'Covert assent?': Lagman knows why House is keeping Cha-cha train moving

Administration critic Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman believes he knows why the House of Representatives is "rolling fast" with the proposed amendments to the Constitution despite President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s pronouncements that Charter change (Cha-cha) wasn't his priority.

According to Lagman, Marcos might have given a secret go signal to the congressmen to move the Cha-cha measures forward in the current 19th Congress.

"There must be an overwhelming furtive reason why the Cha-cha caravan is rolling fast in the House of Representatives despite President Marcos’ avowal that Charter change is not in his priority agenda," the Liberal Party (LP) president said in a statement Tuesday, Feb. 21.

"Perhaps, it is because the President must have given his covert assent to Cha-cha even as he appears to be distancing himself from it," he said.

On Monday, Feb. 20, the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments approved the committee report favoring the use of a Constitutional convention (con-con) in connection with resolutions seeking a Cha-cha.

The vote favoring a con-con took place during the seventh hearing of the panel on Cha-cha. The deliberations on the topic began in mid-December.

Before this, committee chairman, Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said last week that the panel would "consider" Marcos' remarks wherein he said that the proposed amendments to the 36-year-old Constitution wasn’t a priority of his administration.

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"As an independent branch of government, the House of Representatives and Congress will proceed with its public dialogues on this issue (Cha-cha)," Rodriguez said.

But Lagman doused cold water on Rodriguez's response to the President, saying, "It is not that members of the supermajority coalition have finally learned to be independent of the executive."

Lagman identifies himself as a member of the "independent minority"" in the 312-strong House of Representatives.