People’s Initiative for Charter Change kicks off March 24

Speaker Jose de Venecia arrived yesterday in Bacolod and promptly announced that the nationwide People’s Initiative for Charter Change starts on March 24 with Lakas-NUCD provincial chair Victorias City Mayor Severo Palanca leading the local (Negroswide) move.

De Venecia said that the People’s Initiative has the backing of some 1.7 million local government officials, from provincial to barangay leaders. Other parties, he added, have also signified their intention to support the program.

People’s Initiative had to be resorted to in the face of the intransigence of the Senate to the proposal for a three-fourths vote by Congress to push through with the proposal for a Constituent Assembly.

De Venecia proceeded to Victorias City after the breakfast conference at the Bacolod Pavilion of BREDCO. There he conferred with Palanca, the Lakas- NUCD provincial head, to map out plans for the People’s Initiative. This will be conducted simultaneously with moves by other LGUs in provinces and cities all over the country, De Venecia added.

The People’s Initiative, De Venecia explained, aims to gather 12 percent of the country’s eligible voters or around 4.8 million voters. These will be authenticated by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

According to De Venecia, even the National People’s Coalition and two-thirds of the Liberal Party as well as another political parties had pledged their support for the move.

The League of Provinces as well as League of Cities have also backed up the move, which is an assurance that by June 10 or 15, a plebiscite will be called to ratify the People’s Initiative.

If this plan pushes through as scheduled, the bicameral Congress shall be replaced by the Unicameral Parliament by July. De Venecia assured that, as of now, the proposal is to retain the members of the Senate and the House as Parliament members.

Local officials had earlier expressed a favorable opinion on Charter change. Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia also favors charter change. So with Cadiz City Mayor Salvador Escalante who said that charter change is the only way to detach local governments from the clutches of imperial Manila.

De Venecia, who pointed to Charter change as the only way the country can get rid of political instability, said the presidential system, as it now is, had led to a succession of coups and political standoffs that deter the progress of the country.

It’s time for us to change a system of government that has proven ineffective and has only caused a lot of instability, he stressed.

That was the reason why De Venecia said he has consistently advocated Charter change for the past 15 years. He cites his oft repeatedly argument that the European Union and other Asian countries had always favored the Parliamentary system.

But in places where the US-style presidential system had been accepted as in Latin America, there had been a series of military interventions or coup de etats.

The lessons are there for us to internalize. And it is time for us to adopt a new system of government that will assure stability so we can develop more rapidly as a nation, De Venecia emphasized to local mediamen.

PNP suffers major blow

Sunday morning, some 30 members of the New People’s Army (NPA) caught by surprise a detachment of the 1st Police Mobile Group at breakfast in their camp at Sitio Minabuno, Barangay Malasibog, seven kilometers from Escalante City proper.

It has a major debacle. The attack completely surprised members of the Community Police Assistance Center (COMPAC) who were reportedly taking their breakfast when the attackers swooped down.

The group, headed by PO3 Antonio Bravo, was made up of eight civilian volunteers organization (CVO) members. Their salaries are being shouldered by the city government.

The raiding party took off with an M-60 machine gun, two M-14 rifles, two M-16 and three Garand rifles, plus a caliber .45 pistol.

PNP provincial commander Charles Caluma immediately relieved 1st PMG director Superintendent Flomar Natuel and PO3 Bravo, the detachment commander.The entire PNP command had earlier been warned against possible NPA attacks, especially in northern Negros.

The NPA fighters reportedly included two women. The detachment personnel were taking breakfast when the NPA raiders reportedly jumped over the perimeter fence of the detachment and entered the base. Some of the attackers established a blocking force outside the bases.

Because of the delayed notification of the Escalante PNP headquarters, the raiders managed to withdraw through Barangay Paitan and Barangay Tabunan in Toboso town.

The regional director, Doroteo Reyes II, accompanied by his staff officers, flew from Iloilo to personally supervise the pursuit operations that included units from the NOPPO, the 6th RMG, the 11th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army and two Philippine Air Force helicopters with one MIG 520 trooper. These provided air cover for PNP troops and Army soldiers inserted in various places in Northern Negros Occidental to intercept the raiders.

