Group serves warrant for JoeDeV and allies' illegal conass and waste of taxpayers' money

Release: 2006-12-12

Akbayan party-list today trooped to the House of Representatives to categorically reject charter change under the Arroyo administration, despite the House's offer of elections for a constitutional convention by next year.

"The House leadership under JDV is using a carrot and stick method to lure the public and the Senate to push through with ChaCha at all costs," said Akbayan Rep. Etta Rosales. "but it is not the method of charter change that is the sticky issue but the fact that it is being pushed for all the wrong reasons."

"Charter change under this administration is only clear in forging a no-elections scenario next year to keep the same administration allies in power," explained the lady solon, "aware very well that the Arroyo administration is sinking deeper and deeper into irrelevance and infamy."

"So the House should desist from bullying the Senate, a co-equal branch of government, into acceding to charter change within 72 hours," added Rosales, "that is not only a slap to the principle of checks and balances, but a self-defeating exercise."

"The Constitution provides for a bicameral system, precisely because in a situation similar to the conundrum we found ourselves in last week, the House by its lonesome in a unicameral system would have gone on its own," said Rosales "and left everyone behind and we now would be stuck with a new, albeit probably mangled, Constitution nobody wants and nobody needs."

"We in Akbayan have been clear from the beginning; charter change must come with the requisite reforms before the idea is even entertained," Rosales added, "including legislation that would protect workers from union-busting and slave wages; laws that would facilitate the installation of farmers in landlord-held lands; laws that will empower more women and protect them from the clutches of violence and abuse; laws that will penalize acts of discrimination against persons on the basis of sexual orientation, laws that will serve justice for victims of unjust incarceration, torture, abuses and other rights violations, etc."

Rosales advised, "The House should work on those proposed laws instead of wasting more valuable taxpayers' money deliberating on a dead issue."