THE SECURITIES and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Tuesday that the company behind the people’s initiative signature campaign and the P55-million TV infomercial has been nonexistent since 2004 as its registration has been revoked.
“What we only have are their articles of incorporation and by-laws that they submitted at the time of their incorporation (March 12, 1997),” Securities Review Counsel Katrina Jean C. Miranda of the SEC told the Senate hearing looking into the signature campaign launched by the People’s Initiative for Modernization and Reform Action (PIRMA).
Lawyer Alex Avisado, representing PIRMA lead convenor Noel Oñate, said that the firm’s updated information was submitted to the SEC’s online portal earlier this month, adding the convenor had to consult his former associates before updating company information.
He added that PIRMA is planning on filing a petition of reinstatement with the SEC after complying with documentary requirements and paying penalties for non-submission.
“You are going to update the website of a corporation that has not been in existence for 20 years? PIRMA is no more. It is a ghost. It is 20 years old,” Senator and presidential sister Maria Imelda “Imee” R. Marcos commented at the hearing.
Mr. Avisado replied: “That is our expectation from the SEC madame chair, based on the rules of the SEC.”
SEC’s Ms. Miranda told senators that PIRMA must first file a petition to lift the revocation of its registration for it to be reinstated.
Earlier, PIRMA reached out to Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez and other congressmen for “administrative and advisory” assistance in collecting signatures to amend the 1987 Constitution through the initiative.
Ms. Marcos, who is also the Speaker’s cousin, earlier said as much as P20 million was offered to districts in several provinces that could deliver 20,000 signatures in favor of Charter change (“Cha-cha”).
Mr. Romualdez responded and denied any involvement in the alleged vote-buying that took place during the collection of signatures in support of Charter change.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Mr. Oñate told the same hearing that his donors refused to reveal their names to the public to protect their privacy and security, saying he shouldered about P28 million for the ad campaign. Several senators had asked him to reveal who funded the signature campaign, which he agreed to do.
“I had all the intention of fulfilling what I said. I think I told you that we would submit the list of the donors with my lawyers, but I obeyed what Senator Chiz (Francis Joseph G. Escudero) mentioned here, that maybe you might want to consult your contributors, which I did over the last many days,” he said. “They did not want their names revealed.”
Senator Maria Lourdes “Nancy” S. Binay-Angeles questioned the secrecy behind the donors’ list saying the funders should have been ready to stand by a so-called people’s initiative.
“Shouldn’t they be ready and proud to declare that they are advocating this Charter change, this people’s initiative?” she asked Mr. Oñate in mixed English and Filipino. “That’s why I’m surprised that all of a sudden, it seems to me, that they no longer believe the advocacy they funded,” she added.
The Constitution may be amended either through a constitutional convention composed of delegates, by Congress sitting as a constituent assembly or through a people’s initiative.
Under the law, the signatures must account for at least 12% of voters nationwide and 3% of voters in each legislative district. The Supreme Court rejected a similar campaign in 1997 in the absence of an enabling law.
The Senate is in the middle of deliberating on the Resolution of Both Houses No. 6 that seeks to ease foreign restrictions in education, public utilities and advertising under the 1987 Constitution. — John Victor D. Ordoñez
