THE SANGGUNIAN established the Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) through a resolution released on its Facebook page on March 4.

According to the resolution, the Con-Con will be independent from all units of the Sanggunian and will be tasked to review and propose necessary amendments to and revisions of, or suppression of the 2005 Constitution of the Undergraduate Students of the Loyola Schools.

The resolution states that the constitution is silent on matters regarding the prevalent vacancy of the top officer seats.

This year’s Sanggunian General Elections failed to fill the Top 4 positions with candidates, namely, president, secretary-general and finance officer. Out of the 3,255 votes needed to reach quota, only 3,128 votes were cast.

According to 3rd Year John Gokongwei School of Management (JGSOM) Central Board (CB) Representative Mawe Duque, the newly-elected Sanggunian officers have been appointing representatives for the different school committees and CB committees for “work over the summer.”

The resolution further states that a Con-Con is needed because the Sanggunian CB is mandated to review the constitution every two years and that the amendments crafted by and carried over to the Office of the Vice President for SY 2013-2014 were rendered invalid due to a failure to meet plebiscite.

Con-Con body

The Sanggunian CB appointed incoming development studies senior Shiphrah Belonguel as the Con-Con head on March 9, after an open call for students to submit applications.

Belonguel said that she aims to achieve a constitution that will allow the Sanggunian to be representative of the student body.

According to her, although student representation is necessary, it is difficult to achieve because the constitution is currently flawed.

“There are people in the Sanggunian who work very hard, but can’t help it when the institution fails them,” she said.

“My team and I, the delegation, along with Sanggu, will be working very hard over the summer. I think that’s because we believe in what the Ateneo student body can do,” Belonguel added.

Duque said that the Con-Con’s challenge right now is deciding whether the Sanggunian should change its overall structure or only amend conflicting provisions.

“Stakeholder engagement will also be critical but I believe the head (Belonguel) is more than capable to handle this,” he said.

According to the Con-Con primer, the body will be composed of 40 delegates representing various sectors of the student body.

The representatives will convene in a series of readings throughout the next school year to propose, review and vote on the amendments to the constitution.

The delegates will be composed of nine representatives from the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo, two from the Ateneo Residents Student Association, two from the League of Independent Organizations, two from the student political parties, one from the Ateneo Commission on Elections (Comelec), one from the Student Judicial Court, one from the Confederation of Publications, one from the athletes and one from the scholars.

Moreover, there will be five representatives each from the four schools, namely, JGSOM,  School of Social Sciences, School of Humanities and School of Science and Engineering.

A central team will also be formed separate from the delegation. The team has no voting powers, but it is tasked with drafting the initial amendments to the constitution.

The central team will be composed of four arms: Research, strategy, logistics and finance, and secretariat.

The research team will attend to either or both the quantitative and qualitative research needs of the convention and is expected to conduct surveys and review of related literature of the constitution.

The strategy team will identify and coordinate with key stakeholders and experts, and craft and development internal procedures for the Con-Con.

Moreover, the communications team will manage media coordination and coverage of Con-Con and is expected to release propaganda, stands and articles whenever necessary.

The logistics and finance team will attend to all logistical and financial needs, while the secretariat team is tasked with preparing, monitoring and archiving of relevant documents.

As of press time, applications for the Con-Con Central Team is still ongoing.

A FLAWED CONSTITUTION. The Con-Con aims to review the constitution for possible changes to the structure or amendments to its provisions. (Photo by Arielle A. Acosta)

Elections

The general elections, which were slated for February 17 t0 20 and 23, left forty-seven out of fifty-four of the top seats in the Sanggunian vacant.

On the last day of elections, the Comelec issued a one-day extension through Memorandum No. 201527.

On February 24, Julia Lenarz, Kjerrimyr Andres and Counsel Ateneo Debate Society issued three separate petitions to the Ateneo Student Judicial Court (SJC) questioning the legality of Comelec’s decision.

The SJC released a temporary restraining order (TRO) and subpoena duces tecum the following day in response to the petitions.

The TRO states that the SJC failed to find substantial reason for the extension and that it finds it “practical and appropriate to temporarily restrain the release of the official results of the elections until the court issues its judgment.”

On February 27, SJC released a document stating their decision to nullify all votes cast on February 24.

SJC ruled that the issuance of a memorandum, which does not have content adequate to be considered a resolution, effectively nullifies the legality of Comelec’s action.

“A resolution, in nature, is a course of action directed to promulgating a decision, the context of which the decision was made, the justifications for a decision as well as the pertinent legal provisions,” the decision read.

On March 2, european studies sophomore block representative candidate Java Sison sent an email to Comelec to inquire about the official results for his position.

The official results stated that he received one vote while his opponent Miguel Lardizabal received 16.

In an interview with The GUIDON, Sison said that he was surprised when he saw the results because he was confident that some of his blockmates had voted for him.

Sison said that Comelec replied to his email, stating that the results were interchanged. However, neither candidate garnered the position because the quota for the block was not met.

As of press time, Comelec Chief Commissioner Marlex Tuson has not been available for comment.

With reports from Ennah A. Tolentino