Any plan to revise the 1987 Constitution to allow President Aquino to run for reelection is no longer feasible as far as the 2016 presidential election is concerned: Not only is there no more time to pursue one; also, there is no budget or funds to cover the costs of electing delegates to a constitutional convention and conducting a plebiscite on the amendment.
While the Constitution allows an amendment or the revision of the Constitution upon a vote of three-fourths of all the members of Congress, there is still that unresolved issue between the Senate and the House of Representatives on whether the voting should be done jointly or separately.
Whichever mode of amendment or revision of the Constitution would be adopted, time and budgetary constraints will pose as obstacles to its successful implementation.
If the Commission on Elections can’t even conduct a recall election in Puerto Princesa for lack of the required budget of P20 million, with more reason it can’t conduct the election of delegates to a constitutional convention and/or conduct the required plebiscite to ratify such amendment. Since the election and plebiscite will be national in scope, then almost the same budget of close to P12 billion needed to hold a regular national election will be required to elect the delegates and/or conduct the plebiscite.
Besides, the budget for 2015 has already been submitted to the House of Representatives and the same does not include any provision or allocation for the amendment or revision of the Constitution. To be sure, any proposed amendment or plebiscite can only be completed in 2015. Without any budget for such political exercise in the 2015 budget—which, as we earlier pointed out here, is estimated at P12 billion—it is as clear as the sunlight that the political plan to allow an elected president to seek reelection will not happen in 2016 due to budgetary restriction.
By 2015, the Comelec will already be very busy preparing for the 2016 presidential election, especially its evaluation or testing of modern automatic election systems or new automatic counting or canvassing equipment. In other words, the Comelec does not have the luxury of time for any disruption, which may be caused by another political exercise, to its preparation for the 2016 elections, unless it is willing to put the credibility of the election results on the line.
—ROMULO B. MACALINTAL,
election lawyer, Las Piñas City