The pursuit drama is still ongoing. But the raiders appear to have disappeared in the hinterland areas. This time though they are better armed with one M-60 machine gun in their arsenal.

In any language, that raid was a debacle for the police.

Former Red surrenders

The government, however, managed to score a major point when a former platoon leader of the NPA surrendered a caliber .50 machine gun and an anti-tank weapon Sunday.

Ka Leny, whose identity is being withheld, surrendered the machine gun and a caliber .55 recoiless rifle to Lt. Col. Jesus Mananquil of the 11th IB.

The previous week, another NPA platoon leader, a certain Eliano, alias Sword, also surrendered to Mananquil and turned over an M-1 carbine.

Well, to a certain extent, that was a fair exchange. The recoilless rifle could demolish an armored truck of the Philippine Army. But the problem is that both Eliano and Leny had long been inactive in the insurgency movement, although both belonged to the defunct regional guerrilla unit of Negros Island Regional Party Committee. Now, it is known as the Komiteng Rehiyonal Negros and chaired by priest-turned-rebel Frank Fernandez. The heat is on the Professional Regulations Commission. Yesterday, Rep. Jose Carlos Lacson said he and several congressmen from Iloilo and Negros will "put pressure" on the PRC in today’s budget hearing to act on the plight of the West Negros College nursing graduates.

Earlier, Rep. Ignacio Arroyo had also assured the WNC nursing graduates that he will ask PRC to explain why the agency is threatening to file administrative charges against the WNC graduates and withhold the issuance of their license.

WNC president Suzette Agustin Saturday assured WNC nursing graduates that they will take their oaths and that the administrative charge against them for alleged overloading will be dropped. This was the position by the Board of Nursing earlier.

Agustin said she and WNC’s dean of Nursing, Dr. Zenaida Hilado, and several successful examinees will attend the congressional hearing on the PRC budget at the House.

Rep. Lacson, on the other hand, said: "I cannot understand why the students should be faulted for academic overloading when they were interviewed and allowed to take the examination by the PRC."

Not only that, the WNC graduates obtained a 79.84 percent passing record and produced 44 topnotchers in the recent Nursing Board examination. Thus, there should be no reason why the successful examinees should be penalized.

Besides, Agustin pointed out that cases of academic overloading is within the jurisdiction of the Commission on Higher Education and not the PRC or BUN.

Most of the more than 500 WNC graduates are second coursers, i.e., they are physicians or graduates of mostly paramedical courses or even teachers and lawyers who took up nursing to be able to work abroad.

Mary Ann Baldago, WNC regional director, is herself on the hot seat since she is also a member of the board of the Central Philippine University which also operates a nursing school.

Baldago, however, dismissed the charge as baseless.

Arbitration

Speaker Jose de Venecia said yesterday that the city government and BREDCO should agree to arbitration over the threat by the city government to take over the management of the BREDCO port.

The House leader declared yesterday that what is needed at this time is not to avert privatization stance but rather to help the private sector push through with its development projects.

This came after Majority Floor Leader Ana Maria Palermo of the Sangguniang Panglunsod said the threat of takeover without a court order is a clear violation of the Constitution and the due process as well as equal protection cause and impairment of obligations and contracts.

"It sends a message to all that the city is not investor-friendly and that anyone who enters into contracts with the city must beware as the city could just unilaterally not honor the contract it entered into or declare it as non-existent," Palermo pointed out.

She said this could spell havoc to the economic progress and stability of the city. De Venecia also hinted that he may appeal to President Arroyo to intervene should both parties request his help in seeking presidential intervention on the row.

Well, that many not be necessary. Yesterday, former Assemblyman Teodoro Benedicto pointed out to me that the Supreme Court had already ruled that a reclaimed area belongs to the national government and cannot be alienated. The national government can only have it leased or rented out to the private or the local government sector.