{"id":178215,"date":"2018-08-23T04:53:27","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T08:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=178215"},"modified":"2018-08-23T04:53:27","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T08:53:27","slug":"proposed-federal-charter-now-open-feedback-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/23\/proposed-federal-charter-now-open-feedback-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed Federal Charter now open to feedback: Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cIn line with our ongoing discourse on Federalism, the government is preparing to receive feedback on the draft submitted by the Consultative Committee to Review the 1987 Constitution,\u201d Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said during a Palace briefing. TOTO LOZANO\/PRESIDENTIAL FILE PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— The proposed Federal Constitution drafted by the Consultative Committee (ConCom) to review the 1987 Constitution is now open for comments from the public, Malaca\u00f1ang said Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn line with our ongoing discourse on Federalism, the government is preparing to receive feedback on the draft submitted by the Consultative Committee to Review the 1987 Constitution,\u201d Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said during a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Roque described the ConCom\u2019s proposal as \u201ca very good draft\u201d but noted that both the government and ConCom are considering comments from all stakeholders to help improve the proposal.<\/p>\n

He said President Rodrigo R. Duterte will consider people\u2019s comments before officially transmitting the proposed Federal Constitution to Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the President was fully satisfied and has fully endorsed the whole product of the Consultative Committee, of course, as part of the public discourse, we\u2019re open to remarks and feedback from the general public,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will consider the feedback and if need be, incorporate some of them in the proposal to Congress. Of course, feedback is also important to Congress. I\u2019m sure Congress will also have its own roadshow when it finally hears the proposed revisions of the Constitution,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Roque said feedback on the Federal Constitution can be given to the Office of the President, Office of the Presidential Spokesperson, or Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) in writing, e-mail, or personally.<\/p>\n

According to him, Duterte\u2019s decision to open the proposed Federal Charter to public scrutiny was prompted by his Cabinet members’ apprehensions on the proposal\u2019s economic aspects.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be candid about it, it started when his own members of the Cabinet expressed apprehensions over the economic aspect of the proposed draft so that\u2019s what prompted the President to be open to suggestions and criticism on the proposed revisions as submitted by the ConCom,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have articulated their view as we will discuss this further in, I think, the Cabinet meeting. I think it is also incumbent upon them because individual members of the economic team are also committed towards Federalism to help in the process by coming up with their own suggestions on the roadmap how to get to Federalism,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said he found the fiscal provisions in the draft Federal Charter confusing and wanted clarification on revenue and expenditure assignments.<\/p>\n

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director General Ernesto Pernia also said the shift might be too costly and may disrupt economic momentum.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement, at least seven business groups echoed the economic managers\u2019 concerns about “ambiguous provisions” on the division of revenue and expenditure responsibilities between the federal government and its federated regions.<\/p>\n

No timeline yet<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roque said that the inter-agency task force on federalism composed of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), PCOO, Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and ConCom, has yet to come up with a timeline on the federalism information and advocacy campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s really no timeline set by anyone. Right now, it\u2019s very important that we have open, frank, candid, and reasoned discussion on the proposed revisions considering the importance of the Constitution as the fundamental law of the land,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want this to be a reasoned, and an intelligent procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Roque said the DILG is currently gathering its own feedback from people, who have attended some of their dissemination activities on the Federal Charter.<\/p>\n

He also shrugged off remarks by some lawmakers that talks of Charter Change or Federalism are \u201cdead\u201d in Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the Senate as an institution has said that. They have individual members, but as a body I don\u2019t think they\u2019ve decided Federalism is dead,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we have started a period of discussions and we hope also to have this intelligent discourse with the Senate as well,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— The proposed Federal Constitution drafted by the Consultative Committee (ConCom) to review the 1987 Constitution is now open for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":173623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178215","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=178215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}