Solon pushes Con-Con for Charter amendments

WITH the government saddled with a tight fiscal space owing to massive past spending on Covid-19 response, a senior lawmaker believes the time is ripe for greater investments from abroad to accelerate post-pandemic high growth by letting a duly-elected Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) relax foreign ownership provisions in the 1987 Charter. The latter have turned off investors despite the Philippines enjoying investment-

By Rene Acosta @reneacostaBM

THE government’s announcement of a “restart” for joint maritime patrols with the United States has raised questions, including whether it could stop China’s incursions in the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and West Philippine Sea (WPS).

While the country’s new mari - grade ratings for over a decade, according to Camarines Sur Rep. LRay Villafuerte.

In a statement on Sunday, he said the Con-Con route is the way to constitutional amendments to, among others, lift the 40-percent ownership cap, given that the alternative proposal for Congress to do so by convening into a Constituent Assembly (Con-Ass) would never take off, with long debates expected among lawmakers on whether the Senate and the House time security arrangement with its treaty partner poses the greatest challenge yet to Beijing’s presence in disputed waters, the question remains: can it halt China’s march in those maritime waters?

For some legislators and even the Department of National Defense, the joint maritime patrols will cease, if not limit Beijing’s unchallenged intrusions in the KIG and WPS, and revert the use of its of Representatives could vote for changes jointly or separately. vast waters to Filipino fishermen.

The president of the National Unity Party (NUP), Villafuerte expects strong support for the Con-Con proposal because of its timing, its focus on economic provisions of our Charter, and his proposal to prohibit would-be ConCon delegates from running in the immediate elections following the ratification via a plebiscite of the proposed amendments.

“Senator [Francis] Escudero also emphasized that joint patrols would help reduce encroachments and acts of harassment in the area,” Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. noted in a statement, as he recalled reactions to the agreement announced in last week’s visit of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III.

Editor: Jennifer A. Ng

Monday, February 6, 2023

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