Speaker: House has zero participation in PI

The House of Representatives has zero participation in the people's initiative to change the Constitution, Speaker Martin Romualdez said yesterday, addressing Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III, adding that some senators may just be "seeing ghosts" in voicing their apprehension.

- SHEILA CRISOSTOMO

"The people's initiative is not initiated out of the Congress," Romualdez insisted.

"We don't have to set anything for hearings. There are no formal functions or participation of congressmen or senators. The PI contemplates the power of the people. So that's it... Congressmen have nothing to do with it so I don't know what they're making reference to," he said, referring to people's initiative by its initials.

Romualdez made the statement in reaction to Pimentel's call for President Marcos to talk to the Speaker, who has been accused of being behind the people's initiative.

"I hope that the President will now step in, exercise the powers and the prerogative of his office, plus the fact that the leader of the House of Representatives is his younger cousin over whom he has influence," Pimentel said in a recent television interview.