A member of the Consultative Committee, Julio Teehankee, revealed in his July 4 interview that under the draft for the federal constitution, President Rodrigo Duterte can run for a four-year term and one re-election.
However, during the Congress bicameral committee conference on the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law on July 9, Senator Aquilino Pimentel III agreed with President Duterte’s appeal for the Consultative Committee to bar him from staying in office during the proposed shift to federalism.
“Let’s just remove the provision allowing the incumbent president to run again under the new constitution,” Pimentel said.
Since singling out PRRD will be discriminatory, Pimentel proposed that previous presidents under the 1987 constitution be prohibited to run for the same position.
“Let us make the incumbent president as well as all persons who held the position of the president under the 1987 Constitution shall be ineligible to run for president under the new constitution. That would be fair,” he said.
Furthermore, the Senator appealed to veer away from the controversial matters so that the benefits of the shift could be discussed.
“We no longer talk about the changes that federalism will bring on. We just argue who can and cannot run for positions,” he continued.
Meanwhile Senate President Vicente Sotto III commented that nothing yet is set in stone and anything can still be changed.
