Press Release
January 5, 2007

SECOND PEOPLES INITIATIVE TO AMEND
CHARTER WONT FLY -- PIMENTEL

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the Arroyo administration and its allies are harboring false hopes by planning a last-ditch attempt to revive Charter Change before the mid-term national and local elections this year.

Pimentel said the attempt by pro-administration groups to launch a second attempt to amend the 1987 Constitution through peoples initiative is bound to fail like the first one for lack of time and its doubtful constitutional basis.

Charter Change proponents are reportedly set to start a signature campaign for a petition to convert Congress from a bicameral into a unicameral body. They also plan to ask the Commission on Elections to schedule the holding of a national plebiscite on the proposed amendment, preferably to coincide with the May 14 elections for senators, congressmen and local government officials.

Pimentel criticized Malacañang and its political allies for turning back on their word that Charter Change should be pursued after the next elections. They took this position after the first petition for peoples initiative, which seeks the adoption of a unicameral parliamentary system, was thrown out by the Supreme Court and after the move to convene Congress into a constituent assembly collapsed.

Moreover, he maintained that it is inadvisable to simultaneously hold a plebiscite on the constitutional amendment with regular elections because this will confuse the people.

The issues of the election should not be mixed with Charter Change. If changes in the Constitution are needed, let the changes come after, not during or before the elections and let the process be done pursuant to the Constitution, Pimentel said.

The minority leader said it is extremely doubtful whether there is enough time for the government-led initiative to gather the required 6.3 million signatures, to pursue the petition with Comelec and to hurdle the expected oppositors petition with the Supreme Court within the remaining four and a half months before election day.

Pimentel warned Charter Change advocates against resorting to some hocus-pocus to short-cut the process by recycling the signatures that they collected for the first peoples initiative petition.

He said the signatures obtained for the first petition (for the shift to a unicameral parliamentary system) could not be validly used for the second petition (for transforming bicameral Congress into a unicameral assembly) because the two petitions deal with entirely different amendment proposals.

The lone senator from Mindanao also said it would be preposterous to ask the people in a plebiscite whether they favor the abolition of the Senate and House of Representatives and the creation of a unicameral legislature while they are in the process of exercising their right to vote for candidates for senators and congressmen.

Pimentel said the second peoples initiative smacks of the desperation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her allies to exploit Charter Change to ensure their political survival in the face of clear indications that administration candidates are headed for defeat in the coming senatorial and congressional polls.

If there are changes in government that are needed before the elections, it is the critical need for Gloria to get out of office, for the Comelec to be revamped, and for the people to demand for those changes, he said.

Pimentel also said that although the Supreme Court ruled in its decision on Oct. 25, 2006 that Republic Act 6735 (Initiatives and Referendum Act) is a valid law, it is doubtful whether the proposed conversion of Congress into a unicameral body can be pursued through peoples initiative.

He pointed out that the high courts decision clarified that peoples initiative applies only to minor or simple amendments but not to major amendments that are tantamount to a revision of the Constitution.

Pimentel opined that converting Congress into a unicameral assembly is by no means a minor amendment since it will overhaul the entire legislative branch of government.

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