“They should not allow themselves to look pathetic and worse, ridiculous,” he says
(Eagle News) — Senator Panfilo Lacson on Tuesday slammed lawmakers who said amendments and revisions to the Charter could be done without the participation of the Senate, noting that such an interpretation of what the Constitution says about charter change was “at best, self-serving.”
“For their own sake, they should not allow themselves to look pathetic and worse, ridiculous,” Lacson said.
Lacson urged the lawmakers to “read the 1987 Constitution in its entirety, or at the very least, Art. XVII Sec. 1 (Amendments or Revisions) in relation to Art. VI Sec. I (Legislative Department) that explicitly refers to the Congress as the Senate and the House of Representatives.”
“They pride themselves as good lawyers in good standing, but it only takes a layman who knows how to read and understand simple words in literature in order to appreciate what is right and wrong,” he said.
Even then, he said the lawmakers could “propose amendments or revisions all they want.”
At the end of the day, he said a “plebiscite”–under which the proposed draft Charter should be subjected to under the Constitution–“would necessitate an item in the General Appropriations Act to be appropriated for the Commission on Elections..”
“Without the Senate, how can such appropriation materialize?” he said.
Senators and congressmen are at a deadlock as to how voting for the amendments or revisions to the Constitution in order to pave the way for federalism under a Constitutional Assembly should take place.
Senators have said voting should take place separately, as a joint voting would render them irrelevant given their numbers.
They said a separate voting would defeat the purpose for the establishment of Congress as composing of two chambers–the House of Representatives and the Senate.
But congressmen–led by House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez–have insisted the Senate’s participation was no longer needed, since all that was needed in Cha-Cha was a 3/4 vote of all members of Congress.
He said the House of Representatives could muster the numbers alone.