House panel tackles term limits for proposed federal assembly

MANILA — Members of the House of Representatives debated the proposed terms of office of members a new legislature at a hearing on charter change yesterday.

According to the proposed draft constitution, the members of the federal assembly will be elected to five-year terms and can be re-elected once. No member of the federal assembly will be allowed to serve for more than two consecutive terms.

Rep. Corazon Nuñez-Malanyaon (Davao Oriental), Committee on Constitutional Amendments vice chair, admitted that the subcommittee was “divided” on term limits.

“Some want indefinite term limit, others want no term limit. Others want the same as that as the president,” she said.

Rep. Roger Mercado (Southern Leyte), panel chair, said he personally wants members of the federal assembly to have terms of four years but with no limits on re-election.

“I want four years because during the time before martial law, it was just four years and that was effective. Now, three years is very short for a working official. We will still be pushing bills for our respective (districts) by the time of the next elections." he said in Filipino and English.

Rep. Rodel Batocabe (Ako-Bicol party-list ) said that there is no reason to impose term limits for those in the federal assembly.

“We should do away with term limits for federal assembly. But with respect to state and local assemblies, then we retain the proposal for term limit. For the federal assembly, we elect the best and qualified people to enact laws to work for their districts and their sectors. There’s no need for term limit,” he said.