TAGUM CITY (16 December) -- Union of Local Authorities in the Philippines (ULAP) national officer Alan Zulueta cited the constitutional convention as an option worthy of public support now that the constituent assembly failed to take off.

Speaking out his personal views, Davao del Norte Board member Zulueta, maintained his support for the constituent assembly, which ULAP had supported in a joint declaration, issued on October 10, 2005.

But he wanted that both the House of Representatives and the Senate to sit down together and work on changing the 1987 Constitution through a constituent assembly.

"Though the law requires three-fourth vote of Congress to carry out amendments to the Constitution in a constituent assembly, the Senate has to participate (in the process). If an ordinary law involves both houses of Congress, how much more with the fundamental law of the land?" he pointed out.

Congress was supposed to sit down in a constituent assembly to change the Constitution but decided to put it off with the snowballing of opposition against such move.

The administration, which earlier had given its support for the Constituent Assembly later, turned its support for the Constitutional Convention.

But Presidential Spokesperson Ignacio Bunye in a statement said that the "administration is forging ahead in it's agenda of unity and consolidation."

"It now continues to move to consolidate the nation and build a newfound unity behind the agenda of economic strength and reconstruction in the calamity-stricken areas," he added.

Bunye cited the freezing of the Constitutional Assembly by the House of Representatives as ":a sterling display of democratic statesmanship to unify not only the two chambers of the legislature but the whole nation around the issue of charter change."

He noted that Speaker de Venecia and his allies in the House "heeded the voice of national consolidation and unity without sacrificing their high vision of political renewal."