Economic revisions alive, can still succeed
THE proposed economic revisions in the Constitution under deliberation in the House of Representatives remains “very much alive and can still succeed within this year,” a House leader said Monday.
House Assistant Majority Leader and Quezon City Rep. Precious Hipolito Castelo made the statement in reaction to speculations that economic revisions is dead because the Senate could no longer tackle it this week before Congress goes on its annual mandatory adjournment this weekend.
Castelo said the Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No. 2 of Speaker Lord Allan Velasco is still with the House, which is set to pass it on third and final reading this week.
“So the Senate cannot really consider it before we go on our annual mandatory break. We will transmit it to them during the recess and they will have time to scrutinize it and act on it during our third and last regular session, which starts on July 26,” she said.
RBH No. 2, supported by 293 of the 300 members of the House, proposes to relax the restrictive economic provisions of the Constitution by empowering Congress to change such restrictions whenever the economic situation requires it.
Castelo said the House would be busy with the proposed national budget for 2022 during the first few months of the last regular session.
“While we are considering the budget, we hope the Senate could find time to tackle RBH No. 2,” Castelo said.
She said the two chambers have enough time to take final action on the economic Cha-cha resolution this year or before Congress goes on its election campaign adjournment early next year.
Castelo said several senators have expressed support for the House initiative to relax economic restrictions “so the country could attract more foreign investments to enable it to recover faster from the crippling pandemic.”
She noted that even Senate President Vicente Sotto lll stated in January this year stated that the Senate was open to considering Cha-cha provided it was limited to economic provisions and did not involve political amendments.
“As we have assured senators, the Cha-cha push is confined to the restrictive economic provisions. There has been no proposal for a political amendment and the House will kill it if there is any,” she said.
