DILG relaunches push for constitutional reforms

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG)  Tuesday, October 8, said it was relaunching its campaign pushing for amendments to the Constitution.

In a statement, DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said the agency submitted proposed revisions that included “equality provisions” to the House committee on constitutional amendments last week.

He added that the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for Federalism and Constitutional Reform was still drafting the proposed federal constitution because it has not “found common ground” with the other members-agencies.

Malaya said the amendments were requested by House committee chair Representative  Rufus Rodriguez.

The new campaign, dubbed Constitutional Reform (CORE), was in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s challenge that congress should work on amending key provisions to implement amendments that would “remove endemic corruption” and the huge gaps of economies between regions.

The CORE amendments aimed to include the so-called the Mandanas decision of the Supreme Court allowing the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) of local government units to be sourced from all national taxes, and not just those collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

The task force also proposed the following amendments:

• that the distribution of the IRA to the LGUs must take into account their needs, their level of own-revenue collection, and their organizational capacity;
• that the Regional Development Council be transformed into the Regional Development Authority, with the powers and funds to implement regional projects and programs without the approval of Manila

The task force also supported proposals to lift open up the economy to foreign investments. – with reports from Loreben Tuquero/Rappler.com