Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (Facebook)

The Charter change (Cha-cha) effort in Congress is "fast running out of time", says Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez.

In a speech in  a recent forum sponsored by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) on the cogeessional move to amend the 1987 Constitution, Rodriguez said, "“We want to resolve this issue on Charter change during our first regular session or in the early part of our second regular session, if possible."

"If we delay it, we will be overtaken by the 2025 election campaign season, and people would again suspect our constitutional reform push of being politically motivated,” said the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments chairman.

The first regular session of the 19th Congress will end on June 2.

He said previous constitutional amendment efforts failed because they were undertaken when a sitting administration or Congress was about to finish its term.

“We should avoid that so that our initiative could succeed this time. As it is, we are fast running out of time,” Rodriguez stressed.

The ball is already in the court of the Senate as far as Cha-cha is concerned.

Rodriguez said the House had transmitted to the upper chamber Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No.6 and its implementing measure, House Bill (HB) No. 7352 back in March.

Rodriguez said the current Charter amendment push in the House is focused on tweaking the language of the Constitution’s economic provisions to give Congress flexibility in changing foreign investment/ownership restrictions.

He said that although Congress recently introduced liberalization amendments in some laws like the Public Service Act and Foreign Investment Act, those changes did not alter constitutional limitations.

“We should consider that the Constitution is the fundamental law of the land. Unless and until the constitutional restrictions are removed, the apprehensions and hesitancy on the part of foreign investors will always remain,” he said.