MOST Filipinos and legal luminaries, including three former Supreme Court chief justices, believe the best way to amend or revise the Constitution is through a constitutional convention rather than through a constitutional assembly, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said Monday.
He said the emerging consensus among the resource persons during the committee hearings in Manila and in the provinces was that if the Constitution is to be amended, it must be through a constitutional convention.
Drilon made his statement even as a member of President Rodrigo Duterte’s consultative body on Charter change said the body will discuss the details of the federal-presidential form of government in its meeting on Monday.
The group last week voted in favor of keeping the presidential form of government even if the country shifts to a federal system. That means the president will serve as both head of State and head of government while the three branches of government”•the executive, the legislative and the judiciary”•will be retained.
“Details will be added: What will happen to the President’s powers, what will be the federal states’ powers,” former senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said.
Drilon said the people’s sentiment was that the amendments to the Constitution should be through a con-con.
“That is on record and Congress should seriously consider our people’s view,” he said.
“We must listen to the growing public preference for the Constitutional Convention as the method of amending or revising our Constitution.”
Drilon said such view “reflected the distrust of the people on Congress.”
“Unfortunately, it appears that our people do not trust their legislators with the revision of the Constitution. It says a lot about the level of trust, or the lack of it, on the legislators,” Drilon said.
“We can’t not blame our people if they fear that politicians will only abuse the new Constitution to further their own agenda.”
Drilon said the people favoring the con-con were former chief justices Hilario Davide, Reynato Puno and Artemio Panganiban and former Supreme Court associate justices Adolfo Azcuna and Eduardo Nachura. Puno heads the consultative body tasked by the President to review the Constitution.
Former senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. also considers a constitutional convention as the best mode, but if the President prefers a constitutional assembly, then there would be no problem as long as public hearings were conducted to ensure participation by the people.
The University of the Philippines-National College of Public Administration and Governance and the Philippine Center on Islam and Democracy also favor a constitutional convention to ensure wider participation.