Palace confident federal Charter will be passed
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2018 09:40:37 +0000
Malacañang has remained confident that the bill revising the 1987 Constitution for a shift to a presidential-bicameral-federal system would be passed within the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo made the statement over the weekend after senators from both the majority and the minority said they see no future for the draft federal Constitution in the 17th Congress, which sits only until next July.
But Panelo, in an interview, insisted there is still much time left for the Senate to tackle Charter change and federalism before Duterte steps down in 2022.
“Well, kung wala nang pag-asa ngayong December, eh nandiyan naman iyong susunod na session, eh di mayroon pa rin [Well, if there’s no hope for it to be tackled this December, there’s the next session, so there’s still time],” Panelo said.
He added that the Palace is still confident that the Senate will support federalism after the proposed 2019 national budget is passed.
“Oh, definitely. Mahaba pa naman ang kanyang term [Duterte still has a long term to finish],” Panelo said.
Duterte is currently into the middle of his six-year term, which began on the afternoon of June 30, 2016.
Despite the House of Representatives rushing the proposed federal Charter, Senate President Vicente Sotto 3rd reiterated on Wednesday that the Senate had no time for passage of the proposed shift.
“We have no time to take that up. They should have rushed the budget so that we could have taken that up,” Sotto said.
On December 4, the House of Representatives approved on second reading a draft bill authored by Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo revising the 1987 Constitution’s current form of government into a presidential-bicameral-federal system.
Under Arroyo’s draft Charter, the President elected in 2022 will have a term of four years and will be entitled to reelection only once just like in the United States.
Opposition members of the House decried the rush to pass the measure through a resolution that was approved through voice voting.
But Arroyo defended the resolution on Wednesday, insisting that the proposal, which she authored along with several of her colleagues, had undergone deliberation of the 292-member chamber.
“It’s part of the democratic process. There was a debate, it was voted on and we sent it to [House members],” she told reporters.
Shifting to federalism from a unitary system is among the key campaign promises of Duterte, who vowed during the campaign to spread resources and political power to the countryside. CATHERINE S. VALENTE
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