{"id":143544,"date":"2018-01-03T03:56:27","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T08:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=143544"},"modified":"2018-01-03T03:56:27","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T08:56:27","slug":"federalism-con-ass-top-2018-house-legislative-agenda-alvarez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/01\/03\/federalism-con-ass-top-2018-house-legislative-agenda-alvarez\/","title":{"rendered":"Federalism, Con-Ass top 2018 House legislative agenda: Alvarez"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Speaker<\/a>
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez (Photo<\/a>: Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong> \u2014 Top-billing the legislative agenda of the House of Representatives for this year are changing the three-decade old Constitution by convening Congress into a constituent assembly and shifting to a federal form of government.<\/p>\n

\u201cNumber one is the convening of Congress into a Constituent Assembly and in revising the Constitution, a shift from a unitary to a federal form of government,\u201d Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said in a television interview on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Alvarez earlier said both houses of Congress would convene into a Constituent Assembly (Con-Ass) in January to propose amendments to the 1987 Constitution for a federal government.<\/p>\n

He said if the Con-Ass pushes through, the proposed federal charter could be submitted for referendum simultaneously with the barangay elections in May this year.<\/p>\n

The Speaker said he is confident that the House supermajority would give its backing for the Constituent Assembly.<\/p>\n

He, however, expressed doubt if the Senate has enough numbers in support of the proposal as he appealed to the sense of patriotism of senators.<\/p>\n

He said the senators are concerned over the political implications of the possible dissolution of the Senate in a federal set-up, noting that this should not be a cause for concern since they could still be eligible to run for election to the new legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a question of patriotism,\u00a0kung ano yung tama at kung ano yung kailangan sa bayan<\/em>\u00a0(what is right and what the nation needs),\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n

Alvarez noted that the two chambers could have some disagreements over the issue of either voting jointly or separately in a Constituent Assembly. He said he prefers that the assembly vote jointly.<\/p>\n

Alvarez also said the timetable of the forthcoming 2019 mid-term elections may be affected if the Filipino people accept the federal form of government.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay<\/em>\u00a0transitory provision. Nakalagay doon na yung mga elected officials na mag-e-expire yung term, hindi ba, kung kailan sila due for elections, iba-iba (There is a transitory provision. It states the expiration of the terms of the elected officials. It says when they can run for another election. It varies),” Alvarez said.<\/p>\n

“So\u00a0depende talaga iyan kung ano yung mapagkakasunduan doon sa<\/em>\u00a0Constituent Assembly, (It depends on what will be agreed upon at the Constitutent Assembly)\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n

Alvarez said the federal setup proposed by the PDP-LABAN retains the position of the President, who would act as head of state, and introduces the position of a Prime Minister, who would be the head of the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2014 Top-billing the legislative agenda of the House of Representatives for this year are changing the three-decade old Constitution …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":132702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,95],"tags":[41561,9948,11118],"class_list":["post-143544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-ph","tag-con-ass-top-2018-house-legislative-agenda-alvarez","tag-federalism","tag-house-of-representatives","mauthors-filane-mikee-cervantes","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}