Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) — A former representative of the agriculture sector in Congress said farmers’ groups nationwide have started to mobilize to gather signatures for charter change.
We have mobilized our leaders and farmers’ groups not only in Albay, but in the entire country to get the number of signatures needed for the People’s Initiative. We are in close coordination with other people’s organizations and local government leaders who are with us in this campaign,” former Rep. Argel Cabatbat of Magsasaka Partylist said in a statement on Tuesday.He said the farmers’ groups hope that amending the 1987 Constitution would accelerate the modernization program for the agriculture sector.Cabatbat bared these efforts in response to Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman’s claim of vote buying to gain more support for charter change via people’s initiative.Proponents supposedly want to have a constitutional provision allowing the House and Senate to vote jointly, instead of separately, in amending the Constitution. Such change would give the 315-member House the upper hand over the 24-member Senate, which has resisted previous attempts to amend the charter. I wish to disabuse his mind that public funds are spent for this purpose. This is an insult to the prime-movers of the People’s Initiative who spent their own money as well as to private donors who donated the printed forms needed for the signature campaign,” he said. Cabatbat explained that farmers’ groups are amenable to amending certain provisions of the 1987 in order to help realize an honest-to-goodness modernization program for the agriculture sector.
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