Town mayors reject con-con

Local officials have rejected moves to hold a constitutional convention (con-con) to tackle amendments to the 1987 Constitution, saying the estimated cost of P12 billion to maintain a Charter amendment body should instead be used to develop the countryside.

League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) president and Binalonan, Pangasinan Mayor Ramon Guico Jr. said that the people’s initiative is the most cost-effective and most democratic mode of amending the Charter.

Guico said groups opposed to the people’s initiative should instead allow this mode to prosper and spend the funds that would otherwise go to a con-con on urgent anti-poverty projects in health care, social services, education, socialized housing and rural infrastructure.

He sneered at the latest maneuvers by anti-Cha-cha groups to spoil the push for sweeping reforms by cobbling together yet another coalition designed to preserve the "traditional elite’s grip on political and economic power under the bicameral presidential system."

Philippine Councilors League (PCL) chairman Elmer Datuin of Baguio City said the opposition is pushing the con-con route so they can stage-manage the process and pursue sham reforms beneficial to the traditional elite and not the poor.

Datuin said the new coalition is doomed to collapse like all of the opposition’s failed attempts in the past to scuttle Charter change "in the face of the irreversible momentum" of public support for the proposed parliamentary shift.

This is manifested, he said, in some 6.3 million verified signatures of Filipino voters who are supportive of the people’s initiative and various opinion polls pointing to the steady rise in popular backing for urgent constitutional reforms.

Datuin said that the new alliance has betrayed its elitist and anti-poor bias in lobbying for Charter change later than sooner and in batting for the con-con mode that will cost some P12 billion to pull off.

"These elitist personalities actually want to stage-manage how constitutional reforms should be introduced, so they can work on reforms that would benefit not the people but the political and economic kingpins," he said.

Datuin pointed out that the convenors of the con-con, most of whom are closely identified with the 1986 EDSA people power revolt, are actually sabotaging a grassroots-driven campaign that he described as the "new embodiment of the people power revolution."

"If this new alliance is truly committed to genuine change, then its convenors should be the first to back, not block, the people’s initiative because it is the fastest, least costly and most democratic way of amending the Constitution," he said.

"In their desperation to preserve the status quo, the leaders of these marginalized opposition groups have expediently forgotten that the people’s initiative is the new face of people’s power, which embodies the true essence of EDSA 1986," Datuin added.

Far from ensuring that all sectors would be represented under the con-con, this mode of amending the Constitution would instead allow incumbent political officials and powerful business groups to field their bets, he said.

Moreover, a con-con could take years to finish its job, Sigaw ng Bayan deputy spokesman Fernando Peña said, recalling that delegates to the 1971 con-con took almost six months to finish just the preamble of the draft Constitution.

Peña twitted the opposition for resurrecting dead issues and spreading unfounded claims, saying fears that President Arroyo will gain additional powers under the proposed parliamentary shift are unfounded.

The President, who will remain in office until the end of her term in 2010, will have to delegate some of her powers to the prime minister, who will be elected from among the members of Parliament.

"This opposition coalition has also unduly resurrected the issue of no elections (no-el), which has long been dead and had never been the concern of pro-Charter change advocates in the first place," Peña said.