The House of Representatives will place on top of its legislative priorities measures that would put the final touches for a robust economy, including the revision of constitutional provisions that restrict foreign ownership of business and lands in the country.

Speaker Prospero Nograles said his leadership would focus on investments, in-flow, jobs generation, social justice, human development and good governments as the Lower House enters its last leg of the 14th Congress with Monday’s State-of-the-Nation Address by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Nograles said he is confident that the coming sessions “will put in place legislation that would ensure, among others, the sustained in-flow of new investments.”

“I propose to amend the economic provisions of the Constitution specifically the restrictive provisions of land ownership. I am convinced this will spur more direct investments in factories and plants, and in high-value agricultural plantations that will provide more employment opportunities for our people,” he said. The House leader was apparently referring to House Resolution 737, a measure he authored in order to lift constitutional restrictions to foreign ownership of land and business in the country.

House Resolution 1109, another Charter amendment measure, had already been adopted by the chamber but is not expected to be pursued when session resumes on Monday.

Majority Leader Arthur Defensor said HR 1109 will not be taken up if the Senate will not budge into allowing itself to convene with the Lower House to form a constituent assembly for the purpose of amending the 1987 Constitution.

Earlier, Nograles made it clear that the joint session for the President’s ninth and last SoNA will not be used to convene con-ass as critics and the opposition fear.

Representative Simeon Datumanong (Lakas-Kampi, Maguindanao), the deputy speaker for Mindanao, also assured the public that joint session will be adjourned immediately after the President delivers her speech.

“We will just convene in joint session purposely to hear the SoNA of President Arroyo. There is no more purpose of that joint session other than that,” he said.