DILG prioritizing Covid-19 response, not Cha-cha

THE DEPARTMENT of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is prioritizing the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic and not efforts to push for Charter change (Cha-cha), Malacañang said on Monday.   

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made this remark following reports that the DILG supposedly directed its regional offices to continue gathering up to 2 million signatures over the next two months to back amendments to the Constitution.

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año dismissed these reports as fake news, saying he never ordered anyone to do such a thing, especially amid a prevailing health crisis.

Roque said the DILG had more important concerns to prioritize, saying Cha-cha could wait.

“It is not really a priority. They are continuing because the mechanism is there. Pero nakatutok po talaga tayo ngayon sa Covid-19 (But we are really focused on Covid-19),” Roque said in a virtual presser.

He pointed out that although the push for Cha-cha remains the DILG’s mandate, it is not exerting any “additional effort” to boost its drive.

“It’s always been a mandate of DILG. They should do it, otherwise, makakasuhan naman sila ng dereliction, pero at the same time makikita naman po ninyo na talagang ang DILG ang primary attention nila nakatutok po dito sa Covid-19 (Otherwise they will be charged with dereliction, but at the same time, we can see that DILG is giving primary attention to Covid-19),” he said

Reports showed that DILG Undersecretary and spokesperson Jonathan Malaya, in a memorandum dated Jan. 28, said the collected signatures would be presented to Congress to show the support for constitutional reform.

Another memo, dated March 27, extended the deadline for submission of the signatures from March 31 to April 30 but also asked directors to raise the number to at least 100,000 by May 29 to get 2 million signatures.

In his fourth State of the Nation Address last year, Duterte made no mention of federalism but said talks on Cha-cha are "better left in conferences that are not allowed to be open to the public."

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said Duterte has not yet abandoned his push to shift to a federal system of government although he did not mention it in his SONA.

He said the federalism push will still be up to the Congress to prioritize.