SENATOR Juan Miguel Zubiri has filed a bill calling for the election of 86 independent delegates and the appointment of 14 others to a Constitutional Convention alongside barangay and youth council elections in October.
Zubiri filed the bill as the Commission on Elections announced that it expects more than three million new voters to register for the upcoming barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan, or youth council, elections on Oct. 31.
Comelec Commissioner Luie Tito Guia said there will be no extension of the 15-day registration from July 15 to 31 because of the short time frame involved.
“For those with opposition to registrations, they have 15 days to file their protest. August 1 to 15 will be the period to accept opposition to applications and the hearings,” he said, adding that no application for transfer of voter registration records will be entertained.
Zubiri, for his part, said his bill is the answer to the growing public clamor for constitutional reform—a clamor reinforced by the election of President Rodrigo Duterte who ran on a federalism platform.
“There shall be an election of delegates to a Con-Con simultaneous with the holding of the October 2016 barangay elections,” according to the senator’s proposed ConCon Act of 2016.
“We are proposing to constitute a Con-Con of exactly 100 delegates—one delegate from every province, or a total of 81 from all provinces, five delegates from the National Capital Region, plus 14 delegates to be appointed by the President,” Zubiri said.
The Con-Con is expected to complete the draft of a proposed new Constitution within 36 months and the draft shall be submitted to the people for ratification in a plebiscite within 90 days.
The proposed new Constitution shall become valid once ratified by a majority of the votes cast in the plebiscite.
The bill proposes to earmark P1 billion for the Con-con, which shall establish its own rules and regulations for the effective and efficient conduct of its purpose and proceedings.
The measure specifies that except for the Supreme Court, no other court shall have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction against the Con-con, in any case or dispute arising from or necessary to, the application and enforcement of the provisions of the law that formed the convention.
It also provides that a Con-con delegate shall not be questioned nor held in any other place for any speech or debate in the convention or in any committee thereof, or in any public hearing conducted by the convention or any committee thereof.
A Con-con delegate shall, in all offenses punishable by not more than six years imprisonment, be privileged from arrest while attending the convention’s session, and in going to and returning from the same.
The Con-con shall have the power to cite any person in direct or indirect contempt, and impose the appropriate penalties for contumacious conduct.