The move to change the form of government in the country to federalism will be the legislative priority of the Senate this year.
This was bared by Senate President Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel III in a chance interview in Davao City.
“Panahon na, kasi nagme-mental checklist ako sa ano man yung pinangako sa taumbayan halos nabigay na lahat (Its about time because when I go to the checklist of things we promised during the campaign, most of them were already given),” he said.
Pimentel said as soon as this will be discussed in the Senate, he will set a timetable that will set the plebiscite on May 2019. This is in contrary with the proposal House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez that the plebiscite will be done May of this year.
“Siympre if mag plebiscite na this May, there will be new constitution. Hence, the elections willl be dependent on the new constitution (Of course, if the plebiscite will happen this May, there will be a new constitution. Hence, the elections will be dependent on the new constitution),” he said.
The Senate President clarified that the no election rumor in 2019 is impossible to happen because there is no specific model of constitution being crafted.
On the side of House of Representatives, PBA party-list representative Jericho Nograles said the no election scenario should be understood in context.
“Why context? Because by default there is still election. It is in our constitution that that there should be an election. So, we need to have that election,” he said.
Nograles said the possible instances that the election will not happen if there is charter change in which the government form will change to parliamentary from presidential.
“You could say we have no election because we have a new kind of election,” he said. He said now that the both leaders of the two legislative chambers agreed to pursue this, all legislators can start to craft a new constitution.
“We are treading into new territory because this is the first time that we are going this far in proposing ammendments to the constitution.
I will emphasize proposing ammendments its not ammendments alon because this will depend on the people,” he said.
Nograles said people can ratify the constitution through a plebiscite that can be included in the mid-term elections next year.
