THE Congress of the Philippines is composed of the 300 plus members of the House of Representatives and 24 members of the Senate. Together, they represent over 100 million Filipinos who elect them every three years, believing these lawmakers truly have their best interests at heart.
Let us not dance around. The current tiff between the two chambers characterized as “august” suggests that both the House and the Senate are intrinsically old boys’ clubs (including some girls) who think and act only for themselves.
Consider the following: When SMNI commentator Eric Celiz asked if it was true that Speaker Martin Romualdez spent P1.8 billion in travel, almost the whole House membership pounced on him. They acted angrily as one, summoning Celiz and Lorraine Badoy of the TV program “Laban Kasama ang Bayan.” Not satisfied with the program hosts’ answers during a public hearing, the representatives detained the two for a couple of days. The House said the Speaker and other congressmen spent only P39 million on trips in 2023, very much less than what is allocated in the national budget for that year.
‘This debate will continue to boil… with us the people praying this could be resolved and will not metamorphose into an incendiary constitutional crisis.’
At the Senate, senators got wind of the “people’s initiative” to amend or revise the 1987 Constitution, which is being pushed by several congressmen, allegedly using public funds to bribe voters to affix their signatures to a document to be used to support a petition to the Commission on Elections. The Speaker denied involvement in the move but several senators were once members of the House, and their representative-friends spilled the beans.
And so, what is left for senators do? They signed a manifesto rejecting the “brazen attempt to violate the Constitution, through the people’s initiative” perpetrated allegedly by people identified with the Speaker. The “brazen attempt” is actually the idea of having all the members of Congress voting jointly to tinker with the Constitution, which in effect reduces the Senate to only 24 votes against the House’s 316 votes. The dilution of its votes reduces the Senate to the status of a non-entity.
The manifesto, a product of a three-hour all-senators caucus, was signed by all 24 senators and read by Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri. Senators Ronald dela Rosa, Joel Villanueva and Zubiri took turns criticizing the allegedly House-initiated people’s initiative (PI). The senators’ collective ego was pricked because earlier, Zubiri and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. agreed that the Senate-House resolution on Charter change will take the lead in the administration’s desire to change the Constitution, with Romualdez deferring to the Senate version. The senators consider the continuous and vigorous collection of voters’ signatures as a malicious affront by the Executive and the House combined against the Senate.
Indignant senators castigated the House for allegedly plotting to emasculate the Senate.“If this PI prospers, further changes to the Constitution can be done with or without the Senate’s approval or worse, even absent all the senators. Should Congress vote jointly in a constituent assembly, the Senate and its 24 members cannot cast any meaningful vote against the 316 members of the House of Representatives,” Zubiri said at the plenary.
He pointed out that “with both houses of Congress voting jointly, the Senate would be left powerless to stop even the most radical proposals. We cannot protect our lands from foreign ownership, we cannot stop the removal of term limits or a no-election scenario in 2025 or worse, in 2028.”
This debate will continue to boil as both the House and the Senate open their regular plenaries, with us the people praying that this could be resolved and will not metamorphose into an incendiary constitutional crisis.
