President Marcos on Tuesday said he supports efforts to amend restrictive economic provisions in the 1987 Constitution, saying the Charter was “not written for a globalized world.”
Mr. Marcos, in a 24 Oras interview, said he even supports political amendments, but said these should not be tackled yet.
“We have to adjust so that we can increase the economic activity in the Philippines so we can attract more foreign investors,” he said.
The President, however, drew the line on which sectors or services should not be opened up to foreign investors.
He said he is not in favor of allowing foreigners to own land as this “will cause disruptions.”
“Corporations—maybe we can discuss this, except for the critical areas such as power generation, media, and all the strategic areas that we cannot allow to be influenced by a foreign entity, a corporation or another country. That’s what we have to decide—where we draw the line and how much,” the President said.
He said political amendments should not be discussed not so as “not to jeopardize the success” of efforts to amend the economic provisions.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Marcos urged the public to let the Commission on Elections (Comelec) validate the signatures submitted in a people’s initiative (PI) to amend the Constitution.
“Let the Comelec do their job,” Mr. Marcos said.
The President said he talked to officials regarding speculation that people were being paid to sign the forms in the people’s initiative.
He also said he believed the Comelec would not accept signatures if people were indeed paid or promised benefits for signing.
”So, as far as I know, there is no such thing. What is said is not to pay in cash, but to promise some kind of benefits. We’re looking at it, [but]… our releases have not changed, they are constant,” he said.
“We just have to let Comelec… do their work to validate the signatures,” he said, adding that the signatures would not be counted if they were gathered in a suspicious manner.
So far, the Comelec said at least 884 cities and municipalities have received several pages of signatures of the people’s initiative.
As provided for in the Constitution, amendments can be directly proposed by the people “through initiative upon a petition of at least 12 percent of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least 3 percent of the registered voters therein, a mode called people’s initiative.”
Once the number of required signatures is met, proponents of the people’s initiative will have to file their petition with the Comelec, which will scrutinize and verify the signatures.
If the poll body is able to verify that the signatures are authentic, it will schedule a national plebiscite or referendum where the people will vote on the petitioners’ proposed constitutional amendments.