Marcos: Senate, House now at concensus on Chacha talks

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. said both Houses of Congress were on the same page in deliberating several amendments to the 1987 Constitution. 

Marcos said the Senate and the House of Representatives have "arrived at a consensus" to only reviewing the economic provisions. 

“So, that is the legislative state of play as it were. The Senate is continuing with the hearings. The House of Representatives has already passed on [the] second reading. What is more important than all of that for me, is that it is practically the same resolution,” Marcos said. 

Marcos said it seemed that the issue was “going down a common road now between the two houses.”

“And that is... that’s for me is the key point in this process. We have arrived at a consensus,” he added.

“We all knew how this when this began, how contentious this was. Well, we seem to be going down a common road now between the two Houses. So, that’s the, that for me is the important thing,” Marcos further stressed. 

In a separate interview, Senate President Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri cued reporters that the passage of the constitutional amendments “was on track.”

“Yes, we are… With Senator (Juan Edgardo) Angara, we have about three more hearings left and then we'll be taking it up on plenary. And hopefully, putting it in a vote,” he told reporters in an interview in Prague, Czech Republic on Friday night (Manila time).

“And we're convincing our colleagues... that we have a three-fourth vote of this measure. We're on track. We're on track,” he added.

The House Committee of the Whole earlier approved Resolutions of Both Houses No. 7 (RBH 7), which seeks to amend the 1987 Constitution by allowing increased foreign ownership of vital industries.

RBH 7 provides for the easing of the 40 percent—foreign ownership limit on education, public utilities, and advertising sectors by adding the phrase “unless provided for by law.”

Marcos earlier pointed out “that the existing economic provisions are hindering potential investors from proceeding with their operations in the country.”

Speaker Martin Romualdez, for his part, said they have consumed a substantial amount of time deliberating on the RBH 7. He said he would let the discussions focus on it. 

“The House also exhaustively went through the process. We’ve been hearing for 12 hours. Hearing all those pro and against them. That said, we should. But again, to that context, it’s just that on the part of the House, we have already been through this whole process,” Romualdez said.