Marcos’ political capital could suffer if he does not resolve Cha-cha clash between House, Senate: analyst
President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.’s political capital for the 2025 midterm elections might suffer if he does not intervene between the House and the Senate in their clash over Charter change, a political analyst said.
Ronald Llamas, the political adviser of the late President Benigno Aquino III, said Marcos must intervene and should not be “conflict-averse” since he had a crucial role in deciding how to address key issues such as the controversial people’s initiative for amending the Constitution and the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigation of his predecessor’s war on drugs.
“What we can see here is that the conflict is not the opposition versus the administration. The conflict here is between the supporters of President ‘Bongbong’ Marcos. That’s why it is crucial that he resolves this or else in the midterm elections, his political capital could take a hit. His huge 2022 political capital, his record-high victory could be hit if he doesn’t intervene efficiently and decisively to resolve whether it (Charter change) should be done through con-ass (Constituent Assembly), voting together, or voting separately. This is the role of the President that they are waiting for,” Llamas said in a television interview.
“It will affect in a major, major way yung midterm elections. This is not just about the surveys. This is about the intervention of the President on key issues including the the people’s initiative which happened but has a limited time and secondly, his decision on the International Criminal Court. It’s like the President is conflict-averse. It seems that he doesn’t like fights. But this cannot continue because the issues that we are confronting as a nation make his role as President crucial. He cannot avoid intervening or else his political capital will greatly suffer,” he added.
Llamas said tensions between both houses of Congress could worsen despite the House filing a Charter change resolution similar to the Senate’s version.
“The issue in the Senate is survival. If the issue of voting jointly or voting separately cannot be solved, the people’s initiative will be blocked by the Senate. Even if the House says its agenda is to amend the economic provisions,” Llamas said.
“It will not de-escalate because there is suspicion. The trust between them has been greatly damaged in the past months. This could have been fixed by the President. That distrust will continue because many lawmakers in the Senate think they are not just after the economic provisions. If they vote as one, then they will have plenary powers which give them the power to revise the Constitution, not only to amend,” he said.
“The Congress just said that the Senate has no word of honor because it broke their gentleman’s agreement wherein they said they will no longer criticize each other. But the Senate’s criticism of the House continued even with the (Resolution of Both Houses No.7). So I doubt if this will de-escalate. The wounds are very deep and it will take time to heal and the President is not intervening to heal the distrust between the Senate and the House and other major players in our political system,” he added.
House leaders on Monday filed Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No.7, which also limits the proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution to economic provisions.
The solons said they aim to pass the resolution before Marcos’ third State of the Nation Address (SONA). Jaspearl Tan/DMS
