ang kakapal talaga!!! :headbang:

Nograles: Arroyo told allies to push HR 1109

By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr., Leila Salaverria, Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
Philippine Daily Inquirer, INQUIRER.net
First Posted 02:36:00 06/03/2009

MANILA, Philippines—Using their massive numbers, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s allies in the House of Representatives Tuesday night crushed all objections and passed a resolution setting up a constituent assembly (Con-ass) amid opposition warnings it would allow Ms Arroyo to stay in power beyond 2010.

In a marathon session that dragged toward midnight, a former administration stalwart, ousted Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., lambasted the majority vote as “a charade.”

“We oppose this, this charade… Let us amend the Constitution after the term of President Arroyo. That is the time to amend the Constitution of the Philippines. The best way to amend the Constitution is by constitutional convention,” said de Venecia.

Other opposition lawmakers accused the majority of railroading the resolution, which was approved by acclamation at about 11:20 p.m.

Approval of House Resolution No. 1109 empowered Congress to convene itself into a Con-ass in which members of the House and the Senate would vote jointly—not separately—to amend the 1987 Constitution.

Senators have said this would render the upper chamber inutile because the larger House membership could override any Senate objections to proposed amendments.

“This means that under 1109, we are opening the entire Constitution to amendments .... This is where Malacañang’s agenda to keep President Arroyo in power will come in,” Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño warned the chamber before the House leadership pushed through with the vote.

“This will allow our politicians to keep themselves in power,” Casiño added.

He said that with the majority’s insistence on such an “unconstitutional move, we are putting our democracy in danger.”

He said the members of the majority voted for HR 1109 on pain of losing their pork barrel.

He said one of the sponsors of the resolution had admitted on the floor that the "whereas clause" in the resolution that prohibits the term extension of the incumbent president and vice president, senators, congressmen, mayors and other elected officials whose term will expire in 2010, and that there would be elections in 2010 was "not binding."

Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez said the majority pledged to have an exhaustive discussion of the resolution in plenary.

"If we cannot trust them [majority] on this very small pledge, how can the people trust the members of this Congress as a constituent assembly," Golez said.

Gabriela party-list Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan called the proceedings a "night of ignominy" where the administration allies once again used their numbers to push their agenda.

“Tonight we witnessed a railroading,” Ilagan declared on the floor.

Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla, said the one-sided vote showed the “tyranny of the majority.”

“I believe in democracy, but this tyranny,” South Cotabato Rep. Darlene Antonino-Custodio said.

Quezon Rep. Lorenzo Tañada III said he voted against the resolution because Congress does not need to pass one in its use of its inherent legislative powers. He added he is also against the "crass" manifestation that the House alone can act in amending the Constitution without engaging the Senate.

“This is a massive deception of the Filipino people,” Anak Pawis party-list Rep. Rafael Mariano said. Akbayan lawmaker Walden Bello said the vote was in effect an extension of Ms Arroyo’s term beyond 2010.

"Have we no shame? Let us stop this farce immediately," Bukidnon Rep. Teofisto Guingona III said.

With the resolution’s passage, Nueva Ecija Rep. Eduardo Nonato Joson likened the country to a woman fighting off a rapist, saying “Huwag po kuya [Please don’t, sir].”

“Let us not gang rape our Constitution,” he said.

The House plenary will have to decide on when to convene the Con-ass, as well as the next steps to be taken, according to La Union Rep. Victor Ortega, chair of the committee on constitutional amendments.

To speed up passage of the resolution, the House leadership cut short the interpellation period and limited to 5 minutes the speeches of lawmakers opposing the voting.

At 9:30 p.m., Shariff Kabunsuan Rep. Didagen Dilangalen suddenly moved to close the debate after only five of the 13 representatives lined up— Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora, Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo, Guingona, Maza and Golez—were able to speak out against HR 1109.

Dilangalen claimed that the arguments raised against HR 1109 were repetitive.

At 9:53 p.m., the majority voted to shut down the debate and, after a 20-minute break, the minority resumed their opposition against what they called the majority’s “railroading” of the Con-ass.

Padilla said the mad rush to approve HR 1109 had made “this Congress the worst in the annals of history.”

Zamora questioned the haste with which it was being discussed in plenary, with only two session days left and with other key legislation pending for passage.

“Why the short cut? Why not go for the long haul, for the harder route? Why not eschew the easy path and make the amendments to the Constitution as important as the role of the committee on constitutional amendments?” Zamora said.

