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Constitution should allow country to develop: Sen. Sonny Angara, chairperson of the Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes Sub-Committee, presides over the sixth public hearing on Resolution of Both House No. 6 (RBH6) Friday, May 17, 2024, in Baguio City. Angara, facing local officials in the first out-of-town consultation, stressed that RBH6 focuses on the three provisions of the 1987 Constitution: public services, higher education and advertising. The senator explained that the Senate is just institutionalizing what Congress had recently amended in the eight-decade Public Service Act. He said under Republic Act (RA) No. 11659, telecommunications and other utilities can be opened to foreign investors “to encourage competition given the state of (our) utilities and, hopefully, to lower prices and provide better services to our countrymen.” The second focus of RBH6, Angara said, is higher education, citing the joint degrees being offered between the National University of Singapore, Yale University, Harvard University, and Northwestern University. Angara also said there’s not much controversy in the advertising sector since there has been “cross-border” usage of talents and nationalities between local and foreign advertisers. “Only the Philippines has economic policy regulations (enshrined in the Constitution), no one else in the world. Constitutions are meant to be general documents which survive centuries, organic and must evolve,” Angara said. “Constitutions should be general. It should not limit the ability of a country to evolve and to develop as the environment or the world around it changes...” he added. (Mark Pimentel/Senate PRIB)