Congressmen to push Charter change despite Senate opposition

The House of Representatives, voting overwhelmingly in caucus yesterday to pursue Charter change even in the face of opposition from the Senate, is eyeing parliamentary elections in May next year.

"The 2004 elections will carry on. The caucus voted to shoot down all no-el (no elections) proposals," Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. told a news conference after meeting behind closed doors with his colleagues.

When asked if the polls will be for a parliamentary form of government that the House is seeking to supplant the present presidential system with, he said "Hopefully, yes."

De Venecia said under his chamber’s timetable, "if the Senate agrees," the two chambers of Congress would convene into a constituent assembly to discuss constitutional changes in March.

They would take three to four months to finish their Charter-revision job and schedule the plebiscite to enable the people to reject or approve their proposals toward the end of this year, he said.

The new system of government would be in place early next year and the May 2004 elections would be held as scheduled but these would be parliamentary and not presidential polls, he added.

Several congressmen opposed to Cha-cha vowed to derail the rush to rewrite the Constitution and install a new political set-up.

"We will give Cha-cha proponents a good fight in the debates. They want the nation to experiment (with) a new system that would affect its life forever, and they want this to happen in less than a year? That’s ridiculous!" said Minority Leader Carlos Padilla (LDP, Nueva Vizcaya).

He said a fundamental change such as a shift in the form of government requires a serious and longer study.

Padilla did not attend yesterday’s caucus, but a number of anti-Cha-cha congressmen did. Two of them, Rep. Sulpicio Roco (Camarines Sur, Aksyon Demokratiko) and Rep. Crispin Beltran (party-list, Bayan Muna), went against the tide of pro-Cha-cha sentiments.

Roco is a brother of former senator and erstwhile education secretary Raul Roco, who hopes to seek the presidency in 2004 under the present Constitution.

Some 126 votes are needed to support the constitutional amendment initiative and Concurrent Resolution 16, which urges the two chambers to convene into a constituent body.