IT'S FUTILE TO REVIVE CHARTER CHANGE

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the off-and-on move of Malacanang and its legislative lackeys to revive Charter Change is an exercise in futility because the means with which they are pushing for it is unconstitutional.

Pimentel said the Charter Change proponents are under the delusion that the House of Representatives can unilaterally amend the Constitution as long as they can muster the votes of three-fourths of its membership which is contrary to the bicameral nature of Congress.

He said the administration's game plan is to bypass the Senate in the amendatory process because they know that the senators will not go along with the hidden motive behind Charter Change, which is to keep President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in power beyond 2010. The plan is to extend the President's term or to adopt a unicameral parliamentary system where she dreams of being installed as prime minister.

"But if they think that they will succeed with their self-serving and immoral plan and they can foist a fake Charter Change on the people, they are wrong. I believe that the scheme being pursued in the House to amend the Constitution without the participation of the Senate will be repudiated and declared unconstitutional if questioned before the Supreme Court," the minority leader said.

Pimentel said that he has full faith in the independence and wisdom of the Supreme Court to render a decision on the issue that is fair, just and objective, and in conformity with the Constitution.

He said Mrs. Arroyo and her cohorts are bent on staying in power beyond her legal term by manipulating the process of amending the Charter in a desperate bid to evade criminal prosecution and to save themselves from the people's wrath over their misdeeds and abuse of power.

Pimentel assailed the administration congressmen who have allowed themselves to be unwittingly used by the administration in this despicable scheme by blindly signing the resolution to convene a Constituently Assembly wherein the House of Representatives will be able to overwhelm the Senate by virtue of its numerical superiority. Obviously, he said they did so not out of conviction but out of fear that their pork barrel funds and other privileges may be cut off by the Palace.

He lauded his colleagues in the Senate for sticking to their position, as embodied in a unanimously approved resolution, rejecting any move by the House to bypass the Senate in amending the Constitution especially in view of the Senate's objection to a mode wherein the two chambers of Congress will vote jointly, instead of separately, on every proposed amendment.

Pimentel said he is willing to set aside his advocacy to amend the Constitution to establish a federal system of government if only to prevent the Arroyo administration from riding on his proposal to push its sinister agenda.

"I am the chief sponsor of the federalism proposal and I am still pushing for it up to now. But I do not want the administration to cash in on my proposal to advance its selfish agenda," he said.

Pimentel stressed that he and his party, PDP-Laban have been espousing the federalism proposal since 1982. But he said he will not hesitate to put his proposal on hold if only to prevent the powers-that-be from taking advantage of it for their vile purposes.

"If that is the price for resisting Gloria's plan to perpetuate herself in power, then I am willing to pay that price," he said.