, and I have his permission to disclose what we have discussed,” Zubiri said.
“In no uncertain terms, my dear colleagues, the President expressed the need to protect the bicameral nature of Congress which upholds the system of checks and balances within the legislative branch and strengthens that check and balance between the different branches of government,” he also said.
“As such, the President is set to appeal to the House of Representatives and the other initiators of the people’s initiative to stop this dreaded PI or their version of the people’s initiative. In his words, it is getting out of hand,” he added.
The Senate leader said the President gave him the go-signal to disclose to the public what they discussed during the meeting.
In an interview after he delivered his privilege speech, Zubiri told reporters that he received a text message from Presidential Assistant Undersecretary Mary Lyn Lagamon on Sunday asking if he was available for a meeting with the President on Monday morning.
“Hindi ako pumunta doon (I did not go there [in Malacañang]) by myself. This was actually a message yesterday (Sunday), and I quote: ‘The President wants to meet with you tomorrow at 10 a.m. sa (at) Bahay Pangulo. Joining the President will be former senator Juna Ponce Enrile and ES Bersamin, and shortly after the President will leave for Vietnam after lunch,’” he narrated.
Zubiri thanked Enrile who he said told the President during the meeting that checks and balances in government should always be present.
“There’s always a bicameralism and he (Enrile) stressed that to the President today and he says that it cannot be done that the Senate will not be able to vote separately on the issue of PI. And ES Bersamin concurred that it was a flawed premise in the first place,” he said.
Zubiri thanked the President for his “commitment” and assured him that the upper chamber will remain firm on its stand against attempts to “destabilize our democracy.”
“We maintain that the ongoing people’s initiative is flawed and unconstitutional and offers no solution to the problems most urgently affecting our people,” he said, as he urged their House counterparts to adhere to the Constitution and abide by the intent of its framers.
He likewise reminded the House leadership that the Constitution is “not there to expand our powers as elected officials.” “Quite the opposite — it serves as a limit on the exercise of these powers,” he said.
He expressed optimism that the President’s directive “will reinforce the relationship between the Senate and the House of Representatives as co-equal branches of legislation.”
Sen. Chiz Escudero said it was high time for Marcos to stop the signature drive because the PI campaign has led to so much political in-fighting.
“Nasa kamay ng Pangulo ‘yun bilang pangulo ng bansa at dahil kamag-anak niya si Speaker (Martin) Romualdez, nasa kamay niya ang bola, wika nga. Pagsasabihan ba niya ang kanyang pinsan at kaalyadong si Speaker Romualdez na tigilan, tantanan na ito o hahayaan na lang ba niya at magkikibit-balikat at titingin sa ibang lugar at ibang banda na parang wala lang nangyayari? (It is now in the hands of the President because Romualdez is his cousin. The ball is now on his hands, so to speak. Will he tell his cousin and close ally Speaker Romualdez to stop this [PI campaign] or will he just allow it and shrug his shoulders, look at the other way as if nothing happening?),” Escudero said.
“Pigilan na niya, kausapin na niya. He should reign in his cousin and ally, the Speaker (Martin Romualdez), kaugnay sa bagay na ito dahil hindi ito makabubuti sa kanyang administrasyon. Kapag ito’y tumuloy-tuloy na parang wala lang nangyari at hinayaan lamang niya, sa dulo sa kanya rin mababaling marahil ang sisi ng ating mga kababayan (He should stop him, he should reign in his cousin and ally, the Speaker, regarding this matter because it will not do good to his administration. If this PI campaign goes on and the President just lets it happen, he will be blamed in the end),” he added.
Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III and other senators have earlier appealed to Marcos to intervene in the escalating differences between lawmakers from the Senate and the House over the PI issue.
Pimentel and Sen. Ronald dela Rosa have earlier tagged Romualdez as the supposed brains behind the people’s initiative campaign, an allegation that was dismissed by the Speaker but vehemently defended by other House leaders.
NO ABOLITION
House leaders yesterday assured senators that they are not seeking the abolition of the Senate but only to update the economic provisions of the 36-year-old Constitution to attract more foreign investments.
House Majority Leader Manuel Jose Dalipe said all the senators need to do is read the House’s Resolution of Both Houses No. (RBH) 6 calling for the economic amendments through a constitutional convention (con-con) and Zubiri’s own RBH No. 6, which calls for the two houses of Congress to introduce the amendments while voting separately.
“It’s very clear in what we’ve filed that only economic provisions will be amended. You can’t do something that’s not part of it. They (the Senate) filed it, too. I think they have to read first what we have filed instead of trying to speculate or think something that’s not there,” he told a joint press conference with fellow House leaders.
