HOUSE Majority Leader Manuel Jose “Mannix” M. Dalipe on Monday assured his colleagues that plenary deliberations on Resolution of Both Houses No. 7, which contains proposed amendments to the Constitution’s restrictive economic provisions, will be exhaustive.
“Ine-expect namin na maraming pwedeng magtanong, so we are, binibigyan natin ng tatlong araw na plenary debates ang ating RBH No. 7. Hindi lang isang araw, hindi lang dalawang araw kundi tatlong araw na debates, deliberation on second reading. And hopefully by Wednesday, we can vote on the matter on second reading,” Dalipe told a news briefing.
He said the time the House would allot for plenary debates would depend on the number of members who would register with him to ask questions about the amendment proposals.
“We resume session at 3 p.m. Depending on the number of interpellators, we will see up to what time we will adjourn session. But definitely, we will give all members of the House who would want to discuss, interpellate and debate on the matter…their opportune time,” he said.
However, Dalipe said he expects the plenary debates on RBH No. 7 to be shorter than the two-week proceedings of the Committee of the Whole House, where experts on law, education, advertising, the Constitution, and other resource persons gave their views on the proposed economic amendments to the constitution.
“So, mas mahaba po iyong oras doon sa Committee of the Whole House kasi mahaba rin iyong mga sagot ng ating mga resource person at we would like to get all the datas and inputs especially from those who have experiences in the global perspective,” he added.
“I am so sure that this (plenary) will not be longer. Based on our experience, the plenary sponsorship and debate on the second reading of RBH7 will be quite a little bit shorter than those compared with the Committee of the Whole House. Dito, although we would exhaustively discuss this, that’s why we are giving three days for the debates on the second reading,” he stressed.
Cagayan de Oro City 1st District Rep. Lordan Suan said the length of time the House is devoting to debates “goes to show that the House is really sincere in coming up with a good bill, with a good measure that is exhaustively discussed.”
“Both sides are really given a chance to air out their opinions, their concerns. I think this is very important for a democracy. So that, if this passes it means that it has gone through a baptism of fire and that is exactly what we need,” he said.
“It’s been said that the purpose of argument or discussion should not be victory but progress. And progress is what we are aiming for in all our discussions on economic charter change,” he added.
For his part, 1-RIDER Party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez recalled that the House leadership had promised extensive deliberations during the Committee of the Whole House proceedings.
“Thankfully, the leadership under Speaker (Ferdinand Martin) Romualdez, they assured us that it would be exhaustive and they were exhaustive. We would finish our hearings at 10 p.m., 11 p.m., at talagang they didn’t closed the day until lahat po nakapag interpellate,” Gutierrez said.
“So moving forward into the process…we are anticipating that the same exhaustive deliberations would be afforded po to the members of the minority that we would have that assurance that we could really thresh out these issues kahit dito po sa plenary deliberations,” he said.