Gabriela party-list Rep. Liza Maza asked one of the sponsors, Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., if it was possible under the resolution to postpone the 2010 elections.

"Everything is possible, but it depends on the sound judgment of our colleagues," Barzaga said.

Ortega also echoed the same view, saying that they would rely on "trust" basis in implementing the “whereas clause.”

After an early afternoon caucus, the majority decided to tackle HR 1109 ahead of the other contentious measures pending on the floor, such as the bills on the right of reply and on the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Speaker Prospero Nograles then announced that the Tuesday plenary session would be devoted to HR 1109. As of 4:30 p.m., 211 lawmakers were present.

Critics have also warned that HR 1109 is a veiled attempt to stop the May 2010 elections and lift term limits on elected officials, including Ms Arroyo.

The original author of the measure, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte, had withdrawn support for it. He said he expected the resolution to be challenged in the Supreme Court.

Those pushing HR 1109 have said that they merely wanted to force the Supreme Court to rule on whether Charter change (Cha-cha) required the vote of three-fourths of all members of Congress, or three-fourths of the House and three-fourths of the Senate.

Arroyo’s tacit approval

The President herself gave tacit approval for Lakas-Kampi-CMD allies in the House to push for the passage of HR 1109, according to Nograles.

He said the decision to push for HR 1109 over his own HR 737—which seeks to lift constitutional limits on foreign investments through regular legislation, or the “fourth mode” of Charter change—was reached during the official merger on Thursday of the ruling parties Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats and Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi).

“The leaders of Lakas and Kampi decided in that meeting that this is one of the things that we will push for. I will not deny that she (the President) was present when we decided on that, but she did not say anything,” Nograles said in an interview.

HR 1109 was aggressively promoted for signatures in the House by the President’s elder son, Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo.

Although Villafuerte, the president of Kampi, decided to drop the resolution, Ms Arroyo’s allies in the House committee on constitutional amendments voted to have it debated on the floor ahead of HR 737, which has been pending for more than a month.

Nograles said HR 1109 was easier to pass in the House because it only required a simple majority vote (136) compared to his own resolution, which proposed a specific amendment and, therefore, needed three-fourths of the vote (199).

The latter is more difficult to muster.

“If I do not get three-fourths for 737 after nominal voting, the resolution is lost. It will never see the light of day, it will be buried. So we will not force a vote on 737 if we are not sure we can get three-fourths of the House,” Nograles said.

He added that his resolution would be tackled after HR 1109.

Congress is to adjourn on June 5.

‘That’s nothing’

Informed late Tuesday of the House plenary discussions on HR 1109, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile responded with a shrug.

“Wala yun (That’s nothing). How can they do it?” he told reporters.

Enrile reiterated the senators’ position that the House move to amend the Constitution without Senate participation was “an exercise in futility.”

“They need the Senate,” he said. “It’s impossible for them to accomplish that. Huwag ninyo nang pag-abalahan yan (Don’t bother with it).”

Said Sen. Francis Escudero: “It is only the President now who can stop the Cha-cha train in the lower house. She is, after all, the head of the newly merged Lakas-Kampi-CMD.”

But in a report, Reuters quoted Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno as saying: “Nobody believes there will be a constituent assembly in Congress. Nobody, not even the sponsors of the resolution.”

Gabriel Claudio, Ms Arroyo’s political adviser, said he doubted that the House plenary debate on HR 1109 would affect the “certainty and inevitability” of the May 2010 elections.

“I think the leaders of the House and the proponents of Charter change are just being consistent. They have said that as far as the proposal for Con-ass is concerned, they are just after a trigger mechanism for a case to be filed before the Supreme Court so there could be a final interpretation on the manner of voting by Congress in a constituent assembly,” Claudio said at a briefing.

“[The lawmakers] are very consistent about their observation that there is really no more time for actual changes in the Constitution to take place before the elections. So nobody is disputing the certainty of the elections in 2010,” Claudio said.

He added: “This is all the more bolstered by the successful merger of the two administration parties.”

‘Easy’ resolution

Nograles told reporters that HR 1109 was put on the table first because the right of reply and CARP extension bills had been discussed extensively.

HR 1109 needs only a majority vote of the House members to be approved because it does not propose any specific amendment to the Constitution.

