{"id":170131,"date":"2018-07-09T23:18:04","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T03:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=170131"},"modified":"2018-07-09T23:18:04","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T03:18:04","slug":"duterte-approves-federal-charter-except-transitory-provisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/09\/duterte-approves-federal-charter-except-transitory-provisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte approves Federal charter except transitory provisions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u201cAt<\/a>
\u201cAt the meeting of the President with ConCom members after receiving the draft Constitution, the President said he is approving and endorsing the draft constitution in toto,\u201d Generoso told reporters through Viber.(RICHARD MADELO\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u00a0<\/strong>— President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Monday has approved \u201cin toto\u201d or\u00a0as a whole the draft Federal Constitution and will endorse it to the Congress,\u00a0except for the transitory provisions which he wants amended.<\/p>\n

Ding Generoso, spokesperson of the Consultative Committee (ConCom) tasked to draft the Federal Constitution, confirmed this a few hours after the President received the proposal allowing a shift to a federal system of government.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the meeting of the President with ConCom members after receiving the draft Constitution, the President said he is approving and endorsing the draft constitution in toto,\u201d Generoso told reporters through Viber.<\/p>\n

Generoso, however, said that the President announced in a Cabinet meeting in the evening that he wanted to amend the transitory provisions to provide an elected leader during transition after plebiscite.<\/p>\n

In a noontime Palace briefing the same day, Roque said that Duterte was willing to lead the transition to federalism as long as it was within the end of his term in 2022.<\/p>\n

However, Roque said that Duterte apparently changed his mind and would rather \u201ccut\u201d his term as early as 2019 to be coterminous with the start of the transition period to erase all suspicions about his desire to stay in power beyond the end of his term in 2022.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the ConCom said that Duterte will lead the 10-member Transition Commission on Federalism which will \u201cformulate and adopt a transition plan for the orderly shift to the new system of government, as provided for in the new Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the ConCom will\u00a0review and revise the Transitory Provisions in accordance with the President\u2019s instructions.<\/p>\n

Change of heart<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an ambush interview, Roque told reporters that the 73-year-old President wanted to step down before the end of his term because aside from wanting to remove the notion that he wanted to stay in power, he was also \u201ctired.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cD<\/em>ati kasi sinasabi ni\u00a0<\/em>P<\/em>residente p<\/em>u<\/em>wede siya manilbihan a<\/em>s transitional\u00a0leader\u00a0hanggang<\/em>\u00a02022\u00a0pero kanina inaunsyo niya na mas gusto niya na magkaro<\/em>o<\/em>n ng probisyong ihahalal na ang<\/em>\u00a0transitional\u00a0leader\u00a0at handa na siya bumaba ng p<\/em>u<\/em>westo pag naaprubahan na ang bagong\u00a0<\/em>Saligang Batas<\/em>\u00a0(Previously, the President said that he could serve as transitional leader until 2022 but earlier he announced that he wanted a provision to elect a transitional leader because he is ready to step down once the new Constitution is approved),\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

\u201cP<\/em>ara mawala ang suspetsa na meron siyang ibang binabalak dito sa<\/em>\u00a0Charter Change\u00a0at pangalawa dahil siya ay pagod na pagod na<\/em>\u00a0(So that he can remove suspicions that he has plans to stay in power with charter change and because he\u2019s very tired),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Roque said that according to Duterte, electing a transitional leader would \u201cenable a younger leader to take over.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that Cabinet members were surprised by Duterte\u2019s announcement but were bound to honor the President\u2019s wish.<\/p>\n

However, Roque also said that if the public \u201crejects\u201d or does not ratify the new charter, Duterte will not be allowed to step down until he finishes his term.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the people don\u2019t want to get rid of him, they will reject the Federal constitution. But I think he means it when he said that he will take all steps necessary to convince the people to change to a federal form of government and as a way of assuring them\u00a0na hindi sya kapit tuko sa pwesto<\/em>\u00a0(he\u2019s not holding on to his position),\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

Roque, meanwhile, pointed out that it was still up to the Congress to include the provision on the new transition leader in the draft Federal Constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Monday has approved \u201cin toto\u201d or\u00a0as a whole the draft Federal Constitution and will …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":168283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[49728,49941,13944],"class_list":["post-170131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-consultative-committee-concom","tag-ding-generoso","tag-president-rodrigo-r-duterte","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170131","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=170131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}