Speaker: There will be House quorum for special session

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. assured President Arroyo yesterday that his chamber can muster a quorum in case she convenes Congress to pass a law allowing a new registration of voters.

He said he was confident every House member will attend the special congressional session the President is intending to call because it is his or her duty to do so.

Besides, he said a lawmaker’s non-appearance in the session "will send the signal to the largest bloc of voters in his district – the youth – that he doesn’t care about them."

Mrs. Arroyo is planning to convene Congress in special session to approve a law that would enable more than four million young voters and those unregistered to register for the May 14 elections.

Belmonte, who is running for mayor of Quezon City, said there is already a bill pending in the House calling for a special voter registration.

The measure is authored by two administration congressmen, Heherson Alvarez of Isabela and Ignacio Bunye of Muntinlupa.

The Speaker has asked the House committee on suffrage chaired by Marinduque Rep. Edmund Reyes to do some spadework on the bill this early to expedite its passage once Congress meets in special session.

"If there is bipartisan consensus, which I know there will, the bill can be passed before sunset on the day Congress is convened by the President for this purpose," he said.

He said a House-Senate conference can be avoided if the two chambers approve identical measures calling for a new voter listing.

In a related development, former Speaker Manuel Villar Jr. said the Commission on Elections cannot postpone the coming combined congressional and local elections without violating the Constitution.

"The May polls are set in the Charter and I don’t think we can postpone them," he said.

Villar, a senatorial candidate of the ruling People Power Coalition, was reacting to the warning of some Comelec officials that they might be forced to defer the elections if Congress allows a new voter registration.

He said there is still time to conduct the listing since the May elections are still two months away.

A new registration will take only a day or two, and it can be done on a weekend, he said.

"We must not deny our youth the chance to participate in the first elections after people power 2," he added.