“Can they read what they’ve filed?” Dalipe added. “I really do not know if this is a strategy to stonewall again on a very, very important need to update the old Constitution. That’s what everybody feels, that they’ll stonewall again, that they block it again.”
Dalipe reminded senators that House filed RBH No. 6, which was authored and approved by 302 members, was transmitted to the Senate last year and has not been acted upon until now.
“If you ask us now, are we supportive of PI? Why not? Senate also filed their own RBH. We, all of us, I think, have the same mind, the same track or school of thought that we have to amend economic provisions,” he said.
Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, chair of the House Committee on Constitutional Reforms, said the House will work to stop PI proponents if the Senate will pass its version of RBH No. 6, which the House supports, before the Holy Week.
“So, the reason why there is this people’s initiative is because the Senate has refused to act on (almost) 400 measures already that were filed here, including the last one, RBH 6.
So that is the situation now, that is the present situation,” he said.
“They approve this before the Holy Week,” the lawyer-lawmaker continued. “And we plan to stop the people’s initiative to allay fears.”
Rodriguez said 358 Charter change measures have been filed since the 8th Congress up to the present 19th Congress and not even one was acted upon by the Senate.
He said the allegation that the House is out to abolish the Senate is “not true, it’s farthest from the truth.” “We have no plans to abolish the Senate, we need the Senate. We need this body to be able to have check and balance,” Rodriguez said.
During a party leaders caucus on Sunday night, Rizal Rep. Jack Duavit, who heads the Nationalist People’s Coalition bloc in the House, said “there is no way” that the NPC we will be voting in any form to abolish the Senate, of which five senators are his party mates: Senators Loren Legarda, Francis Escudero, Lito Lapid, Sherwin Gatchalian, and Joseph Victor Ejercito.
“And if we are not going to remove our five senators, then the other 19 senators can be assured,” Duavit said in an interview.
Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales, a stalwart of Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD), said political amendments are not part of the Charter reform advocacy of the House.
“Wala po kaming sinasabi na i-abolish natin ang Senado, guni-guni lang po nila ‘yan. Hindi po ‘yun totoo (We never said anything about abolishing the Senate, it’s just their
imagination). That’s not true,” he said. “We will embrace (the Senate’s) RBH No. 6 because that’s the economic provisions.”
Speaking for the National Unity Party (NUP), Bataan Rep. Albert Garcia said, “I would like to assure our friends from the Senate that we are not supporting any move to abolish the Senate. We just want economic reforms so that we can improve our economy to produce more jobs, better pay, and better lives for our citizens.”
Ako Bicol Party-list Rep. Zaldy Co, who heads the Party-List Coalition Foundation, Inc. (PCFI), said: “On behalf of the party, we would like to urge the senators to support the economic change that we have been proposing in the last four decades. We need a double-digit growth for our country to alleviate the lives of our countrymen. And it’s for the past years already that there’s no innovation that our country has been making on the economic change.”
Camiguin Rep. Jesus Jurdin Romualdo said the country has been lagging behind its neighbors in attracting foreign investments while Agusan del Norte Rep. Jose Aquino II said economic amendments to the Constitution will result to more jobs and livelihood.
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
Senate deputy majority leader Joseph Victor Ejercito said the Senate will convene as a Committee of the Whole to deliberate on RBH No. 6.
He said Zubiri will preside over the committee which will start with its discussions on Wednesday.
Ejecito’s disclosure came after senators said RBH No. 6 has been “sidelined” due to the continued PI signature campaign.
“I think, after the meeting with the President, at least, ang sabi namin we will do our part, we will do what was agreed upon. Itutuloy natin. Kung hindi nila ituloy sa House ang pag-adopt, then sila po ang ang hindi tumupad (I think, after the meeting with the President, at least, like we said, we will proceed with the discussions, we will do what was agreed upon.
We will proceed. If the House of Representatives does not adopt it, then it will be the one which will not adhere),” Ejercito said in a press conference.
He said a caucus will be held to finalize the plans on RBH No. 6.
Meanwhile, the Senate — upon the initiative of its employees and members of the secretariat — yesterday distributed maroon-colored arm bands to senators, their staff members, and guests as a sign of support and solidarity to the upper chamber amid the noise created by the PI campaign.
Senate secretary Renato Bantug said they picked the color maroon to represent the color of the Senate flag.
“And to recall, it is also the color chosen by our senators for their impeachment trial roles,” Bantug said. — With Wendell Vigilia
