Approval of martial law extension seen at joint session today

MANILA, Philippines - The two chambers of Congress convene today in a special session to vote on President Duterte’s request for the extension of his martial law proclamation, which is expected to be approved by lawmakers.

The current proclamation, effective for 60 days under the Constitution, expires tonight.

Long and heated debates are expected in today’s joint special session since lawmakers are still at loggerheads on the procedure of voting.

On the eve of their special session, the Senate and the House of Representatives could not agree whether they would vote jointly or separately on Duterte’s request.

Some senators have argued that voting should be separate, since the 291 members of the House could easily outvote the 23 of them, making their voice irrelevant.

Senators Richard Gordon, Panfilo Lacson and Joel Villanueva raised the issue of voting, saying the Senate and the House should vote separately.

But as far as the House is concerned, the manner of voting on extending or revoking the President’s martial law declaration is clear in the Constitution.

 “The Constitution is very clear and leaves no room for interpretation, thusly:
“The Congress, voting jointly, by a vote of at least a majority of all its members in regular or special session, may revoke such proclamation or suspension, which revocation shall not be set aside by the President,” Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas said.

He further quoted the Charter: “Upon the initiative of the President, the Congress may, in the same manner, extend such proclamation or suspension for a period to be determined by the Congress, if the invasion or rebellion shall persist and public safety requires it.”

“If the two houses of Congress vote separately in revoking or extending the proclamation of martial law, I am almost certain that the Supreme Court will rule such unconstitutional. Indeed, if each house votes separately and decides differently, we will have a deadlock and won’t be able to revoke or extend martial law,” he said.

Fariñas added the manner of voting as provided by the Constitution has been restated in the proposed rules of procedure for today’s special session on martial law extension.

Fariñas said the proposed rules have been sent to Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III.

“They’ll have to discuss that among themselves and bicameral leaderships will discuss it at breakfast tomorrow,” he said.

Pimentel believes the Constitution is explicit and clear that both chambers should be voting jointly on the matter.

“We are senators. When the Constitution says voting jointly then we follow. We are lawmakers hence we should follow the supreme law,” Pimentel said.  – WIth Evelyn Macairan, Christina Mendez, Gilbert Bayoran