House to prioritize draft federal charter next week: Arroyo

FILE: Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivers her keynote speech at the inauguration of the new building of the Bases Development and Conversion Authority (BCDA) in Clark Global City in Pampanga. (Photo courtesy of the Speaker’s Office)

MANILA – Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said Friday the House of Representatives will concentrate on its draft federal charter next week.

Arroyo said the chamber has already ensured the passage of President Rodrigo Duterte’s priority bills, and the major revision of the Constitution is the last of the legislative agenda identified in the State of the Nation Address (SONA).

The Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No.

15 has already reached the plenary at the lower chamber and is currently at the period of interpellation.

“It’s the last of President Duterte’s SONA agenda. Everything else has already passed. So, I guess, we’ll be concentrating on that next week,” Arroyo said in an interview in Porac, Pampanga.

“Of course, we know that there will still be many steps.

But the thing is, we will bring it as far as we can bring it, in the hope that the next Congress can continue the work,” she added.

RBH 15, principally authored by Arroyo, seeks to propose revisions to the 1987 Constitution. It proposes a presidential-bicameral-federal system of government and empowers Congress to establish federal states.

It also lifts the term limits for members of Congress. The first election under the proposed Constitution shall be held on the second Monday of May 2022.

The term of the President and Vice President, which shall end in 2022, shall not be extended. The incumbent president is prohibited from running in the 2022 elections.