{"id":169052,"date":"2018-07-03T21:36:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T01:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=169052"},"modified":"2018-07-03T21:36:39","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T01:36:39","slug":"may-2019-best-date-to-hold-plebiscite-for-federal-charter-puno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/03\/may-2019-best-date-to-hold-plebiscite-for-federal-charter-puno\/","title":{"rendered":"May 2019 best date to hold plebiscite for federal Charter: Puno"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cIt<\/a>
\u201cIt should be by middle of next year or May 2019 so there will be time for the people to understand this new (Federal) Constitution,\u201d Puno said. (PNA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA —\u00a0<\/strong>Former Chief Justice Reynato Puno on Tuesday said that there is no timeline for a plebiscite on the draft Federal Constitution noting that it was for the Congress to decide, but the best time to hold it would be in May 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no timeline. It\u2019s up to Congress to deliberate on this draft Constitution,\u201d Puno said in a chance interview on the sidelines of the Consultative Committee\u2019s en banc session to vote on the draft of the proposed Federal Constitution in Pasay City.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be by middle of next year or May 2019 so there will be time for the people to understand this new (Federal) Constitution,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Puno, Concom chairman, made this remark after the panel unanimously voted to approve the proposal after more than four months of deliberations.<\/p>\n

The Concom is expected to submit the draft Federal Constitution to President Rodrigo R. Duterte on July 9. Afterwards, the Concom will also provide the public with a copy.<\/p>\n

Puno, however, said that he is \u201cnot sure\u201d if the President will approve the proposal noting that it is only \u201crecommendatory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure. As I stated, they just told us to give our best effort to draft this Constitution and we did so. It\u2019s up to him (the President). If he approves it, then he should endorse this to Congress,\u201d Puno said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Consultative Committee has been giving the media information on what we approved as the day goes by, and off and on, Secretary Roque makes his comment on the work of the Consultative Committee and so far we have not received any negative comment,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Ready to defend<\/strong><\/p>\n

Puno, meanwhile, said that the Concom is ready to defend its proposal before the Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect that Congress will hold hearings and will call members of the Committee to defend the proposed Constitution that they have drafted,\u201d Puno said.<\/p>\n

According to Puno, the heart of the draft Federal Constitution is allocation of powers between the Federal Government and the regional governments especially the division of the taxing powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is most important because it will spell the success or the failure of federalism which we installed in our Constitution,\u201d Puno said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the allocation of powers is wrong, you can expect a failure on the part of the federal government that we established,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Puno also allayed fears anew that a Federal Constitution allows Duterte to stay beyond the end of his term on 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe clearly addressed that in the transitory provision. We specifically stated there that there will be no term extension for President and Vice President,\u201d Puno said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not even sure whether he will accept the position of transitory president or the person who will preside in the transition to federal government. His term will end 2022 and that\u2019s it. It\u2019s not open-ended,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA —\u00a0Former Chief Justice Reynato Puno on Tuesday said that there is no timeline for a plebiscite on the draft …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":153520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[44775,43796,13944],"class_list":["post-169052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-consultative-committee","tag-former-chief-justice-reynato-puno","tag-president-rodrigo-r-duterte","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169052","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=169052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}