Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez is eyeing the conduct of so-called constitutional caravans all over the Philippines. Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez speaks during a public consultation of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments last February (Facebook)




Rodriguez bared on Tuesday night, April 4 his plans of calling for such an information campaign on Charter change (Cha-cha) in the light of the results of Pulse Asia’s March 2023 Ulat ng Bayan national survey. The survey results showed that 47 percent of Filipino adults--or nearly five out of 10--were aware that there are proposals in Congress to amend the 36-year-old Charter. Rodriguez believes that this number can still be improved through information campaigns that the House of Representatives can conduct in provinces and cities in the Philippines. It was last February when the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments launched a series of provincial public consultations on Cha-cha. Rodriguez chairs the committee. Visited by the House panel during these consultations were Cagayan de Oro City; Iloilo; San Fernando, Pampanga; and San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan. Rodriguez, as panel chairman, had aggressively pushed for the passage of Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No.6. The measure, approved on third and final reading by the House last month, calls for the creation of a 314-member constitutional convention (con-con, which would be tasked to propose amendments to the 1987 Constitution. The Pulse Asia survey, conducted from March 15 to19, 2023, also showed that 41 percent of Filipino adults agree that the Constitution should be amended. Only 31 percent favored Cha-cha during the previous survey in September 2022.