Could it be that the House leadership is listening to a different drummer?

The enthusiasm and unity as exhibited by the 171 congressmen who co-authored House Resolution No. 1109 prompts conjectures of a game plan more purposive than what it purports to be.

H.R. 1109, as adopted by the Lower House, seeks to convene Congress into a Constituent Assembly for the purpose of changing or amending the 1987 Constitution.

Its title reads, “A Resolution Calling upon the Members of Congress to Convene for the Purpose of Considering Proposals to Amend or Revise the Constitution, upon a vote of Three-Fourths of All Members of Congress.”

That would have been all right except that under the Constitution, “Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by: (1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members…”

The problem is H.R. 1109 was voted upon by Members of the House alone to the exclusion of the members of the Senate.

As might be expected, the Upper Chamber, led by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, promptly denounced the House resolution as an illegal act – “a joke,” he said, explaining that the House alone without the participation of the Senate cannot convene itself into a body to amend the Charter.

Congress, simply, means the House and the Senate, the Upper and the Lower Chambers.

Attempts to amend the Constitution have a long history of successive failures from the time of then President Fidel V. Ramos and at various instances during the incumbency of the Arroyo administration.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr., on learning of the House action, described it as “a dying gasp of a terminally ill House that wishes to bring the nation to the brink of upheaval.”

But Senator Francis Escudero views it from a different perspective: He said he could not believe that House leaders could be so oblivious of public sentiments against Charter change.

The senator is, of course, referring to the sustained public opposition to any proposal to amend the 1987 Constitution, particularly at this time because of the increasing suspicion – rightly or wrongly – that it is being pursued at all cost to extend President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s tenure.

For why should really the House leadership continue without let-up lusting after Charter change, employing every justification and evasion as if its very life depends on it, in the face of widespread public derision of even just the mention of Cha-cha?

Or are our House leaders listening to a different drummer?