House optimistic Senate will approve economic amendments

Speaker Martin Romualdez believes Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri will do everything to convince his colleagues to agree to the changes. (File Photo: House of Representatives of the Philippines/Facebook)

MANILA – The House of Representatives expects the Senate to approve proposed amendments to the constitution’s restrictive economic provisions.

Speaker Martin Romualdez believes Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri will do everything to convince his colleagues to agree to the changes.

“We understand the challenges, pero (but) the Senate has always lived up to the challenge. Magagaling ‘yung mga senador natin (Our senators god) and I know that they know what is good for our people,” Romualdez told reporters in an ambush interview during the groundbreaking ceremony of the Philippine Cancer Center in Quezon City on Friday.

Zubiri earlier said that getting the needed 18 votes in the Senate for the economic amendment proposals “is a big challenge” but “not impossible.”

The House of Representatives is expected to approve the Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No. 7 before the Lenten break starts on March 23.

Meawnhile, Bagong Henerasyon Party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera reiterated full support to amend the economic provisions.

Herrera cited circumvention through internal arrangements between local and foreign business partners as her main reason.

“In our experience here in Congress, we have conducted hearings and investigations on foreign ownership restrictions, but we also see internal arrangements that do not truly reflect the partnership between foreign and local entities,” she said in a news release.

She said the discrepancy between official regulations and internal agreements often leads to legal disputes. (With a report from Zaldy de Layola/PNA)