“Congress then has only nine months from August and April 2019 to finish its work on cha-cha.

Speaker Gloria Arroyo and her new allies in the House of Representatives may have a very difficult, if not impossible, task of delivering two priorities of President Duterte which are ushering federalism through the charter change to coincide with the 2019 elections and, of course, the TRAIN 2 passage.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque pointed out that Duterte wants Congress to finish writing a federal constitution in time for the May 2019 elections so that the plebiscite for the ratification by the people of the new charter could coincide with the elections to save on cost.

Congress then has only nine months from August and April 2019 to finish its work on cha-cha, which is too short a time to get Cha-cha or even a plebiscite going.

Given the cha-cha’s nine months deadline, Congress will have to tackle the proposed 2019 national budget and other priority measures which should include TRAIN 2 and of course cha-cha and the federalism shift.

But within that nine-month deadline, Congress will be going on scheduled recesses for All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day and Christmas and the three-month election campaign starting in February.

So what will it be, yet another style of Gloria Arroyo to cast aside the National Budget for 2019 and merely allow the 2018 national budget to take over while Congress and the Senate concentrate on cha-cha?

who has the experience as President of the Philippines, to get the Congress to railroad the budget during election years—and of course will try getting cha-cha railroaded by her House.

But it failed and will likely fail again.

She also had her appointed constitutional commission that came up with a parliamentary system of government draft but having no support from the Senate for a charter change and a shift to the parliamentary system, she and her then House of Representatives’ railroading of cha-cha failed.

To be sure, Gloria and her allies will force through cha-cha and yes, federalism. However, what the House passes by way of a bill is meaningless as it is the Senate that is the key to the House succeeding in bringing about cha-cha and federalism.

Speaker Arroyo is taking a different position from her predecessor, former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, on the issue of going about cha-cha through a constitutional assembly.

Where Alvarez wanted Congress to go ahead with cha-cha even without the Senate, Speaker Gloria says congressmen will be working with senators on cha-cha.

“Speaker Gloria says congressmen will be working with senators on cha-cha.

As she put it: “It is a priority, but as you know, the House has already passed a resolution on that. So the ball is now in the Senate’s court. It requires the cooperation of both houses of Congress,” she told reporters.

But that is precisely the reason cha-cha may be dead before the House bill even gets read by the Senate which is not keen on a constitutional change to usher in federalism.

For Speaker Gloria and her allies, they may think it’s easy-peasy to get federalism going in the House at least. All they have to do is to vote– viva voce– to approve, in toto, the Constitutional Commission’s version for the federalism-parliamentary shift, dumping completely the unitary system of government with which Filipinos are comfortable.

That should be the fastest way to go about it—at least for the House that is known to force through any priority bill.

However, it is also the fastest way for the Senate to ensure the House bill’s instant death once it reaches the Senate’s deliberations.

As Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto said of the new Speaker’s move to get the Senate to cooperate with her and the House on cha-cha, the two chambers can come up with a law on cha-cha. “Let me say that perhaps the chances are very slim,” even as he said the senators are willing to work with Arroyo on passing reform measures even if some of them have misgivings about her election as Speaker.

It is possible, of course, that with the House already having a bill ready at the convening of the congressional constituent assembly, ensuring that the Senate will be voting separately and will get the cha-cha move going but not necessarily getting a Senate bill on this passed, there are more senators who are against cha-cha, whether through the constituent body on separate voting or perhaps even through the third way—the People’s Initiative—which by the way is mandated to only amend the Charter and not to come up with a revised constitution.

To recall, during Gloria Arroyo’s presidency, the People’s Initiative was forced into people’s throats, despite there being no enacting law and despite—believe it or not—getting signatures by staging barangay meetings and getting signatures from the attendees who didn’t know what they were being asked to sign.

For all the tricks employed, PI still failed—as will the federalism shift.

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