The Senate will merely focus on the proposed amendments on the economic provisions of the Constitution and nothing else when they start tackling the Resolution of Both Houses No. 6 on Monday, February 5, senators said.

Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara said that what the Senate will do is good and respectable as the discussions on the measure would only be limited to the economic amendments.

Angara said it would be unlike the People’s Initiative (PI) which provided no limit on any amendments in case the voting method to amend the Constitution is changed.

“Our sub-committee will not discuss the political amendment,” said Angara, head of the sub-committee that would tackle RBH 6.

Angara is also one of the authors of RBH 6, together with Senate President Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri and Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, who had filed a similar resolution, Resolution of Both Houses No. 1, also made the same assurance, in an interview over Radio DZBB.

“Dahil tayo ang kauna-unahang nagfile, lilinawin ko lang itong resolution na ito economic provisions lang, walang political provisions dito, wala nang (because we were the first to file this, I just want to clarify that this resolution is purely on the economic provisions, not on any) form of government,” Gatchalian said.

“So ang ibig sabihin hindi pag-uusapan ang paghaba ng termino, pagtanggal ng term limits, pagpapalit ng from bicameral too unicameral. Walang ganun, pag-uusapan lang natin yung mga tinatawag nating economic provisions (So that means we will not talk about extending the term, removing term limits, changing from bicameral to unicameral. There is nothing like that, we will only talk about what we call economic provisions),” he said.

Asked about the difference, Gatchalian said RBH No. 1 seeks to review the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution with regards to education, advertising, mass media and public utilities.

RBH No. 6, on the other hand proposes the same principle except that “there is no mass media in the Senate President’s resolution,” said Gatchalian.

“Doon sa resolution ng House nakita ko kasama doon land ownership, natural resources at iba pa. So iba-iba ang contents pero lahat patukoy sa economic provisions (In the resolution of the House of Representatives, I saw that it included land ownership, natural resources and others,” he said.

“So the contents are different but all refer to the economic provisions,” he pointed out.

Zubiri earlier said the filing of RBH 6 was meant to avert a possible constitutional crisis and to preserve the bicameral legislative system.

Among the resource persons invited by the panel included the framers of the 1987 Constitution composed of former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., former Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Atty. Christian Monsod, Former Justice Adolfo S. Azcuna (Philippine Judicial Academy Chancellor), former Comelec commissioner Rene Sarmiento, and Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas, former Professor of University of Asia and the Pacific and member of the Makati Business Club’s founding executive board.

The Senate subcommittee panel has also invited legal luminaries such as former Chief Justice Renato Puno, former Justice Antonio Carpio, former Justice Artemio Panganiban, former Justice Vicente Mendoza, and Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) National President Antonio C. Pido.

Angara has also invited economic experts in the field to attend the hearing, led by Dr. Raul Fabella, a national scientist; Dr. Gerardo Sicat, from the UP School of Economics; Sonny Africa, from the IBON Foundation Inc.; Gary Teves, from the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF), and Dr. Ronald U. Mendoza, senior economist at the Ateneo Policy Center.