By Liza Soriano
MANILA — Senator Chiz Escudero disclosed that House Speaker Martin Romualdez is behind the drive to amend the 1987 Constitution, saying that the latter revealed such plan in December 2023.
“This is clearly a politiko’s (not a people’s) initiative,” Escudero reacted upon seeing the video of Romualdez.
On December 11, 2023 during the Philippine Economic Briefing in Iloilo province, Escudero said that Romualdez announced that the recommended means to change the 37-year-old Constitution was through the PI.
“We are thinking right now of addressing the procedural gap or question on as to how we amend the Constitution. We will highly recommend that we embark on a people’s initiative to cure this impasse, so to speak, on how we vote. And I hope we can undertake this as soon as possible, so we could have some clarity on the procedures,” Romualdez said.
“So, we would like to amend the Constitution vis-à-vis how we procedurally amend the same. And that’s either we vote jointly or separately, we would like to have the result by and through People’s Initiative,” the House Speaker continued.
Escudero questioned Romualdez’s statements denying that he is behind PI.
“How can Speaker Romualdez deny he is not behind this ‘pekeng initiative’ when he bragged about it last December and took credit for it?”
On January 23, the Senate issued a manifesto signed by all 24 senators, rejecting the House of Representatives’ bid for Cha-cha through the PI.
(el Amigo/MNM)
