THE DUTERTE administration never hid its desire to change the Constitution. Right off the bat it advertised its bias for a federal form of government, eventually forming a consultative committee to review the 1987 Constitution.
That committee’s draft Constitution to replace the 1987 Constitution has been consigned to oblivion. The Senate, as then constituted, did not agree to be the second half of a constituent assembly that would give fruition to all those efforts.
The 2019 elections came and went. The senatorial slate of the administration shellacked the opposition’s “ocho derecho.” The Senate is practically pro-administration. This would be the perfect time for government to push the agenda for constitutional change.
Despite the resounding victory at the polls, however, only two senators have so far come up to support amendments to the Constitution at this time of COVID.
On Dec. 7, 2020, senators Francis Tolentino and Ronald Dela Rosa filed Senate Resolution of Both Houses No. 2, which proposes that Congress be constituted as a constituent assembly for the purpose of adopting amendments, “limited to the provisions on democratic representation and the economic provisions of the Constitution.”
There is no news that the Senate, as a whole, has favorably acted on this resolution.
In the meantime, the Committee on Constitutional Amendments of the House of Representatives has convened to get the ball rolling in amending certain economic provisions in the Constitution. The House has thus gone ahead of the Senate.
AKO-Bicol party-list Rep. Alfredo Garbin, chairperson of the committee, justified the House action, saying there is no need for the Senate and the House of Representatives to jointly convene in order to begin consideration of the proposed amendments.
Garbin said the Senate can hold deliberations the same way as ordinary legislation, so there is no need for both chambers to convene to hold Cha-cha debates.
The power to propose amendments to the Constitution is in the nature of constituent power. This is not the same as legislative power where the houses of Congress separately consider proposed laws, reconcile them, and submit them to the President for his signature.
A major identifying mark of a Constitution is permanence. It is unlike an ordinary piece of legislation that can be easily revised or repealed. It requires a more stringent amending or revising process because it was directly adopted or enacted by the people through a plebiscite.
One such process is the convening of Congress acting as a constituent assembly.
Unfortunately, the 1987 Constitution is quite vague as to how to proceed with the process. Section 1 of Article 17 merely provides that any amendment to, or revision of, the Constitution may be proposed by the Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its members.
Contrast this to the language of the 1935 Constitution. It states clearly that “the Congress in joint session assembled, by a vote of three-fourths of all the members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives voting separately, may propose amendments to this Constitution or call a convention for that purpose.”
The 1935 Constitution required a joint session of the houses. Each house hearing amendments separately and by committee like ordinary legislation was not apprehended by that Constitution.
A joint session requires that members of both houses get together and debate the proposals, and thereafter vote separately whether to carry them.
The failure of the 1987 Constitution to provide for the same process was caused by plain oversight. The Constitutional Commission forgot to change the provisions for constitutional amendments following a change in constitutional design from a unicameral to a bicameral Congress.
The Lower House acting alone at this point raises serious legal concerns. It invites a petition seeking judicial intercession. House leaders are most likely aware of these issues.
Given the limited time from now until the filing of certificates of candidacy in October, and the Senate not acting with the same enthusiasm, congressmen are nonetheless going through the motions, somehow reinforcing belief that this is not a serious effort at all, but is intended principally to comply with certain commitments made as a condition to leadership change./PN
