MANILA: Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva told reporters on Tuesday that “a lot of senators” are not interested in supporting the Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No. 6 recently filed by Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri seeking to start the discussions on amending the three economic provisions of the Constitution.
Villanueva said this was after they discovered that congressmen were allegedly behind the people’s initiative (PI) attempts that intend to strip the Senate of its powers to vote separately from the House of Representatives (HRep) whether to agree with the charter change.
“It’s obviously the main reason why a lot of senators are not interested anymore in pushing for the joint resolution,” he said in a press briefing answering the question about the alleged leadership behind the PI attempts.
Villanueva urged the public on Monday to be vigilant and report to his office the illegalities in these PI attempts.
“After 24 hours, we’ve gotten thousands of complaints with pictures, etc. pinpointing
yung mga tao na lumapit sa kanila, nagpapapirma, meron pang Gcash. Ninety percent po nung mga complaints itinuturo yung mga staff ng kongresista. In fact, may mga pictures pa ng (the people who went to them, asked for their signatures, there was also through Gcash. Ninety percent of the complaints are pointing to staff of congressmen. In fact, there are pictures of) chiefs of staff,” he said.
With this, Villanueva urged congressmen involved that they should try to correct what they did by stopping these PI activities.
He also joined the call of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to let the Commission on Elections (Comelec) do its job to invalidate the acquired signatures.
Comelec Chairperson George Garcia said the signatures they received were still being tallied which would eventually be followed by a petition “that will be filed later.”
“Meaning to say at this point there is no petition yet. This process has not yet started. What the Comelec is doing is a purely ministerial function,” Garcia clarified.
The petition, Garcia pointed out, could be dismissed if it lacks signature certification from the local Comelec offices which is different from signature verification.
Garcia recently announced that around 900 cities and municipalities already submitted signatures for the PI.
Source: Philippines News Agency
