Lacson wants senators who will join House Con-ass expelled

said majority of his colleagues have agreed to his proposal to expel any senator who would attend a joint ses

Senators on Tuesday held a caucus wherein they agreed to “close ranks” House, which seeks to convene both chambers of Congress as a Constituent Assembly to pursue Charter change in order to shift to federal form of government.

Senators are concerned that they would be outvoted by the House in a joint session, given proposals to turn Congress into a unicameral parliament, which effectively abolishes the Senate.

- vening the Senate alone as a Constituent Assembly, which means each chamber must vote separately and reconcile their differences in a bicameral conference.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon claimed there was a rumor that if one or two senators attended

a session at the House, “the interpretation was that it is perceived as already a joint session and the Constitution can now be amended.”

“Sen. Lacson was quite serious when he said that if one or two senators go to the House, he said, they are not authorized,” Drilon said in a chance interview.

- deed warned fellow senators against joining the House-initiated assembly, Lacson said, “No. There were some concerns. There are two scenarios. What if one or two senators would be invited by the House as a body to attend the joint session?”

“If that would be a semblance of participation by the Senate, the House can declare that ‘we have a since we all agreed, we will not allow ourselves to be drowned out if there will be Constituent Assembly of the two bodies,” he said.

“So, I said, in order to close ranks, perhaps we can agree to expel whoever member or members will join that arrangement [with the House] adopted by the body. And nobody objected. So I assume they all agreed [with my proposal],” Lacson said in a separate interview.

Unanimous

Lacson said no senator was expected to participate in a joint session with the House and that party lines were in fact blurred during the caucus when everyone agreed to close ranks versus the House resolution.

Drilon said: “It is the entire Senate as an institution. The unanimous vote–no dissent–is that we should vote separately. In my 20 times where there is unanimity. The unanimity was shown yesterday when all the senators said, ‘no,

on the House resolution.

ourselves if we will adopt the ConCon (Constitutional Convention) mode or we will adopt the resolution that we filed last Monday, Senate, as a Con-Ass,” Lacson said.

“In that manner we will propose amendments and we will deliberate among ourselves. We will get threefourths vote to approve whatever [on] amendments,” he said.

‘Supreme Court can’t intervene’

On Wednesday, former chief jus - preme Court cannot interfere in the process of amending the constitution, such as deciding whether the Senate and the House should vote jointly or separately.

Puno was one of the resource hearing on several measures pending with the Senate.

by Drilon on whether the Supreme Court could compel the Senate to act on the House resolution calling for a Constituent Assembly, Puno said: “The Supreme Court still does not have jurisdiction to accommodate and decide questions that are political in character. The issue that we are talking about is a political question.”

“If we do not act on the House resolution calling for a Constitutional Assembly, the issue cannot be brought to the Supreme Court?” Drilon asked Puno, to which the

“The resolution is lost and you cannot be subject to a writ of mandamus,” Puno said.

- lier statement that “a no vote in the Senate cannot be reviewed by the Supreme Court because it is a political question.”

right. It is a political decision and the Senate will only be answerable to the people.”

Drilon insisted that both houses should vote separately, as the bicameral nature of the legislative branch “leaves no doubt that there should be a separate voting.”

“Changing the name of a high school or changing the name of a road would require the concurrence of the Senate as a separate institution. How much more in amending the Constitution and changing the form of government?” Drilon said.