The House of Representatives and the Senate should pursue economic Charter amendments despite a Pulse Asia survey showing that Filipinos do not support the initiative, one of the proponent-sponsors of the amendment proposals in the House yesterday said.
“The national leadership, beginning with President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr., believes that changing the restrictive economic provisions of the Constitution would benefit the country as it would result in more foreign investments coming in,” Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said.
He said such belief is shared by the business community, concerned incumbent and former government officials, economists, professionals, and other experts as evidenced by their testimonies in recent House hearings, a press release from the House of Representatives said.
He said the dominant view expressed by the resource persons during the hearings favored the changing of foreign equity and ownership restrictions in public utilities, education and advertising.
Rodriguez, who chairs the House committee on constitutional amendments, urged President Marcos and leaders of Congress “to stay the course.”
“The right decisions are not always popular,” he said.
He said reversing course at this point in the pursuit for economic Charter reform would worsen the country’s image before the investing community.
“It would strengthen their perception of the Philippines as urong-sulong when it comes to opening up its economy,” he stressed.
The Mindanao lawmaker is one of the authors of Resolution of Both Houses No. 7, the House version of the proposed economic constitutional amendments. He was among the resolution’s authors who defended the proposals during the House plenary debates three weeks ago.
The House has already approved RBH No. 7 on third and final reading and has sent it to the Senate. The Senate version, RBH No. 6, is authored by Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri and Senators Loren Legarda and Juan Edgardo Angara.
Rodriguez said 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,” he said.
He said the inclusion of questions on political amendments in the recent survey might have confused the public.
He 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.
“We are kulelat in terms of FDIs in ASEAN,” he added.
The Mindanao lawmaker appealed to the Senate to approve the economic constitutional amendment proposals shortly after Congress reconvenes later this month.
“The fate of economic Charter reform is in the hands of our senators,” he said.*
