MANILA, Philippines — The House constitutional amendments committee wants to wrap up its deliberations on proposed changes to the Charter soon so it can send the proposals for discussions in plenary by February.
Rep. Alfredo Garbin (AKO BICOL party-list), who chairs the panel, told a news conference that he is eyeing plenary debates on the proposal of House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco to amend the Constitution’s “restrictive” economic provisions in the first week of February.
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“We still have one to two hearings in the committee and we’ll come out with the committee report which would exclusively deal with the economic provisions,” Garbin said Wednesday.
Garbin previously told Philstar.com that his panel will still hold two to three hearings before they approve of Velasco’s proposal, which has earned the backing of major political blocs in the House.
Velasco’s proposal seeks to allow Congress to lift the constitutional restrictions on foreign investments in land, natural resources, public utilities, educational institutions, media and advertising.
He wants this done by inserting the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” in the provisions, which would give Congress the leeway to pass laws to change the constitutional requirements.
Business groups are supportive of amending the Constitution to liberalize its economic provisions, but are wary over its timing, given that the country is still facing the economic fallout due to the pandemic and that the proposal to change the Charter comes just 15 months before Filipinos select a new set of leaders.
But for Garbin, now is the time to introduce amendments to the Constitution.
“It’s always the right time to do the right thing,” he said. “We want to send a signal to the business community that we are now open and that the restrictive policy will be lifted.”
House members have repeatedly said that they would only propose changes to economic provisions, but political observers are wary that any move to tinker with the Constitution would open the floodgates to any kind of amendments, including those that would benefit lawmakers such as term extensions or lifting of term limits.