Opposition to derail Cha-cha

Opposition congressmen vowed yesterday to derail what they described as the "administration’s Cha-cha (Charter change) bullet train."

"We will fight tooth and nail to block Cha-cha every step of the way, and I think we still have the numbers to frustrate this hasty and mindless effort to tinker with the Constitution that is driven by greed for power," Minority Leader Francis Escudero told a news forum in Quezon City.

"They will try to do it by hook or by crook, but I believe they will fail," he said.

He said most of the 51 members of the minority and majority who signed a resolution opposing the plan of the House to railroad Cha-cha by bypassing the Senate have not changed their mind and are sticking to their signatures.

"We are for Charter change. Who does not want to improve the Constitution through amendments? But we have to follow the constitutional process, which requires the involvement of the two chambers of Congress," he said.

He pointed out that if all of the 36 minority members and 15 from the majority who signed the resolution stick to their signatures, it will be impossible for House leaders to obtain 195 votes for Cha-cha, since there are only 232 members of the chamber.

"Assuming they can convince 10 of the 15 signatories from the majority to change their mind, then we still have 41 to frustrate Cha-cha," Escudero stressed.

For his part, Rep. Renato Magtubo of the party-list group Partido ng Manggagawa told the same forum at the Serye Café that it would be difficult for any of the 51 signatories to change his or her stand on the railroading plan.

"Given the confirmed reports of attractive offers of huge sums of funds and other benefits being made by Cha-cha proponents to those who will support the railroading plan, those who will not honor their signatures will be suspect forever," he said.

He said those who are wavering will probably not show up when voting time comes.

"In that eventuality, they will be a loss to the Cha-cha bullet train because what the train operators need are warm bodies that will not only be physically present during the entire process of voting but will vote for Cha-cha," he said.

Magtubo warned House leaders that they must ensure that their allies who will attend the voting session are present all the time or the opposition will question the quorum.

Escudero also said that what happened on Wednesday night, when the majority tried to approve a change in the House rules that would allow the chamber to bypass the Senate on Cha-cha, reflects the hastiness of the majority’s Cha-cha effort.

"They just sprung up the proposed amendment in the rules. They did not even consult us, as is the normal practice," he said.

Rule 105 prescribes that proposals to amend the 1987 Constitution would follow the normal legislative process, which means that after such proposals are approved by the House, these would have to be sent to the Senate.

The change would eliminate the requirement for the House to send proposed amendments to the Senate.

Escudero and his minority colleagues succeeded in derailing the approval of the amendment on Wednesday, but the majority vowed to tackle it again on Monday or Tuesday.

Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez, who belongs to the minority, said what happened on Wednesday night "is one of the saddest and most saddening episodes in the history of the House." — With Roel Pareño, Marvin Sy and Michael Punongbayan