Under Article 7, section 18 of the Philippine Constitution, it says “Congress, if not in session, shall, within twenty-four hours following such a proclamation or suspension, convene in accordance with its rules without need of a call.” However, this didn’t happen. Senate Majority Floor Leader Miguel Zubiri explained on the floor that he wanted to do the joint session on Tuesday but he said that his counterparts with the lower house asked to move it Wednesday afternoon. He went on to defend this by saying that:
“The legal luminaries in the Senate said that the 24 hour is applicable when the Congress is in recess. We are in session so the 24 hours [deadline] is not necessary, but prudence dictates ASAP [as soon as possible].”
If I follow his logic, this means that life would have been better for everyone if Congress was on recess because that would FORCE them into action as opposed to them having regular sessions which means they can keep on delaying.
EPIC FAIL.
Moving on, I am honestly disgusted and appalled at how insensitive and rude the members of the lower house are who pushed for the delay of the session. Then again, there’s no need for them to act quickly since they’ll probably just vote to continue martial law given the dominance of the allies of President Arroyo in the House of Representatives.
Politics here in the Philippines is just sickening.
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Recess-session. Filipino time nga naman.
Carlo,
One good way is to publicize the names who does not vote for the revocation of ML. Publicize their names well and for long til the elections so that we have another list of “NOT TO VOTE FOR”.