CAMSUR Rep. LRay Villafuerte has proposed that the called-off meeting between constitutional reform proponents in the Senate and the House of Representatives be held during the congressional break “to keep the ball rolling” on Charter Change and help lawmakers decide soon enough on whether to go ahead on amending our 36-year-old Constitution before the year is over.
But Villafuerte suggested that the senators led by Sen. Robinhood Padilla and House members led by Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez meet in an open session in the interest of full transparency, and not behind closed doors as preferred by Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri.
Padilla heads the Senate committee on constitutional amendments and revision of codes, who earlier invited House members led by Rodriguez, who chairs the House constitutional amendments committee, to attend the March 20 of his panel to discuss the House-passed Resolution of Both Houses (RHB) No. 6 and House Bill (HB) No. 7325, which both want to initiate the process of reforming the 1987 Charter in this year’s fourth quarter.
RHB 6 calls for a hybrid Constitutional Convention (Con-Con)—comprising elected and appointed delegates—to do a makeover of the Charter’s restrictive economic provisions, while HB 7325 is meant to be the implementing law for RBH 6.
But the scheduled Senate panel event on March 20 between Padilla and the Rodriguez-led House delegation was suddenly called off last weekend, after Zubiri said such a meeting, if it proceeds, must be held in an executive session or behind closed doors, because inviting congressmen as resource persons in a Senate committee hearing would supposedly breach the longstanding tradition of inter-parliamentary courtesy.
Villafuerte noted that Padilla was, in fact, quoted in the media as stressing on Wednesday the need for his Senate committee to meet with the Rodriguez group to thresh out their conflicting modality on how to amend the Charter, as this would help him draft his panel report on constitutional reform.
“We still have many things that we want to happen. The reason we can’t still adjourn (committee hearings), because we’re hoping that we’d be given permission to have a face-to-face discussion with our counterparts in the House,” Padilla reportedly told the media.
