‘Seven senators for Cha-cha’

At least seven senators are for Charter change (Cha-cha), according to the chairman of the House constitutional amendments committee.

In a television interview over the weekend, Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Constantino Jaraula identified the seven as Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Edgardo Angara, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Richard Gordon, Lito Lapid and Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr.

Jaraula said there are other senators who are for Cha-cha.

He said the House is hoping that these senators would show up when Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. invites Senate members to meet in joint session with congressmen to discuss constitutional amendments.

Otherwise, the House would do what it has been threatening to do — which is to go it alone and bypass the Senate on Cha-cha, Jaraula said.

In a resolution signed last week, senators expressed a collective position that they could not be bypassed on Charter change. According to them, the House would be violating the Constitution if it convenes as a constituent assembly or calls a joint session all by itself.

Angara and Enrile, who have admitted favoring Cha-cha, said they would not attend a constituent assembly or a joint session called by the House without the Senate formally agreeing to such a call.

The senators’ collective stand is shared by more than 25 opposition congressmen led by Minority Leader Francis Escudero and at least one member of the majority bloc, Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas, who has spoken openly against the assertion of an overwhelming number of his colleagues that they can ignore the Senate.

In Baguio City last Saturday, President Arroyo expressed her determination to institute political reforms by pushing for Cha-cha.

Reacting to Mrs. Arroyo’s statement, Escudero said the President failed to tell the nation how she and her House allies could do Cha-cha without violating the Constitution.

He said there is unanimity among legal experts that the House, for all its braggadocio, cannot really bypass the Senate and that the people’s initiative that barangay assemblies, upon the instigation of the administration, have launched is constitutionally flawed.

In fact, he said the Supreme Court has ruled that a people’s initiative cannot be conducted without an enabling law passed by Congress.

Moreover, even if a law has already been passed, an initiative cannot be used in such a complex amendment such as shifting the presidential system to the parliamentary form of government, Escudero added.

"Clearly, the President has not told us how she could do Cha-cha constitutionally. She cannot disregard the Constitution. I think the Constitution will not allow that," he stressed.

Escudero surmised that the President has adopted the Cha-cha "railroading blueprint" of her House allies.

Following such blueprint, he said the House would proceed to approve amendments without the cooperation of the Senate, submit these to the Commission on Elections, which has expressed willingness to conduct a plebiscite to ratify such amendments.

Alternatively, barangay assemblies would complete their people’s initiative, he said.

Cha-cha proponents would then hope that the Supreme Court would not promptly act on challenges to Cha-cha and would take time to resolve these as it is doing with petitions against Executive Order 464, the calibrated preemptive response policy and Proclamation 1017, he added.