Palace on Cha-cha: Long way to go

MANILA, Philippines – Charter change (Cha-cha) still has a long way to go, as far as Malacañang is concerned.

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said yesterday the Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No. 1, which seeks to ease the restrictive economic provisions of the Constitution to boost the inflow of foreign investments, would still have to be adopted on third reading and approved by a vote of three-fourths of the 290-member House of Representatives.

The House approved on second reading RBH No. 1 last Wednesday. The Senate leadership has committed to act on RBH No. 1 as soon as the House approves it. Sen. Ralph Recto also filed a counterpart bill.

“Maybe this is why it is better to wait for further developments and we also need a similar bill in the Senate, which should likewise follow requirements under the Constitution,” Coloma said in a press briefing.

President Aquino has been cool on Cha-cha proposals, saying there is no certainty it could result in better economic conditions for the Philippines.

Aquino has ordered his economic and legal teams to study the basis for the Cha-cha initiative being pushed by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and then Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.

The Palace has not released the results.

Cha-cha was raised when talk about Aquino’s term extension cropped up. The President eventually dropped the idea and said he would not likely pursue constitutional amendments during his term.

But Sen. Sergio Osmeña III, chair of the Senate committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies, said yesterday the amendments to the economic provisions of the Constitution are more likely get massive support at the Senate compared to the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).

“If you are only talking about the economic provisions, it has a good chance of passing. We are going on a break on June 11.  I am hopeful that we should be able to pass that by December,” he said over ANC’s Headstart.

Osmeña urged the public to be more circumspect in dealing with amending the Constitution, especially in opening the country to foreign ownership of businesses because the government should open up to foreign investments for the economy to prosper.

“The world is coming together, barriers are coming down, we should not keep up our artificial barriers that foreigners cannot own banks. We’ve removed that already and it has not harmed our economy, it’s helping our economy to have more investments here,” he added.

Asked what he wants to amend in Cha-cha in particular, Osmeña said he would allow foreign ownership of media and real estate in the country.

“I would allow them to own and there’d be a debate in Congress when we consider such changes, they’ll probably say okay can we limit it to 40 percent for media for example. My debate, my answer to that would be, excuse me, got cable TV, 99 percent of your channels are foreign… we are watching CNN, BBC,” Osmeña said.

Osmeña suggested that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) may opt to conduct a plebiscite both for the BBL and economic Cha-cha.

“If you are going to have a plebiscite for the BBL in a nationwide basis and then you have two questions on one ballot, it will be cheaper for us,” he added.

Belmonte said he would want a national plebiscite on the RBH1 to coincide with the 2016 elections, and would ask the Comelec to include the question on economic Cha-cha in the ballot. – With Christina Mendez