MANILA, Philippines — Much as Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and his allies in the House of Representatives would want to complete the amendments to the Constitution and hold a plebiscite by May this year, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said yesterday this is not likely to happen.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System yesterday, Comelec acting chairman Christian Robert Lim said the plebiscite for Charter change is not something the commission is preparing for at this time.
If ever the efforts to amend the Constitution do prosper, Lim said there is no more time for the poll body to prepare for a plebiscite.
“A manual election for Charter change will need six months to prepare. The public bidding alone would take about two to three months,” Lim said.
He said the only way the process could be expedited is for Congress to exempt the Comelec from conducting a public bidding. Still, holding a plebiscite in May would be difficult.
If it gets an exemption from public bidding, Lim said the Comelec could probably finish the preparations in three to four months.
“Our problem is under the Constitution, we have to conduct a plebiscite not earlier than 60 days, not later than 90 days. But we have to comply with public bidding rules,” Lim said.
He noted that the procurement of the carbonless paper to be used for the manual system of the plebiscite would take most of the time for the Comelec because this would have to be sourced overseas.
On top of it all, Lim said the Comelec does not have a budget for a plebiscite under the 2018 national budget.
“It is not part (of our preparations) and we need extra budget for that. Canvassing at the barangay level is a different process,” Lim said.
Sen. Francis Escudero, co-chairman of the oversight committee, said that there would be no plebiscite for Charter change this year because the Comelec does not have a budget for this.
“Unless Congress approves a supplemental budget, but right now, I don’t see this as a possibility,” Escudero said.
“So in spite of all this noise and exchanges in the media by the different officials, the Comelec has no budget for this purpose this year,” he added.
Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said the shift of government to federalism could help improve the economic conditions in the country.
“Federalism is the way by which our country can achieve equitable economic growth within our lifetime,” he said at the launching of a book on federalism drafted by members of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) yesterday in Taguig City.
Pimentel said the country can achieve economic development if proponents “stick to essence of federalism, that there is distribution of power at least to different levels of government.”
Lawyer Christian Monsod, one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, aired his disappointment at how the current moves to amend the Charter have neglected the promise of a new social order and are now geared toward business themes.
Speaking at the Senate committee on constitutional amendments and revisions of codes, Monsod recalled how the Constitution was crafted to “correct the injustices of the past to the poor and to dismantle feudalism that has been impervious to change to this day.”
Monsod said the promise of a new social order is not being kept in the current effort to amend the Constitution and that there are people who are even blaming the Constitution, which he said has all the provisions to fulfill that vision. – Ghio Ong, Marvin Sy