MANILA — Former National Security Adviser (NSA) Clarita Carlos on Monday said she wants both term limits and the ban on political dynasties scrapped from a new Constitution.
"Term limits and political dynasties let us not put that in the Constitution anymore because we are following liberal democracy it is so antithetical to our democracy," Carlos said during the 3rd hearing of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments on various proposals to amend the Constitution.
House Committee on Ways and Means Chair and Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda told his colleagues there is a study showing term limits have negative effects on economic policy.
"The impact of legislative term limits on economic policy. Very negative, term limits, this is for 115 countries for 30 years. So there is empirical evidence that term limits limits economic growth, limits income, limits longevity...It is the anti democratic character of term limits," Salceda said.
"In short if you have an analogy with respect to political dynasty, and put side by side essentially a term limit, empirically, there's empirical evidence," Salceda added.
Leyte 4th District Rep. Richard Gomez for his part responded to charter change critics who insist on enacting an anti political dynasty law first before talking about revising the basic law of the land.
"From the time I entered politics and started working in Congress ang dami ko na naririnig lagi about political dynasty. Hindi napapasa ang batas sa political dynasty simply because ang tao binibigyan natin ng karapatan, ng opportunity na pumili ng mga leaders na gusto nila," Gomez said during the hearing.
"Hindi ho papasa ang anti dynasty bill because nga meron ho tayong election, if you don't allow election anong mangyayari sa atin. You're giving the people the choice, the chance piliin nila sino ang leader nila," Gomez added.
1SAMBAYAN Convenor Howard Calleja however justified the presence of an anti-dynasty provision.
"We have to look at our experience especially with dynasties," Calleja said.
"What we are trying to do here is reducing or minimizing the risk of having bad leaders... The Constitution is there as the basic principle to put safeguards to us, we make mistakes that's why we have safeguards there," Calleja explained.
Meantime, Carlos wants any constitutional convention to have more than one representative for each district.
"Instead of having a single member district system, why don't you have a mixed single member district and proportion representation?" Carlos said.
"If we're going to have a concon, why don't we move away from the single member district? Why don't we have a multiple member district?" Carlos explained.
Kabayan Party List Rep. Ron Salo, author of the proposed Constitutional Convention Act of 2023, cited economic reasons for backing charter change.
For Salo, it's all about creating more job opportunities in the country so Filipinos don't have to go overseas to make a living.
Oppositors to charter change reiterated their long standing reasons for objecting.
Members of the various groups comprising the Makabayan Bloc in the House of Representatives staged a protest action against Charter Change outside the Batasan Pambansa as the Committee on Constitutional Amendments held its 3rd hearing on Charter Change.
Members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Bayan Muna and Anakpawis were among those who stood at the picket line to air their opposition to pending moves to rewrite the constitution.
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