Angara, Barbers seek constituent assembly

Unfazed by criticisms that he entered into a secret deal with Malacañang involving the Senate presidency, opposition leader Sen. Edgardo Angara pressed on yesterday with a resolution seeking to convene Congress into a constituent assembly to amend the 1987 Constitution.

Angara was not alone in filing Concurrent Resolution No. 13. It was also signed by Sen. Robert Barbers, an administration senator who has declared his "willingness to be drafted" as a vice presidential candidate in the May 2004 elections.

Angara’s filing of Concurrent Resolution No. 13 fueled speculations that he really entered into a deal with President Arroyo to push Charter change through a constituent assembly in exchange for the Senate presidency.

The Palace has confirmed that Angara met privately with Mrs. Arroyo in December and in January to talk about national unity. But Angara and Palace officials have repeatedly denied any secret deal.

Angara insists that amending the Charter through a constituent assembly would be better than through a constitutional convention (Con-con).

A bloc of 14 senators, led by Senate President Franklin Drilon, had earlier filed another resolution calling for Charter change through a Con-con whose delegates would be elected in the May 2004 elections.

Both resolutions, how-ever, appear to be contrary to the results of opinion surveys which show overwhelming public disapproval for any attempt to tinker with the 1987 Constitution.

But the Angara-Barbers resolution noted that there was "a growing sentiment from several sectors seeking the review and re-examination of the Constitution to make it more responsive to present conditions and economic realities."

"Amending and/or revising the Constitution via a constitutional convention would be long-drawn and shall entail huge expenditures, an option that is ill-timed considering the present fiscal and budgetary position of the Government," the two senators said in the resolution.

"A constituent assembly is the preferred mode since it would present a less expensive and less divisive alternative on introducing amendments... requiring only a three-fourths vote of all its members," they added.

Moreover, Angara and Barbers said "a constituent assembly would be sufficient in proposing amendments... by confining the changes to targeted key provisions, to address the cited weaknesses of the Constitution."

Barbers said he supported a constituent assembly because a constitutional convention would open up the Constitution to wholesale amendment.

"A Con-con has plenary powers and could not be imposed upon to limit its deliberations to certain provisions or to finish its work within a deadline," Barbers said.

He admitted that he was interested in changing the form of government from the current presidential to the parliamentary system, as pushed by Speaker Jose to Venecia Jr.

Angara, chairman of the Senate committee on constitutional amendments, revision of codes and laws, has also long expressed support for the parliamentary form of government.

In 1990, Angara, who would later become Senate president under the Ramos administration, also filed a resolution calling for a constituent assembly to adopt a unicameral form of government.

The Senate committee evaluating Angara’s bill eventually endorsed Angara’s resolution but that was the closest the Senate ever got to consider Charter change until the Drilon and now the Angara-Barbers bills were filed in the Senate.

Earlier congressional initiatives on Charter change had been received coldly by the public which has hit Congress’s slowness in passing measures that would more directly impact on their lives.

The two most respected pollsters in the country have come out with surveys showing that Filipinos do not support Charter change.

Declared presidential aspirant Raul Roco, himself a delegate to the 1971 Con-con, has supported calls for a referendum on the matter before Congress presumes that Filipinos support Charter change moves.

Surveys have showed that Filipinos are more interested in seeing personal changes in political leaders rather than changes in the Constitution, Roco said.