EDITORIAL
Parliamentary bullying
Under a bicameral setup, the House of Representatives and the Senate are supposed to treat each other as co-equal chambers. But with the controversial topic of charter change, the time-honored tradition of interparliamentary courtesy seems to have been thrown out of the window in both houses.
The anti-cha-cha sentiment has reverberated in the august halls of the Senate as the 24 senators signed a manifesto rejecting people’s initiative. The manifesto contains strongly-worded statements branding the proposed cha-cha as a brazen attempt to violate the Constitution, the country, and our people.
Calling itself the last bastion of democracy, the Senate declared that it would not allow itself to be silenced as it underscored the need to “guard against any sinister and underhanded attempt to change the Constitution by exploiting our democratic process under the guise of a people’s initiative.”
The proposal seems to be as simple as putting together all the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives in one body by requiring them to vote jointly on proposed constitutional amendments. To the undiscerning, this is nothing but a matter of pride on the part of the Senate. However, one chamber wants to rule over the other with the tyranny of numbers.
“While it seems simple, the goal is apparent — to make it easier to revise the Constitution by eliminating the Senate from the equation. It is an obvious prelude to further amendments, revisions, or even an overhaul of our entire Constitution,” the Senate said in its manifesto.
The attempts at amending the Constitution failed in the past not because there was no need to amend the fundamental law but because of sinister designs.
In passing statutory laws, both chambers vote separately before a bill is passed and forwarded to the President for signing before it becomes a law. The system of checks and balances is well respected and followed by the letter in this case. The same process is observed if a law is proposed to be amended or repealed by Congress.
Interestingly, to amend the charter itself that gives life to both chambers, the House proposes to disregard the process, which will effectively render a co-equal body powerless or voiceless for being outnumbered.
The senators could not be blamed for calling this proposal “parliamentary bullying.”