Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said Sunday Charter change should be locked down as he vowed that the minority will block any fresh attempts to push it in Congress amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What we need now is a food and Cha-cha dance. Joblessness is the big problem, so we ought to lock down Cha-cha that is so divisive,” Drilon said as he noted that the pandemic had left over five-million people jobless and crippled the economy.
Still, the Interior department on Saturday welcomed the League of Municipalities’ support for the administration's plan to amend the 1987 Constitution.
In a statement, the department said that sent a "strong signal that local governments are clamoring for real change," and especially amid the pandemic.
“The municipal mayors themselves have spoken and recognized the urgency of amending the Constitution because they recognize the greater need for regional development," Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said.
Drilon told DZBB radio he believed that the real motive behind the fresh attempts to revive Cha-cha was to postpone the 2022 national and local elections and to remove the politicians’ term limit.
“I trust that my colleagues will see that this [Cha-cha] is not for the welfare of the country. We will block that in the Senate,” Drilon said.
He says the chances of Cha-cha being passed in the Senate are very small.
“We in the minority are ready to fight it."
Senate President Vicente Sotto III earlier said that Cha-cha was not among the priorities in the Senate.
Drilon said the local government units should not be worried about their higher Internal Revenue Allotments, adding neither the Executive nor Congress could set aside or revise the Supreme Court ruling in the Mandanas case in 2019.
Last week, the Interior department said the League of Municipalities of the Philippines had passed a resolution seeking Charter amendments purportedly to institutionalize the Mandanas ruling of the Supreme Court and lift the restrictions on foreign investment.
But Drilon says there is no need to institutionalize the so-called Mandanas ruling as the “just share” of local government units should be computed and sourced from all national taxes and not just from the taxes collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
