Defective from start

The debate stems from the Constitution not explicitly stating whether the House of Representatives and the Senate should vote jointly or separately on proposed amendments to the Charter.

While the Senate has all the motivation to halt the revision of the Constitution since the possibility remains that the chamber will be abolished, it holds the key to the whole success of the Charter change, or cha-cha, push.

According to retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna, the Senate’s participation in a legislative process is indispensable and is dictated by the provisions of the 1987 Constitution which indicate that cha-cha must be an “act of Congress” that requires the role of the Senate.

During the inquiry on the controversial People’s Initiative by the Senate committee on electoral reforms on Tuesday, Azcuna said it should be the Senate and the House acting together for an act to be considered as undertaken by Congress.

“Let’s say you have 315 representatives and 24 senators. You have 339 in all and three-fourths of that is 254. Of the 254, 13 must be senators. Otherwise, it is not an act of Congress,” Azcuna said.

The PI petition seeks to allow members of Congress to jointly vote on the proposed amendments in a Constitutional Assembly which will dilute the Senate’s power and give the House of Representatives an advantage by its sheer number.

The campaign supposedly led by the People’s Initiative for Modernization and Reform Action, or PIRMA, specifically asks voters if they are in favor of amending Article 17, Section 1 of the 1987 Constitution.

Retired Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, one of the justices who signed the majority ruling in the 2006 Lambino case, expressed the same opinion, saying that “nothing in the dispositive portion (in the Lambino case) reversed the Santiago case.”

Carpio said a revision of the 1987 Constitution cannot be done through a PI.

The debate stems from the Constitution not explicitly stating whether the House of Representatives and the Senate should vote jointly or separately on proposed amendments to the Charter in a constituent assembly.

To both magistrates, the proposed changes constitute a revision of the Constitution that cannot be undertaken through a PI.

Carpio called it an “exceptional departure” that can only be done through a Constitutional Convention or a constituent assembly.”

Azcuna, moreover, said, “Let’s say there’s no quorum on the part of the Senate, then even if the 315 congressmen vote in favor, it cannot trigger an amendment because it’s not the Congress.”

He added the PI which seeks to clarify the Charter’s provision on the Congress vote would be problematic and can always be questioned, especially with the reported payoffs and misrepresentations about it.

Azcuna, who was a member of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution, said he sees the nature of the proposed amendments through the PI as a revision because it changes the nature of the legislative body from bicameral to unicameral.

He explained that under the proposal for the House and the Senate to vote jointly, “the Senate and the House will become, in effect, a unicameral body.”

Azcuna noted that there is a provision in the Constitution that says Congress may vote jointly but that will be on the imposition of martial law.

“That is in the existing provision. That was not introduced by the initiative. If we want to change the voting, it has to be done by a constituent assembly, not by an initiative. In a constituent assembly, you need the Senate to participate, that’s why it cannot be done,” he pointed out.

The 84-year-old retired justice stated it plainly: The PI can’t prosper without an enabling law which was stated in the Santiago case in 1997.

The Commission on Elections cannot provide the edict to comply with the requirements for a PI under the Santiago law.

In the 2006 SC resolution on the Lambino petition, the High Court refused to revisit its earlier ruling in the Santiago case and junked all motions for reconsideration.

The PI stemmed from the failure of the constituent assembly initiative to get off the ground after it stalled in the Senate.

A PI cannot be used to skirt the requirement under the Constitution.

Thus, the effort has reached a dead-end as the House is barred to going solo on Cha-cha and neither can it push for a PI that is defective from the get-go.

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