THE House of Representatives, acting as a committee of the whole, will start on Monday deliberations on the economic Charter provisions proposed under Resolution of Both Houses 7 (RBH 7).
Senior Deputy Speaker and Pampanga Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr., one of the RBH 7’s authors, said noted economists were among those invited to the deliberations.
“The conversion of the House into a committee of the whole, which is like a plenary session, aims to involve every one of our colleagues in discussions with our resource persons. This will facilitate proceedings leading to an eventual approval or rejection of the proposed amendments,” Gonzales said.
He said the House would hold three hearings a week and try to obtain a vote before Congress’ Holy Week break in March.
The Constitution states any amendment can be proposed through a three-fourths vote of Congress or a constitutional convention. It also allows direct proposal of amendments by the people through initiative upon a petition of at least 12 percent of the total number of registered voters, “of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the registered voters therein.”
The RBH 6 in the Senate seeks practically the same amendments as the RBH 7.
The Senate started its deliberations on RBH 6 earlier this month.
Both resolutions cover Article XII (Section 11), Article XIV (paragraph 2 of Section 4), and Article XVI (paragraph 2 of Section 11).
They both seek to add the words “unless otherwise provided by law” to the provisions and the word “basic” before the words “educational institutions” in the first sentence of paragraph 2, Section 4 of Article XIV.
RBH 7, however, does not have the words “each House voting separate.””.