Despite survey, Cha-cha should proceed, says congressman

MANILA, Philippines — Both houses of Congress should pursue economic Charter amendments despite a Pulse Asia survey early last month showing that 88 percent of Filipinos do not support the initiative, Cagayan de Oro City 2nd District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said yesterday.

“The right decisions are not always popular. We are kulelat (laggard) in terms of FDI (foreign direct investments) in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations),” Rodriguez said, as he called on counterparts in the Senate to act on Resolution of Both Houses No. 6.

“The last thing the government needs is to always play the populist card which only resulted in the hampering of the country’s infrastructure development for the past 37 years,” the lawmaker added.

“The fate of economic Charter reform is in the hands of our senators,” Rodriguez said, as he urged senators to fulfill their promise to approve the measure before May 24.

He said the dominant view expressed by the resource persons during the House hearings favored the changing of foreign equity and ownership restrictions in public utilities, education and advertising, which are the only provisions sought to be amended by both RBH6 and RBH7.

Rodriguez is one of the authors of RBH7, the House version of the proposed economic constitutional amendments. The House has already approved RBH7 on third and final reading, and has sent it to the Senate.

The Senate version, RBH6, is authored by Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri and Senators Loren Legarda and Sonny Angara.

For the first time in 37 years, the two chambers of Congress have come this close to proposing amendments to the Constitution.

“And we are limiting the proposed changes only to three areas. There is no proposal to extend the term of any elective official. There is no political amendment,” Rodriguez stressed.

He added that the inclusion of questions on political amendments in the recent survey might have confused the public.

The lawmaker also pointed out that he continues to believe that changing foreign capital and ownership restrictions would bring in more foreign direct investments, which in turn would create more job and income opportunities for Filipinos.

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