“It’s a resolution that’s easy to get the majority [to vote for], as long as they’re all present. We won’t have a hard time getting that,” Nograles said.

“It’s not that we want to put it first. Let’s give it a startup … It’s very simple. It’s just a resolution. It only needs a majority vote. It does not need three-fourths,” he said.

Asked if the constituent assembly would be convened after the approval of HR 1109, Nograles said he did not think so.

“Maybe after we come back [at the resumption of the session]. Maybe after the SONA (State of the Nation Address),” he said.

If HR 1109 is approved, Nograles will call for a leadership meeting to discuss the next steps.

“It would have to be implemented. How, I don’t know,” he said.

Interior Secretary Puno said the Philippines would “completely lose its credibility” before the international community if it flip-flopped on its assurance on the holding of elections next year.

At a forum organized by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (Focap), Puno said his decision to seek the ruling coalition’s nomination as its vice presidential candidate was proof that the polls would push through as scheduled.

According to Puno, amending the Constitution before the 2010 elections was now virtually impossible. With reports from TJ Burgonio and Christine O. Avendaño

News analysis: Is Mancao's return part of con-ass plan?
By RAISSA ROBLES
06/03/2009 | 09:30 PM

Seven of eight Philippine presidents since 1953 have tried changing the Constitution. Only two succeeded: Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino.

Marcos used a sitting Constitutional Convention and Aquino a 47-member Constitutional Commission. Mrs. Arroyo initially tried a Constitutional Commission in 2005, and when that didn't work, a constituent assembly, which is what Congress formed on the late
evening of June 2.People Power may erupt amid 'desperate' Cha-cha move – analysts

Another “People Power" might erupt following the “desperate" move of administration lawmakers to railroad the approval of a measure transforming the House of Representatives into a constituent assembly to change the 1987 Constitution, three political analysts interviewed by GMANews.TV warned on Wednesday.

"The merger [of Lakas-CMD and the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino] and the approval of House Resolution 1109 were both fast-tracked. Obviously, somebody also wants to fast-track Cha-cha [Charter change], implying that elections won’t push through," said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Economic Reform. More


The 2005 effort borrowed heavily from the techniques used by the dictator Marcos in 1972. Among them: bodily lifting provisions from the Marcos constitution that would have given Arroyo strong powers and the use of "fast-tracked amendments" to the Constitution. Mrs. Arroyo even relied on some of the people Marcos had used, among them Jose Abueva, Gabriel Claudio and Victor Ortega

(see author's stories for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
http://pcij.org/stories/2006/charter.html;.../charter2.html; http://pcij.org/stories/2006/charter3.html)

The current approach that's now unfolding is more subtle. Senators have laughed at the House approval of a constituent assembly as “stupid," “insane," “a joke" and “useless."

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile bluntly said any amendments should be done jointly by the House and the Senate. “Ako ay nagturo ng constitutional law, I studied constitutional law as a student, as a lawyer, as a professor. I’m still studying it as a senator. E sabi ko hindi magagawa ng House of Representatives yan sapagkat the House of Representatives with due respect is not Congress."

He might yet be proven wrong.

The present game plan might be that the House, sitting as a constituent assembly, will suddenly change the form of government to parliamentary. Their opponents then wouldn't be able to bring the case to the Supreme Court immediately - it would not yet be what is called a "justiciable issue" because, as noted constitutionalist Fr. Joaquin Bernas explains, there's no controversy involved.

Bernas says the case could only become justiciable if the Lower House bypasses the Senate and goes straight to the Commission on Elections to order up a plebiscite on constitutional amendments it wants.

At that point, the Comelec would be compelled to say that it can't conduct a plebiscite without the Senate's approval - and the case will then go to the Supreme Court.

In the meantime there could be other decisive external events. Years ago, Enrile himself revealed how, as Marcos' defense secretary in 1972, he had helped arrange a bogus assassination attempt on himself to help justify the declaration of martial law. Incidentally, among those who helped Marcos seize power and certify it through a rigged constitution were two Constitutional Convention delegates: Gabriel Claudio (currently Arroyo's political strategist) and Victor Ortega (currently the house committee chairman on constitutional amendments).

What Marcos did was to declare martial law and using dictatorial powers, staged "citizens assemblies" to "approve" his rigged constitution. He then compelled the Supreme Court to approve what he had done by arguing it had no choice but to obey the "people's will."

