Good Night, Con-Ass! Good-bye JDV?

Faced by a massive coalition of religious, civil and political societies in opposition to their crazy Unilateral Constituent Assembly idea House Speaker Jose de Venecia has announced that the 2007 May elections will be held as scheduled. Here is an audio recording of Speaker Jose de Venecia's calling for a Constitutional Convention during the Press Conference:



It's just his funny way of saving face and adding insult to injury, instead of manfully waving a White Flag and coming back to play by the Rules. Instead, JDV and Company have thumbed their noses at everyone and decided to add insult to injury by "turning the tables" on the Senate and the Churches and calling for a Constitutional Convention. Within 72 hours starting Monday. Or else we continue with our Con-Ass." (On a side note Ricky Carandang was telling RG Cruz during the ABSCBN telecast of the Press Conference that originally JDV was going to give the Senate only 48 hours, but added an extra day. )

But first there will definitely be elections in 2007, as the son of the Comelec Chairman, Mayor Ben Hur Abalos of Mandaluyong spoke up for the position of the Manila Wing of the Majority. A position now fervently taken up by JDV and his Rainbow Majority.

But it was definitely a cold pleasure to see the Con-Ass Wolves today in Sheepish Clothing eating crow, bravely but bitterly and with continuing defiance and hubris--Jose de Venecia, Prospero Nograles, Butch Pichay, Constantino Jaraula, Luis Villafuerte. Like bad lil boyz caught playing with themselves in the bathroom, they've come to deny everything in front of everybody with one voice and shoulder to shoulder, looking guilty but defiant.

The retreat of JDV and his Boyz on the explosive political issue of the May elections is now accompanied by the absurdities of what they did in the past week, which was to amend their Rule on how the House exercises its Constituent Power--By a vote of 161-25, the House of Representatives amended the House Rules on Proposing Amendments to the 1987 Constitution by deleting the sentence in red below:

Section 105. (House of Representatives) Form of Proposals and Procedure for Adoption. - Proposals to amend or revise the Constitution shall be by resolution which may be filed at any time by any Member. The adoption of resolutions proposing amendments to or revision of the Constitution shall follow the procedure for the enactment of bills.

With the removal of the second sentence above, the opposite becomes true -- that House Resolutions proposing changes to the Constitution will no longer seek the concurrence of the Senate before being sent to the Comelec for ratification at Plebiscite.

It was clear the House Majority made this rule change last Tuesday to enable the unilateral convening of The Congress into a Constituent Assembly on Monday via House Resolution 1450, which indeed has no Senate concurrence. In fact NO Senator will attend the Con-Ass opening on Monday. (Sorry for this language, hope I don't get Google-indexed with the X stuff!)

Now let us look at the two Constitutional provisions involved in Con-Ass and Con-Con--

Article XVII - Amendments Or Revisions - Section 1.
Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by:
(1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or
(2) A constitutional convention.

Article XVII - Amendments Or Revisions - Section 3.
The Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of all its Members, call a constitutional convention, or by a majority vote of all its Members, submit to the electorate the question of calling such a convention.

Clearly, the Two Thirds Majority Rule required by the Constitution in Section 3 to call a Constitutional Convention is weaker than the Three Fourths Majority Rule in Section 1 for the Congress to propose changes to the charter.

A Logical Absurdity Because the House amended its Rule in Section 105 and passed House Resolution 1450 to convene a Constituent Assembly without the concurrence of the Senate, it now seems absurd that it would wait on the Senate, challenging it to pass a resolution calling for a ConCon. If they are continuing to ignore the Senate on a matter requiring three-fourths of all the Members of the Congress, why are they saying they now need the Senate to convene a Con-Con which only needs two-thirds of all the Members of the Congress??

Or don't they have the numbers any more to even keep Jose de Venecia as Speaker of the House of Representatives?