MANILA, Philippines — Charter change (Cha-cha) advocates in the House of Representatives may raise a white flag to surrender its campaign to push for the Cha-cha bill.

Misamis Occidental Rep. Loreto Ocampos, chairman of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments, expressed readiness to say goodbye to the measure by mid year if there are no “concrete” major developments on their proposal and if Malacanang fails to give its green light to the proposed amendments to certain economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution.

“Candidly, beyond midyear this year kung wala pang major movement we will forget it. Maybe we will open up. Reality check, everybody must be on board. We cannot promise the moon and the stars but we have to be practical on how we approach things. The pronouncement of the President is very very important. That's a very, very important aspect in our deliberations,” he told reporters during weekly Ugnayan sa Batasan press forum.

The Visayan lawmaker earlier said the fate of the Charter Change bill depends on the “critical mass of support” that would convince President Benigno Aquino III to rally behind the infamous measure.

“We are still on the debating stage, information stages and by the time na right na ‘yung issue we'll present it with the President,” he said.

He announced that in the next two or three weeks they will conduct public hearings in some places in Luzon after their Cagayan de Oro and Cebu swing.

“Our intention is to inform the people about the new issues regarding charter change. We will just continue on a regular basis this procedure,” Ocampos said. “It must be consultative process. One branch of government cannot rule over the other. We have to consult and give consensus management here. Hopefully, we can derive into a one common ground and then we'll decide on what approach that we had to take,” he said.

In the same news forum, Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone proposed that the provision of the Constitution giving the Supreme Court the plenary power to review practically the whole gamut of issues or the so-called “grave abuse of discretion” should be looked into.

Nodding to Evardone’s proposal, Ocampos said the President should “take another look” at the Constitution in light of the recent developments in the ongoing impeachment trial of the Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“We are looking into that possibility...that the President will probably take another look into the Constitution. Yes, because my committee is now focusing on the economic provisions of the Constitution pero in the light of these events, maybe we can persuade Malacanang that it is about time now that , since it’s here, we might as well put it onboard for Charter change,” he said.