The Arroyo administration rushed to bring home former police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao II. He is scheduled to arrive in the Philippines Thursday morning. The haste to resolve a nine-year old double murder case seems inexplicable.

One possible explanation: Mancao will blame the deposed president Joseph Estrada and his key aide, Senator Panfilo Lacson.

When this happens, government will file a murder case against Estrada and order his arrest. Given Estrada's popularity, he and his followers could resist this. Remember that in 2001, when the deposed president was arrested for plunder, his followers mounted a bloody assault on Malacañang Palace.

A similar incident now could be an ostensible reason for Mrs. Arroyo to declare a state of emergency or martial rule. During that period, Congress (which is mostly in Mrs. Arroyo's pocket), would not be abolished. In fact, because it had already conveniently declared itself a constituent assembly, it could be used to propose amendments ostensibly to remedy the emergency. It would see the creation of a new order.

As for the military trying to assert its role to protect and defend the Constitution, last May a changing of the guards took place. Armed Forces Chief of Staff Alexander Yano retired prematurely and gave way to his classmate, Lieutenant General Victor Ibrado. More significantly, Arroyo's most trusted general, Delfin Bangit, became head of the biggest bulk of the military, the 70,000-strong Army.

And when Ibrado retires early next year or even this year, Bangit, the former head of the Presidential Security Group, is widely expected to assume the top post. It's the closest thing to Marcos' General Fabian Ver. - GMANews.TV

(Raissa Robles is a journalist who has been covering politics since 1983 for Business Day, Manila Chronicle, Business Star and Philippine Star. She is currently senior Manila correspondent of South China Morning Post (HK) and Radio Netherlands.)

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/163989/News-an...of-con-ass-plan

Related article;

Most Pinoys oppose Cha-cha

Pollsters Social Weather Stations (SWS), Pulse Asia, and Ibon Foundation each came out with surveys showing that majority of Filipinos oppose Cha-cha.

According to Pulse Asia, the overall percentage of Filipinos against Cha-cha remained “constant" between November 2006 and February 2009.

In its February 2009 survey, Pulse Asia said 42 percent or about four of 10 Filipinos were against Cha-cha, 33 percent support amending the Constitution, while 25 percent were undecided on the matter.

The SWS survey also showed that two of three of Filipinos would oppose Cha-cha if it would allow President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to stay in power after her term.

Sixty-six percent of voting-age Filipinos were opposed to amending the charter if it would be used for Mrs. Arroyo to continue as chief official of the Philippines, according to the February 2009 survey of the SWS.

Survey results from Ibon as of April 2009 show that 80 percent of Filipinos who are aware of moves for Cha-cha did not approve changes in the Constitution.

The top three regions opposed to Cha-cha were Western Mindanao (95 percent), Central Mindanao (94.5 percent) and the Cordillera Autonomous Region (90.5 percent), based on the Ibon survey.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/163987/People-...move---analysts

Constitutional changes cannot change the behavior of politicians nor could enhance the constituency's clamor for transparency and reforms of governance. In fact it is catastrophic for a country that has been drowned with corruption. It is imbued and designed to the advantage of the incumbent to stay and wield power at his or her convenience thereby prolonging the country of being savaged by the same people and color in politics.

Shame! on those who advocated for the change. :headbang:

I would only agree to the charter change only if all current and previous politicians are permanently disqualified from running again for any elective position even as minor as a barangay captain. This is to ensure that their motivation for amending the constitution is not for their own personal gain. Additionally, the constitution may also include provisions banning once and for all political dynasties.

Not a single congressman would have voted for it if the above conditions were enforced. :armytwisted:

More about this CONASS (constitutional assembly)-
It is a constitutional assembly wherein Congress, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives will convert itself into an assembly in order to propose changes in the constitution. This cannot be done by the House of representatives nor the Senate alone. Converting Congress into a Constituent Assembly is a joint act of Congress. That's why we could not see the wisdom behind the railroaded approval of House Bill NO. 1109 except for the P20 million additional pork barrel to congressmen who wisely resorted to a viva voce instead of nominal voting.

I agree with Fr. Joaquin Bernas, a member of the 1986 CONCOM and dean emeritus of the Ateneo de Manila School of Law, when he aptly described House Bill No. 1109 as nothing but telling the Filipino people that the members of the House of Representatives are going to violate the constitution. They have not violated the constitution yet. They are just informing us that they are going to.