CHA CHA: Need for Senate Concurrence Established

THE House of Representatives can't go it alone and will need the concurrence of the Senate to amend the 1987 Constitution under a constituent assembly.

The chair and members of the Consultative Commission (ConCom) spoke separately but expressed this common view when they appeared at the Senate initial hearing on proposed modes to rewrite the Charter.

"I believe in the Senate and House voting separately because it makes a lot of sense that in ordinary legislation either chamber has to vote separately, how much more on a very weighty matter of constitutional change?" said Dr. Jose Abueva, ConCom chair. The commissioners shared Abueva's view, but cited different reasons.

The Senate committee on constitutional amendments opened its hearings on a House resolution convening Congress into a constituent assembly and a Senate resolution calling for a constitutional convention to study and approve changes to the Charter.

The chair, Senator Richard Gordon, posed only one question to the resource persons: Can the House change the Constitution without the Senate?

"My very presence here speaks for itself. I believe we have a bicameral Congress and the Senate is part of the process," ConCom commissioner Jose Leviste Jr. said.

Rene Azurin, ConCom commissioner, argued that Congress, being bicameral, implied that "each House is separate, and it must vote on an issue independently." Jose Villanueva, another commissioner, said that one only needed to look at the tradition of rewriting the country's Constitution to find that both chambers of Congress took part in it.

"I don't put so much importance as to whether the provision says voting separately. You look at tradition, you look at history, and you find out that in every instance where the fundamental law of the land was enacted, the two Houses always voted separately," he said. Samson Rodriguez, another ConCom member, said that "there must be a concurrence of the Senate and a separate vote for purposes of proposing amendments to the Constitution if acting as a constituent assembly." "We are unanimous and we believe, as a lawyer, there is no other interpretation but it should be voting separately," commissioner Anthony Acevedo said.

House position
Cagayan de Oro City Representative Constantino Jaraula, chair of the House committee on constitutional amendments, had contended the House could introduce amendments without the Senate and comply with the three-fourths vote required by the Constitution to approve an amendment.

Under a constituent assembly, an amendment has to be approved by a three-fourths vote of Congress.

Gordon said that the ConCom's unanimous view that both chambers should approve amendments to the Constitution voting separately had erased all speculations spawned by the House position.

"What we achieved today is there's no longer the speculation that it's only the lower House which can do it themselves without the need of the Senate," he said after the hearing.

Raul Concepcion, chair of the Consumer and Oil Price Watch, and Commission on Elections director Alioden Dalaig also agreed with the ConCom's position.

House told: It takes two to Cha-cha
http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=63408
By TJ Burgonio
Philippine Daily Inquirer
19 January 2006