Mayors insist people’s initiative genuine

The country’s municipal mayors maintained yesterday the legitimacy of the people’s initiative as they pounced on the elite groups blocking constitutional reforms for their incessant attempts to disparage the petition for grassroots-driven movement, which has won the support of most Filipinos including local executives.

The League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) said these Charter change critics — most of them identified with the first and second EDSA people power revolts — were guilty of a "double standard" in casting aspersions on the authenticity of the people’s initiative in which local executives took part, while extolling the two peaceful uprisings as "People Power" revolutions, which also saw the participation of the same local executives.

In disparaging the people’s initiative as a "government initiative" due to the participation of local officials, the opponents of Charter change have conveniently overlooked the fact that these elective officials are part of the people themselves, LMP spokesman and Naval, Biliran Mayor Gerry Espina said.

In assailing the authenticity of the people’s initiative drive because of the participation of local officials, these EDSA I and II stalwarts who are blocking Charter change are saying that the involvement of elected officials can only be considered part and parcel of People Power if such an exercise is meant only to topple a discredited president, Espina said.

He also asked: "Are local executive officials part of the people only if the action is to remove a discredited president and not in one that seeks to change the (1987) Constitution that embodies the hopes and aspirations of the people, especially if the Constitution has consistently failed to improve the conditions of the people?"

"At the very least, the local officials are the most active and service-oriented segment of the people and are in close contact with the masa," he said, "and have been actively supporting Charter change in response to the overwhelming clamor of their respective constituents for a systemic change that will rid government of the chronic executive-legislative gridlocks responsible for political instability and anemic growth."

An advocate of constitutional reforms from the time he was a congressman during the Ramos administration, Espina said local executives actively participated in the snowballing Charter change movement, especially after the "ULAP sa TOP" provincial summits and other parallel information campaigns on Charter change conducted earlier this year by the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), the Sigaw ng Bayan Movement (SBM), the Charter Change Advocacy Commission (ad-com) and other allied groups in the country’s 79 provinces.

"If we do not change the Constitution now, we will never have another chance to do so because the successor of President Arroyo and the succeeding senators are not likely to agree to change the Constitution during their terms," he added.

"It is to President Arroyo’s credit," he said, "that while she still has four years to go as Chief Executive, she is willing to share her power under our present Constitution with a prime minister under the amended Constitution."