Gonzales: House members didn't seek PIRMA help for Cha-cha

House members didn't seek the help of pro-Charter change group People’s Initiative for Modernization and Reform Action (PIRMA) to start a signature campaign for people's initiative, a House leader said on Wednesday.

Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales of Pampanga so remarked a day after Sen. Ronaldo "Bato" Dela Rosa said in a Senate hearing that the timeline of the initiative indicated that House members sought PIRMA's help and not the other way around.

“The Speaker (Martin Romualdez), wala silang pinagusapan regarding that [of the House asking PIRMA to gather Cha-cha signatures]. Wala po kaming alam roon sa [people’s initiative ng] PIRMA,” Gonzales said at a press conference.

(The Speaker did not have talks with PIRMA to ask for their help, we don’t know of PIRMA’s people’s initiative for Cha-cha.)

PIRMA’s lead convenor Noel Oñate said in a Senate inquiry that he met the Speaker to seek assistance in gathering signatures for Cha-cha. 

Oñate refused to disclose the financiers of the pro-Cha-cha ad campaign, with the EDSA-Pwera catchphrase.  

Gonzales said Oñate's meeting with the Speaker did not mean that the House was behind the Cha-cha signature campaign for people’s initiative. He said it was expected of the Speaker to meet multitudes of people.

“Kapag Speaker ka you have a lot of appointments, and after the meetings, there are photo opportunities . People will say, Speaker, puede po ba magpapicture? Pero wala po kaming pinagusapan na ganoon [na nagpatulong kami sa PIRMA]. lalo na si Speaker,” Gonzales said.

(The Speaker has a lot of photo opportunities, people ask him for photos all the time, but there is no such talk of us seeking PIRMA’s help.)

“Wala po [na ganun],” Gonzales added.

(There is no such thing.)

The said signature campaign asks voters if they were in favor of amending Article 17 Section 1 of the 1987 Constitution by allowing all members of Congress to jointly vote on proposed constitutional amendments via constituent assembly, a move that the Senate took offense with since a joint vote would render its 24 votes weightless as against the House’s over 300 members.

Roman echoed Gonzales and insisted that the House has never been involved with PIRMA’s Cha-cha signature campaign.

“We are aware of the nature of people’s initiative, that it needs to be as organic as possible. We did not initiate it in the House of Representatives,” Roman added.

1-Rider party-list lawmaker Rodge Gutierrez, for his part, said that PIRMA being a non-registered entity in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as revealed in the Senate inquiry is not relevant in PIRMA’s role in gathering signatures for Charter change.

 “People’s initiative stems from the sovereign will of the people, so it does not necessarily require an SEC certificate to go around. SEC registration is for protection of business, bawal magsolicit for investment, or you cannot go into business involving a certain industry, but when it comes to charter change, karapatan po iyan ng tao,” Gutierrez, a lawyer, said.

(SEC registration provides limitations, like prevention of solicitations of investments, but initiating Cha-cha is a matter of people's right.)

“I don’t actually think it is relevant in the issue of people’s initiative,” Gutierrez added. —NB, GMA Integrated News