By ERWIN COLCOL, GMA News
Published January 14, 2021 2:31pm Crossing party lines, leaders of various political groups and blocs at the House of Representatives signed a manifesto supporting Speaker Lord Allan Velasco s proposal to amend the restrictive economic provisions in the 1987 Constitution to help the economy recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe that now is the most opportune time to resume the deliberation on the amendments to the economic provisions specified under Resolution of Both Houses No. 2 for the primary purpose of mitigating and providing lasting solutions to the devastating economic effects brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, read the manifesto.
ACT Teachers party-list Representative France Castro
The Makabayan lawmaker said there is no way to control nor prevent both houses of Congress from inserting political amendments to the 1987 Constitution, including term extension.
“Kung halimbawa po ang Senate na ngayon ay nagsasabi sila hindi lang economic provision, on party-lists, maybe on terms, anong mangyayari, Mr Chair? Halimbawa ito lang ang pinagbotohan natin and then sila meron silang iba?” Castro asked AKO partylist Rep. Alfredo Garbin Jr. , chairperson of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments, during his panel’s resumption of the Cha-cha deliberations in the Loiwer Chamber.
(For example, the Senate is currently saying that the amendments are not just economic provision, may include provisions on partylists, maybe on terms, what will happen, Mr. Chair? For example, this is what we have just voted, and they have a different version?)
By ERWIN COLCOL, GMA News
Published January 13, 2021 8:25pm The House Committee on Constitutional Amendments on Wednesday resumed its deliberations on the proposed amendments to the restrictive economic provisions to the 1987 Constitution. The said amendments are contained in Resolution of Both Houses No. 2 authored no less than by Speaker Lord Allan Velasco. In resuming the so-called economic Charter change (Cha-cha), both Velasco and House panel chair Alfredo Garbin Jr. had one thing in mind: lifting the restrictions in the economic provisions in the Constitution would help the country rise from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, some critics from both Congress and the public in general questioned the timing of the hearings amid the global health crisis, while others expressed fear that this would only pave the way for the introduction of political amendments to the Constitution like term extension for some elected officials or lifting their term limits.
Removing the party-list system in the 1987 Constitution will not address the problem of communist rebellion in the country but would only deprive the poor and the marginalized of representation in Congress.
Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez
Alvarez confirmed to Manila Bulletin Tuesday night that he had indeed declared that he wanted the double murder suspect cremated alive.
A fierce advocate of the death penalty, Alvarez said if he were to decide on Nuezca’s fate, burning, a manner of putting to death a convict during the medieval times, is the correct way of doing it.
“Kung ako tatanungin dapat ang parusa doon cremation, hindi bitay. (If you ask me the punishment should be cremation, not hanging),” the former House leader told reporters during a telephone interview on Tuesday.
Before its abolition, the death penalty was carried out through lethal injection which its proponents considered to be a “more humane” manner of putting a convict to death than the electric chair.