PRESS STATEMENT
Office of Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
(LP-Albay)
0916-6406737 / 0918-9120137
05 August 2016

The call of Majority Floor Leader Rodolfo C. Fariñas for the Congress to stop making laws in anticipation of charter change is ludicrous.

In an interview that was published by media, Fariñas said “we may have to have to stop the legislative mill. Why? Because we are already rewriting the Constitution. We might as well stop legislation first. If we are talking about divorce, death penalty, then what if these may all be excluded in the next Constitution?”

“So let’s stop making laws. We have so many laws, and it won’t kill us if we stop making new ones,” Fariñas added.

As Majority Leader, it is the duty of Fariñas to push for the enactment of the President’s legislative agenda yet he is proposing that the administration bills be consigned to the backburner pending amendments to the Constitution.

Members of the House have their own priority bills of national significance which should not be hanged at the gallows of a suspended legislative process.

Fariñas’ statement that a constitutional convention will only duplicate Congress or create a “twin Congress” is likewise erratic for the following reasons:

a) The principal power of Congress is to enact laws and formulate policies, while a constitutional convention is mandated to propose amendments or revisions of the Constitution.

b) The constituent authority of the Congress is only an additional function of the legislature, while the constituent power of a constitutional convention is its sole function.

c) The Congress is a continuing body while a constitutional convention becomes functus officio or its life ends upon the completion of its proposed amendments for submission to the people.

d) Laws enacted by Congress do not need the ratification of the people, while the proposed amendments of the constitutional convention are subject to the people’s approval in a plebiscite, like projected amendments by any mode.

e) The number of delegates to the constitutional convention can be reduced to a size smaller than that of Congress by allocating delegates to the constitutional convention by provinces or regions, not congressional districts.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN