{"id":145759,"date":"2018-01-12T03:02:45","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T08:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=145759"},"modified":"2018-01-12T03:02:45","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T08:02:45","slug":"joint-voting-on-cha-cha-not-in-constitution-sotto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/01\/12\/joint-voting-on-cha-cha-not-in-constitution-sotto\/","title":{"rendered":"Joint voting on Cha-cha not in Constitution: Sotto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III on Friday said the 1987 Constitution itself does not mention that the Congress should take a joint vote on any amendments to the Charter except on the declaration of martial law. (Photo by Public Relation and Information Bureau [Public domain],<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>MANILA\u00a0— Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III on Friday said the 1987 Constitution itself does not mention that the Congress should take a joint vote on any amendments to the Charter except on the declaration of martial law.<\/p>\n

Sotto made this remark amid questions raised if voting on Charter change should be done jointly or separately should it decide to pursue a constitutional assembly (con-ass) mode.<\/p>\n

\u201cJointly, separately?\u00a0Pwede ba tigilan na<\/em>\u00a0(Can we stop this)? Consti says only in martial law vote ang jointly. Nowhere else is jointly mentioned,\u201d Sotto said in his official Twitter account.<\/p>\n

Not all senators prefer the con-ass mode to amend the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon earlier said the minority bloc still prefers constitutional convention (con-con) over con-ass.<\/p>\n

Although a member of the majority, Senator Grace Poe also said that con-con is the \u201cbest and most acceptable\u201d mode to take.<\/p>\n

However, a number of Senators said that if the Senate decides collectively on con-ass, voting should be done separately.<\/p>\n

Senator Panfilo Lacson earlier said that he is set to file a resolution next week to constitute only the Senate in a con-ass to vote on the proposal to amend Constitution and it was up to the House of Representatives (HOR) to follow suit if they wished.<\/p>\n

This way, Lacson said the Senate could already start to propose amendments to the Constitution that could be voted on by a by a three-fourths vote.<\/p>\n

He said that if amendments are approved, these will be discussed in a bicameral conference between both chambers — the Senate and the House of Representatives where they reconcile disagreeing proposals.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, the Senate and HOR will again take a three-fourths vote separately on amendments before being presented as a plebiscite to the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill the Senate allow to convene in a joint session knowing there are 23 Senators and almost 300 congressmen? What\u2019s the purpose of the Senate? We don\u2019t have a voice there, our votes won\u2019t matter,\u201d Lacson earlier said.<\/p>\n

Lacson also pointed out that if a \u201csimple\u201d or basic legislation needed to be voted on the two chambers separately, what more if it was legislation to amend the Constitution.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III on Friday said the 1987 Constitution itself does not mention that the Congress …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":97248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[16273,7249,18653],"class_list":["post-145759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-1987-constitution","tag-cha-cha","tag-senate-majority-leader-vicente-sotto-iii","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145759","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=145759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}