HOUSE CHA-CHA RESOLUTION HAS NO
LEGAL EFFECT WITHOUT SENATES NOD

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the ill-conceived plan of the leadership of the House of Representatives to proceed with amending the Constitution even without Senate participation will not take off the ground like an aircraft with only one wing or a kite full of holes.

Pimentel said the House is going on a suicidal course by insisting that it can amend the Constitution all by itself if the Senate refuses to take part in the process.

The House cannot impose its will on the Senate. It can pass 1,000 resolutions. It wont have legal effect, Pimentel said.

The resolution is Speaker Jose de Venecias last hurrah. He wants to eviscerate the constitutional system and drag it down with him.

Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr. and other administration congressmen have cited Article 17, section 1 of the Constitution which provides that Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its members, may amend the Charter.

The word, Congress means the Senate and the House. And traditionally, the Senate and the House have been voting separately on everything that needs their action.

Claiming that 198 congressmen more than three-fourths of the House membership have already signed a resolution to convene Congress to a constituent assembly, De Venecia and company said the process to change the Constitution and adopt a parliamentary system of government can proceed with both Senate and House voting as one.

But Pimentel said the House resolution cannot change the fact that Congress has a bicameral structure, which means that the Senate and House should vote separately on all amendments to the Constitution.