Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Wednesday stated it confuses him why legislators from the House of Representatives are dashing the Senate to behave on proposals to amend the 1987 Constitution.
Zubiri made the comment in response to the assertion of Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez that the Senate “cannot and should not ignore” the House’s initiative for Charter change (Cha-cha), stressing that it was “approved by an overwhelming vote and requires urgent attention.”
“Sometimes, I get confused. I don’t know what requires urgent attention. The priority measures of the LEDAC… who discusses the priority measures needed for our country, and Charter change is not there,” Zubiri stated.
He reiterated that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. had already stated that Cha-cha isn’t a precedence of his administration, and so is the Senate.
“I don’t understand why our dear colleagues in the House would like to rush this when in all honesty, we passed the economic measures in the 18th Congress… We passed the Public Services Act of [Senator] Grace Poe, we passed the Retail Trade Act of Senator Koko Pimentel, and we passed the Foreign Investments Act of which Senator Imee Marcos was sponsor and author. These three was to answer the problem of the restrictive economic provision in the Constitution,” he continued.
The House earlier accredited on third and remaining studying Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) 6 which requires a constitutional conference (con-con) to amend the 1987 Constitution. This goals to restrict the Cha-cha initiative to the financial provisions of the structure “to attract more foreign investments.”
Zubiri, nevertheless, stated that the Senate is tackling Cha-cha with Senator Robin Padilla, who chairs the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes, persevering with his rounds across the nation to conduct public hearings and listening excursions on the matter.
“We have not prevailed upon him to stop that. He’s doing his job. We’re doing our job to listen to the people’s voice on this particular issue,” he added.
Last Thursday, Zubiri stated he was knowledgeable that his place on Cha-cha is the rationale behind rumors of a Senate management shake-up.
Padilla denied that he had something to do with the rumored coup plot. Aside from him, 9 different senators denied the rumors and most of them expressed full help for Zubiri.
Minimum wage
Meanwhile, Zubiri warned of a potential “brain drain” amongst Filipino staff if the problem on minimal wage isn’t addressed.
This was after he filed a invoice looking for to extend the minimal wage of personal staff by P150 amid the hovering inflation within the nation.
He defined that there’s a diaspora of staff from the Philippines due to the low minimal wage.
“We have 12 million Filipinos abroad because we don’t pay the right or at least decent wages here in the Philippines. We have to address that. If we don’t address that, we will have a brain drain. Mawawalan tayo ng workers [we will lose our workers],” Zubiri stated.
“Kailangan natin bigyan ang ating manggagawa na tinatawag natin na dwelling wage, hindi naman minimal wage [We have to give our workers a living wage and not a minimum wage], as a result of a minimal wage isn’t a dwelling wage.” — Giselle Ombay/ VAL, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
