Pampanga 3rd District Representative Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr. is pushing to extend the terms of House representatives, local officials, and the President.
For Gonzales, the current term for the government officials is “too short,” and some of their time was spent on reelection-related activities.
“A six-year tenure is too short for a good President, especially if he is confronted with a crippling crisis like COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to wreak havoc on our health and economy and whose end is not yet in sight,” he said.
“It may take more than one presidency before the nation can fully recover from this catastrophe,” he added.
Gonzales filed Resolution of Both Houses No. 7, which proposes a five-year term with the possibility of reelection for a total of 10 years for the President.
The present law only allows the President to serve for six years without the possibility of being reelected.
“On the other hand, if we do not like the way the President is governing, we can vote him out of the office a year earlier if his term of office is five years,” said Gonzales.
Longer terms for President, House reps pushed
The solon also proposed prohibiting the President from running for any position after his term ended.
He also wanted to extend the tenure of the Vice President to five years, with the vote for the President equivalent to a vote for the running mate.
“This would strengthen the political party system and ensure that the top two officials of the land are one in leading the nation,” he said.
Gonzales proposed five years with one reelection for House representatives instead of the current three years with two reelections.
He said that the second three-year term is where the work happens. He explained the first term is a learning curve, while the third term is for reelection-related activities.
“This is true as well with a governor or city or town mayor,” he said in the statement.
“These have been with us for 34 long years. It may now be time to modify them to modify them to strengthen our political system and hasten national and local development,” Gonzales said.
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