Press Release
January 9, 2006
PEOPLES INITIATIVE FOR CHARTER CHANGE WONT WORK DUE TO CONSTITUTIONAL OBSTACLE
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today
said the plan of the governors and mayors who are known Arroyo
supporters, to launch a peoples initiative to adopt major changes
in the Constitution, including a shift to a parliamentary system of
government, is not constitutionally feasible and is therefore a mere
exercise in futility.
Pimentel said that while the adoption of a parliamentary system, as
well as a federal structure of government, is a step in the right
direction, it is in danger of being rejected by the people because
of the Palace-inspired proposals, embodied in the Transitory
Provisions, that will allow President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to
stay in office until 2010, scrap the 2007 elections and allow
incumbent senators and congressmen to automatically become members
of the unicameral parliament.
The minority leader cautioned the local chief executives against
allowing themselves to be used by the President to perpetuate
herself in power in the light of the strong peoples clamor for her
resignation in order to bring back political and economic stability
in the country.
Im afraid the advocates of peoples initiative among the local
government officials will just be wasting resources, time and
energies if they will proceed with their plan without ascertaining
the constitutional and legal basis of their move and without getting
the public pulse first, Pimentel said.
The minority leader argued that a peoples initiative is applicable
only to minor Charter amendments, like modifying the terms of
elective officials and increasing the membership of the Senate and
House of Representatives or expanding the list of public officials
who should be subject to review and confirmation by the Commission
on Appointments.
However, he said that since the local officials are backing the
administration move to change the system of government, practically
revising the Constitution, the job must be entrusted instead to a
Constitutional Convention or Congress acting as constituent
assembly.
Pimentel said the 1987 Constitution limits the scope of the system
of initiative and referendum to simple amendments because it would
be impossible to conduct an overall review of the Constitution
through the direct action of the entire Filipino electorate.
He said the record of proceedings of the 1986 Constitutional
Commission states: The committee members felt that this system of
initiative should be limited to amendments to the Constitution and
should not extend to the revision of the entire Constitution.
Aside from this, Pimentel pointed out that the Supreme Court in a
1997 decision, held that Republic Act 6735, the law on peoples
initiative, was inadequate to cover the system of initiative on
amendments to the Constitution.
In the same decision, the high tribunal ruled that the Comelec
should be permanently enjoined from entertaining or taking
cognizance of any petition for initiative on amendments to the
Constitution until a sufficient law shall have been validly enacted
to provide for the implementation of the system. |