He may be the Presidential Adviser for Poverty Alleviation and thus, a member of the Cabinet, but Secretary Larry Gadon is first and foremost a Filipino, a nationalist, and an outspoken spokesman of himself. He is not afraid to let his thoughts and sentiments be known, however unpopular these thoughts might be.
Recently, Secretary Larry Gadon wrote to House Speaker Martin Romualdez proposing that when Congress constitutes itself as a constituent assembly to amend or revise the 1987 “Cory Constitution” as he called it, they should not limit the revision to just the economic provisions.
Gadon wanted the lawmakers to also tweak the political provisions in the Charter. For example, the presidential anti-poverty adviser is pushing for the synchronization of elections every six years, starting in 2028. The present elected officials will not suffer with a truncated term of office.
He wanted more elected senators, not just 24. He believes members of the House of Representatives should also enjoy the same term of office as that of senators. Senators and representatives are doing the same legislative work, so why
is the upper chamber more important than the lower house?
Gadon criticized certain lawmakers such as Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City, chair of the House committee on constitutional amendments, who said economic provisions are the only ones to be touched because that is what President Bongbong Marcos wants.
Gadon pointed out that Congress has an inherent power to amend the Constitution, without taking orders from the President or any official in the Executive Department.
He also blasted Sen. Koko Pimentel and later, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri for their outright rejection of his Charter Change suggestions without reading his letter to Romualdez.
Earlier, Zubiri had announced that the sub-committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes headed by Sen. Sonny Angara will conduct three more public hearings next month before it comes out with a committee report so that proposed amendments to the Charter can be tackled in the plenary. Zubiri said the public hearings will be held in three areas outside of the Senate – in Baguio City, Cebu, and Cagayan de Oro City.
Zubiri said the Senate will hear people’s sentiments on the proposal to introduce amendments to the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution, which will be limited to public services, education, and advertising. The Senate chief categorically said that introducing amendments to the political provisions of the Charter, specifically to extend the terms of office of elected officials as proposed by Presidential Adviser for Poverty Alleviation Secretary Larry Gadon, is definitely not on the table.
Even without touching political provisions in the Charter, Zubiri is worried that RBH 6 which needs three-fourths or 18 out of 24 affirmative votes will be hard to pass the Senate. This is not just a question of whether Zubiri has a strong or weak leadership in the chamber, as some congressmen had said. After two surveys showing that the people dislike even the idea of changing some parts of the Constitution, the senators are now pressured to at least consider the sentiment of a huge section of the citizenry.
“We are not having discussions on political provisions because, as I have said, almost nine out of 10 of our countrymen, that’s 88 percent [are against Cha-cha]… That’s only the economic provisions which were asked, so what more if there will be discussions on political amendments? Maybe there will be zero support,” Zubiri said.
Secretary Gadon stressed that the nation is poor because we have too much politics; we misspend P10 billion every three years to conduct an election, when this huge amount of money can be better spent for mass housing, health care, school buildings and classrooms, and agriculture to address the poverty problem.
This corner believes that Larry Gadon is right. We should limit the official spending on elections if we can, and funnel the money to social services.
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