House leader says Senate should listen to business sector’s plea for Cha-Cha

Pampanga 3rd district Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr. (Facebook)

House Senior Deputy Speaker and Pampanga 3rd district Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr. has called on the Senate to listen to the demands of the business sector in pursuing amendments to the 1987 Constitution.

“So we are urging the Senate, which has consistently resisted any form of Charter change (Cha-cha), to heed the clamor of the business sector. We can accelerate capital formation and hasten our economic growth for the benefit of our people if we can introduce constitutional reform,” Gonzales said in a recent statement.

The lawmaker says that the business sector is clamoring for economic and investment reforms in the Constitution, which will lead to the creation of more employment and livelihood opportunities for the people.

Gonzales said that as per the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the number of unemployed Filipinos dropped to 1.83 million as of November.

This is a decline from the 2.09 million jobless Filipinos in October.

“This means that there were an additional 260,000 of our labor force who got themselves employed in jobs created in the economy through investments,” the veteran solon said.

“We could create more job and income opportunities for our people if we could attract more investments, especially funds from foreign investors,” he added.

Attracting more foreign investors to the Philippines is ultimately the goal of the House of Representatives in its latest push to amend the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution.

The current investment setup in the Constitution is said to be too restrictive to the flow of foreign capital into the country.

Gonzales noted that if the Senate continues to be dismissive of the House’s initiatives for Charter reform, House members may vouch for the people’s initiative (PI) mode of proposing constitutional amendments.

The lawmaker says that this is “a mechanism that will bypass the Senate”. — Dexter Barro III