No Cha-cha during SONA, Nograles assures critics
Speaker Prospero Nograles on Monday said the House of Representatives will not take advantage of the joint session taking place later in the day, when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo delivers her State of the Nation Address (SONA), to convene itself into a constituent assembly and push for Charter change that would give way to term extensions. "There is no need to worry about anything because we are not going to pull a fast one on this nation," Nograles said in a news conference. “We have a script and we will follow that script," he said. Nograles added that their "script" was to open the joint session, listen to the SONA, end the joint session immediately and “nothing more." In his speech during the opening of the 3rd regular session, however, Nograles said the House of Representatives would still pursue legislative moves to change the 1987 Constitution despite public uproar against it.
"I pray that, once and for all, under our watch, in a climate of rational debate and non-partisan dialogue, we can establish clearly the valid mode to implement changes or revisions that our people want in our Constitution," said Nograles, a staunch ally of President Arroyo. Just before the second regular session ended in June, the chamber adopted House Resolution (HR) 1109, which calls on Congress to convene into a constituent assembly to amend the Charter. Critics of the Arroyo administration have expressed fears that pro-administration legislators would use the joint session Monday to push the Cha-cha proposal, but Nograles said he would still consult with other House leaders two weeks after the SONA about the steps the chamber would take regarding HR 1109. "I will assure you that everything we'll do and we have done here have always been transparent," he said. Nograles and other lawmakers who signed the resolution said their efforts were only meant to create a "justiciable controversy" that will compel the Supreme Court to rule, once and for all, whether the two chambers of Congress should vote jointly or separately when amending the Constitution through a constituent assembly. Meanwhile, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile appealed to his colleagues in the lower house to put "national interest" above partisan motives in their efforts to amend the constitution. "I say to our colleagues in the other chamber, let us reason and work together, and let the national interest be our agenda. Even as I am, and have always been, an advocate of charter change, I and all my colleagues are united to resist all moves to amend the fundamental law of the land in any manner that violates the very Constitution which we have all sworn to uphold," he said. "Let me assure our people that no charter change will take place without the participation of the senate. I have vowed to protect the independence and integrity of the senate, and I will do so within the powers granted to me under the Constitution and our rules," Enrile added. Opposition lawmakers including Gabriela Rep. Liza Maza have expressed alarm at continued moves to amend the Constitution. "This is a dangerous direction," she said in an interview with reporters after Nograles' speech. Maza is one of the eight progressive lawmakers who announced that they will boycott Mrs. Arroyo's SONA later in the day. "We will neither participate in waving con-ass nor listen to her windbags of deception," she said in a statement. Mrs. Arroyo is expected to deliver her ninth - and supposedly last - SONA at 4 p.m. at the House plenary hall. - With a report from AMITA LEGASPI, GMANews.TV