Liberal Party (LP) President and Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman has once again assailed the House of Representatives' apparent insistence on hopping on the Charter change (Cha-cha) train.
"Cha-cha is both out of tune and out of step now because the government has to first fully address priority concerns on poverty alleviation, lack of food security, disastrous effects of an 8.7 percent inflation rate, and the adverse consequences of a possible recession," Lagman said in a statement Wednesday morning, Feb. 22.
The veteran lawmaker reiterated his opposition to the attempts to amend the 1987 Constitution two days after the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments voted in favor of using the Constitutional convention (con-con) method.
The con-con is one of three ways by which Cha-cha can be carried out. The two other methods are a constituent assembly (con-ass) and people's initiative (PI).
"Although the convening of a is the best and more popular mode of charter change, con-con is an inordinately expensive enterprise with a reported budget amounting to P18 billion," said Lagman, a member of the independent in the House.
He further said that holding the election of con-con delegates at the same time as the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections on Oct. 30, 2023 "will gravely taint the grassroots elections with partisan politics".
He said the law requires that the Barangay and SK elections should be non-partisan "so much so that the village and youth elections are not held simultaneous with local and national elections to insulate them from partisan politics".
Lagman further listed a bunch of "negative economic indicators" against Cha-cha.
He enumerated them as follows: (a) Debt stock of P13.42 trillion; (b) debt service of P1.6 trillion; (c) fiscal deficit of 6.9 percent of GDP; (d) inflation rate of 8.7 percent; (e) negative balance of trade; (f) very low human development index where the Philippines ranks 116th out of 191 countries, much lower than some of its Asian counterparts; (g) poverty level of 30 percent of the total Philippine population; and (h) self-rated poverty of 51 percent of Filipino households or 77.4 million Filipinos.