House Speaker Martin Romualdez shared the plans of lawmakers to amend the 1987 constitution at the 5th local Philippine Economic Briefing in Iloilo last December 11.
“I am going to be sharing with you things that I have not shared with the public… I will actually be preempting our all-party leaders’ caucus this afternoon and sharing it with you here in Iloilo. We are thinking of addressing the procedural gap or question as to how we amend the Constitution,” he said.
“I believe 2024 will allow us, again, to revisit the Constitution. I think it’s timely, we’d like to focus on the economic provisions,” he added.
The Congress has been urged by foreign business chambers to lift current limits to foreign investment which initially caps foreign ownership of local firms at 40% due to the 60-40 rule. The amendment will help lawmakers in regulating economic sectors open to foreign investors.
“We will highly recommend that we embark on a people-centered initiative to cure this impasse, so to speak, on how we vote. And I hope that we can undertake this as soon as possible so we could have some clarity on the procedures. We’d like to have that [procedural problem] resolved by and through a people’s initiative,” Romualdez disclosed.
