By Mortz
C. Ortigoza
DAGUPAN
CITY - Out of more than a hundred crowd
invited by Congress, only five wanted charter change through a Constituent
Assembly in the first public consultation of congressmen to revise the 1987
Constitution.
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| REALITY CHECK. Author, a radio commentator too, does some rabble rousing explanation about the pros and cons of charter change before members of the "Committee on Constitutional Amendments" of the House of Representatives. |
When the Committee
on Constitutional Amendment’s Chairman Roger Mercado asked the more than a
hundred attendees, at a hotel here, who came from the 31 villages of this City
led by their barangay chairmen, mayor, councilors, and public and private
officials from here and the towns and other cities of the mammoth Pangasinan
province if they favor Constituent Assembly (CA) or Constitutional Convention
(CC) to craft the 1987 Constitution, only five raised their right hands on the
CA and more than 10 raised their hand on the CC.
The
opinion of some spectators was either the attendees did not understand the
bodies that have been given a constitutional power to hammer the highest law or
they did not want federalism as the “silver bullet” to end the malaise of this
country if based on the pronouncement of Representative Mercado and others.
A
Constituent Assembly, according to Wikipidia, is composed of all members of the bicameral Philippine Congress (Senate and the House of Representatives).
It is convened by Congress to propose amendments to the 1987 constitution.
Under Article XVII of the Constitution of the Philippines, amendments pass upon
a vote of three fourths of all members of Congress, but it is not clear if the
Congress should vote as a single body or as separate houses.
