Senate won’t dance House ‘Cha-cha’

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Monday described the Charter change (Cha-cha) being pushed by the House of Representatives as “doomed” as the Senate and the Filipino people will not support it.

“If the House of Representatives would insist on passing Cha-cha, make it a point to include their return address, because the Senate and the Filipino people will not accept it,” Drilon said in a statement.

Drilon said the proposal to amend the Constitution is not a priority in the Senate, echoing the statement earlier made by Senate President Vicente Sotto III.

“Our counterparts in the Lower House have the fighting spirit of a Filipino athlete. I do not want to dampen their spirit, but their Cha-cha is doomed,” Drilon stressed.

Sotto reiterated that while he is open to revisiting economic provisions of the Constitution but stressed “other provisions, I am not convinced.”

Sotto, however, did not oppose House Constitutional Amendment Chairman Rep. Rufus Rodriguez’ statement announcing that the House may convene as Constituent Assembly (Con-Ass) in January after the Christmas break.

“We cannot prevent them from doing so. To each his own,” Sotto said.

Last week, a still unnumbered resolution was approved by the House committee on constitutional amendments in a closed-door meeting.

The House resolution proposes, among others, to extend the term of the congressmen and local government officials from the current three years to five years, and to add the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” on economic provisions in the Constitution.

The minority leader said it is a self-serving move on the part of the House members to propose an extension of their term.

“The term extension is ill-conceived. It extinguishes all the good intentions they may have in mind in pushing for Cha-cha. We will oppose it,” Drilon added.

Drilon said the non-mention of Cha-cha and federalism in President Rodrigo Duterte’s last state of the nation address was a clear message to Congress that Cha-cha is no longer a priority of the administration.

“Apparently, the message was lost on the members of the House of Representatives. I had said it before and I will say it once more, Cha-cha is dead,” Drilon said.

Drilon also noted that majority of Filipinos were against the proposed shift to a federal system of government, citing a 2018 survey by Pulse Asia which showed that 67 percent of Filipinos opposed Charter change, with only 18 percent were in favor and 14 percent still undecided.