Once more: We're against a con ass!

I’d like to point out very clearly that we’ve always been supportive of the move to change or amend the Constitution, a.k.a Charter Changes (Cha-cha) but we’ve never agreed that this should be done through a Constituent Assembly (con ass) for the simple reason that the Filipino people do not trust their respective representatives in Congress to change the basic law because these politicians always put their vested interest ahead of the interest of the general public. So when we learned that Congress was shy of 20 votes, let me put it very clearly… we are totally against this move to change the charter!

I can give you a litany of all the problems that our nation faces, thanks to the Cory Constitution, from term limits that do not prevent family members of the elected official from running in their place, like their family had a Torrens title to the public office, down to the economic provisions, where foreigners cannot even legally own a condominium in this country and even down to the salaries of all public officials from the President down to the lowest barangay official that were included as one of the provisions of this constitution, thus making their salaries no longer in tune with the salaries of public officials 20-years later.

Again I’d like to remind our readers that after the EDSA Revolt, then Vice President Salvador “Doy” Laurel and the transition team of UNIDO party members asked Tita Cory to sign a proclamation to return the country back to the 1935 Constitution. But his request was totally ignored.

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Here’s an emailed response to our Wednesday article from [email protected] which is self-explanatory.

“Hello Bobit, Loved your article, here are my five cents worth.

Ombudsman: Clearly this Ombudsman has demonstrated she is working for the interest of the administration and not the interest of the Philippine people. Even her arrogance when questioned about her performance shows she is not interested in serving the people, merely defending her position. It is disgusting and something should be done. However, I doubt whether anything will be done.

Nicole: Did any actually believe that a rape occurred? The case was used for politicizing the US presence in the Philippines. If the only disputed issue in the VFA is the right for US military to be held in Philippine prisons, then the VFA should not be amended. Putting anyone into Philippine jails is inhumane and probably violates Human Rights.

The interested parties should just be open about their intentions. They want the US out so that the status quo with the leftists and the terrorists can continue to thrive. Let’s face it, if the NPA, MILF and Abut Sayyaf etc… were defunct organizations, the real perpetrators of crimes would be revealed. They will no longer be able to blame these militant groups for their crimes.

SWS: I agree, what is up with the statistics in the Philippines? 23.7% living in hunger was a figure provided by the UN as of Dec.2008. By quoting the latest SWS figure of 15.5%, amazingly the administration has elevated hunger for 8.2% of Filipinos or almost two million people. The hunger problem magically improved in the last two months. I doubt it!

Statistics: The NSO does not even know the population of the Philippines. I have seen estimates from 80 million through to 96 million (CIA fact book quotes 88 million). My personal favorite statistic is the unemployment rate, currently quoted at 7.7%. It is well-known that there are no organizations that have a register of unemployed Filipinos. Therefore, the unemployment figure is contrived.

PGMA changed the definition of unemployed as “someone without work, looking for work.” The common definition of unemployment is someone between the age of 15-65 without a job or earning less than the minimum wage. In PGMA’s definition anybody living in a region where there are no jobs, is not unemployed (not sure how they are defined and it appears by the SWS report they are also not living in hunger).

If the administration and lawmakers were honest, even on this one issue they would be reporting the true unemployment rate of around 46%. The continued denial by administration and lawmakers on this and many other issues is an indicator that they intend to do nothing about it. However, they are not fooling anyone, the truth will always remain the truth, no matter how much they try and contrive the statistics. Regards, Hermie.”

I had to cut short Hermie’s letter. He still had something about the statistics that the NSO issued regards our population, but it made his letter too long to fit here and I found it no longer relevant to the article we wrote.

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow entitled, “Straight from the Sky” shown every Monday only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 on SkyCable at 8 in the evening.