Resolve Cha-cha issue, Padilla asks high court

(UPDATES) SEN. Robinhood Padilla filed a petition before the Supreme Court on Monday asking it to determine whether the Senate and the House of Representatives should vote jointly or separately on amendments to the Constitution.

The question has been a sticking point to previous attempts to amend the Constitution, with senators tending to support separate voting and members of the House joint voting.

«The ones who drafted the Constitution have admitted… they really failed in that matter, that amending certain provisions in the Constitution, Congress should vote separately,» Padilla told reporters following the filing of his petition.

Senator Robin Padilla, chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision Codes, files a petition seeking declaratory relief on key issues in the 1987 Constitution before the Supreme Court on Monday, August 25, 2024. PHOTOS BY MIKE ALQUINTO

«So, I hope, with the wisdom, with what we call the clear thinking of our judges, they can finally resolve the issue. We are not asking for advice; we are asking for a resolution. We are asking for the Court to resolve this conflict,» he added.

Padilla further pointed out that he could not perform his functions as chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Reforms «due to the ambiguities» of Sections 1 and 3 of Art. XVII of the Constitution.

He invoked the Supreme Court's constitutional power to «settle an existing, actual controversy,» which are purely questions of law, «as it ruminates on the proper application and interpretation of Constitutional provisions.»

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«Without the honorable Court's declarative pronouncements, these questions, as well as the unstable relations between the two Houses of Congress, shall persist,» Padilla said.

In filing the petition, the senator quoted President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who declared that both Congress should settle the debate on how to amend the Charter.

He also pointed out the numerous resolutions filed in Congress that sought to amend provisions in the Charter.

«Neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives wants to give in to the other's interpretation… In other words, the same misinterpretations caused by