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Clever girl!
August 15th, 2008
The plan for constitutional amendments has been compared to a dance, which
among metaphor-conscious Filipinos followed naturally from the use of “cha
cha” as shorthand for it. Cha cha DIs have indeed been trying to lure
everyone onto the dance floor through various inducements, among them the
promise of relief from poverty, which they claim’s the result of a
perennial gridlock between the President and Congress. But most Filipinos
won’t dance, and it’s not so much because they think federalism and a
parliamentary form of government won’t work. It’s because they doubt the
motives of their champions.
Before July the result had been a dance floor littered with DIs dancing
with themselves, while most of the would-be instructees have left the
building. But if you think the dance hall owners and the DIs had packed up
and gone out of business, think again. Despite a less than lukewarm public
reception, they’ve persisted all these years. They’ve carried the campaign
to schools and universities, to business groups and academia, to civil
society and the media, where at least the issue has somehow remained
alive, if not well and kicking.
But their persistence seems about to pay off, this time driven by the need
for lasting peace in Mindanao, which these days has replaced world peace
in the ambitions of local beauty pageant contestants. The Arroyo regime
says that hope is about to be a reality — provided an autonomous
Bangsamoro state, currently bearing the innocuous title of Bangsamoro
Juridical Entity (BJE), is created within a federal system. The current
Philippine state being presidential and unitary, such a system has to be
put in place through constitutional amendments.
The lawyers — at least most of them — say there’s nothing wrong with
amending the constitution to accommodate such changes, provided they’re
sanctioned by the citizenry through a plebiscite. The Memorandum of
Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the Philippine government and the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front mandates such a plebiscite. So that at least
is settled.
Meanwhile, advocacy of federalism and the parliamentary system — the key
components of the Constitutional amendments that are being proposed and
that would make room for the BJE — has centered on the decentralization of
powers both would supposedly enhance, and on their supposedly being more
flexible and development friendly than the present unitary, presidential
system.
The advocates of these changes and others mentioned in the past, as well
as those likely to surface only when the proposed constituent assembly is
in place, are not necessarily moved by the same motives. Despite mass
cynicism over the intentions of politicians and even those academics
arguing for amendments, there’s nevertheless the likelihood that some are
moved by a sincere and patriotic desire for change through an amended
constitution. On the other hand, it isn’t just a possibility but a proven
fact that others are on the same bandwagon to further their selfish
interests.
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The main suspect is — who
else? — Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was convinced of the “need” for
amendments in the aftermath of the scandal over the 2004 elections, and
who would be among the beneficiaries of a shift to a parliamentary form of
government through either a term extension beyond 2010, or a subsequent
opportunity to run as MP (Member of Parliament) and to be elected
President or Prime Minister by her own party members, who would most
certainly dominate the contemplated Parliament.
As if the prospect of a
prolonged reign by the most unpopular president the country has ever had,
and of her cohort in Congress (morphed into MPs) were not dismal enough,
charter change is not likely to end with the creation of a federal system
and a parliamentary form of government.
The most likely vehicle of constitutional amendments is through a
constituent assembly of Congress, as called for in Aquilino Pimentel’s
Senate Resolution No. 10, which would most certainly result in its
members’ guarding and enhancing their interests via whatever amendments
they’ll propose.
Whatever the vehicle, the amendments proposed will almost certainly
include changes in the Bill of Rights (among the proposals: amending
Article III Section 4 to read “No law shall be passed abridging the
responsible exercise of the freedom of speech…”), in those provisions that
protect the country’s natural resources and mass media from foreign
ownership, and those that make the declaration of martial law — and
therefore the imposition of dictatorship — more difficult than it was
under the 1936 and 1973 Constitutions. But don’t think that’s all — the
politicians will come up with other horrors most people are too naive to
anticipate.
Under existing conditions, constitutional amendments would result in
everyone’s — the politicians first and those foreign interests eager to
get their claws on this country’s resources second — except the Filipino
people’s getting their fondest wishes.
Cha cha isn’t a dance; it’s a ploy similar to that of the raptor’s which,
in the film Jurassic Park, distracted a hunter long enough to tear him to
shreds. As the hunter exclaimed before razor-sharp teeth silenced him
forever: “Clever girl!”
(BusinessWorld)
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