Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo tossing charter change to next Congress

MANILA, Philippines — Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo indicated yesterday that she is prepared to leave the matter of Charter change (Cha-cha) to the next Congress.

“We will bring it as far as we can bring it in the hope that the next Congress can continue the work,” she told reporters before the weekend.

She said the proposed federal constitution is “undergoing interpellation” in the House of Representatives.

“It’s the last of President Duterte’s SONA (State of the Nation) agenda. Everything else has already passed. So I guess we’ll be concentrating on that next week. Of course, we know that there will still be many steps (before Cha-cha can be finished),” she said.

In the same interview, the former president said China should consider itself as a “senior uncle” to its smaller neighbors and co-claimants of areas in the South China Sea.

She said she supports joint projects between Beijing and Manila “because they foster friendship and cooperation.”

Shifting the nation to the federal system was an election campaign promise of the President.

Duterte had said he wanted his congressional allies to finish drafting a federal charter the people could ratify in a plebiscite to be held with the May 2019 congressional-local elections.

He even created a 25-member consultative committee chaired by retired chief justice Reynato Puno to expedite the writing of such charter.

However, Duterte’s drafting and ratification timeframe is no longer possible, since there is still no draft yet the two chambers of Congress could agree on.

Besides, the Commission on Elections is now in the thick of preparations for the May polls, which the nation expects to push through.

Even if there were a draft, the House of Representatives and the Senate would still have to decide on how to tackle it and vote on it – whether separately or jointly.  

The Senate has not acted on the resolution. Sen. Panfilo Lacson has urged his colleagues to expel any senator who attends a House-convened con-ass.