It’s not ‘unity’ but disunity, this stupid Cha-cha brings

I don’t understand why Speaker Joe de Venecia and his Congressional Gang so stubbornly insist on ramming through a fastbreak "Cha-cha" or Constitutional "change" before 2004 – via the House Railroad – when a recent poll by Pulse Asia says 58 percent of the people are opposed to it. You can bet that most of the rest of the population are totally indifferent to Charter change – at least at this time.

With so many much more urgent problems to be addressed, why should our congressmen waste their time trying to shove the parliamentary system down our throats in such a hurry? Surely, the 1987 Constitution is full of defects which must be addressed, but we must scrap or amend its many dubious provisions in the proper manner, by electing a Constitutional Convention to do so. Seeking to overturn that defective organic law and devise a new one through the unsatisfactory expedient of pushing the document through the medium of a self-serving bunch of congressmen would be calamitous. JDV and his cabal are actually defying the will of the people – at least the plurality of our people – by trying to get their way. How can a shift to a parliamentary set-up save us, when it would only further empower the same insensate gang now so eager to get their way, and the hell with the people’s wishes and preferences?

In any event, even if the Lower House (yes, "lower" in this sense) were to approve "Cha-cha", the measure would be dead in the Senate. The senators, for their own selfish reasons (mainly survival), would turn it down. So what’s the point of all this fuss? What Joe, who once served a useful purpose as a dispenser of "bottled sunshine", is accomplishing is not "unity" in government but disunity of the most querulous sort, just when we must concentrate our efforts, hearts, and minds, on getting our nation out of the mess we’ve dug ourselves into.

What we need is for our congressmen and senators to get their act together: And try to get the economy moving again (not engage in endless disputes and mindless conspiracies). Political leadership is supposed to provide inspiration, not contribute to the national desperation.

Wasting time, alas, seems to have become a destructive habit in both Houses. For instance, what good would have been accomplished by a "coup" admittedly attempted last Monday by Senator Edong Angara to upend Senate President Franklin Drilon and seize the Senate Presidency for the opposition? We’d simply have another game of musical chairs in the chairmanships of committees. Perks, power, and pelf seem to be the name of the game, and the citizenry go hang.

As for those never-ending "investigations" – supposedly in "aid of legislation" – what nonsense they’ve become. In the Senate, Sonny O, Ping Lacson, et al. and, of course, former President Erap (who thoroughly enjoyed his excursion "outside", basked in the limelight), and asked to be subpoenaed again and again, are trying to skewer GMA and former Justice Secretary Nani Perez on the alleged IMPSA "bribery" issue. Their source of information on the matter? Why, that "fine, upstanding never-lying" extradited Manila Congressman Mark Jimenez. Gee whiz. According to Malaya’s banner headline yesterday, Senator John O. will even fly to the United States to get a formal statement from Mark J. about "his knowledge on allegations that a $14-million ‘bribe’ was pocketed by present residents of Malacañang".

If Mark Jimenez is now a "character witness", then this nation is lost!

Aren’t we tired of IMPSA? This contract was investigated for seven years, every year, from the time of President FVR, through the regime of President Joseph (not Velarde) Estrada, and now during the GMA administration.

Should the CBK contract instead have been awarded to the Lopezes? Then it might have ended up like Benpres, Maynilad Water, etc. As it is, the project is already completed, the plants are running, more than $400 million in foreign investment (Argentinian, American as well as bank loans from Japan and Western Europe) have been put in. If the government wants to, I guess, then it should – with the budgetary support of our senators, surely – find the dollars to "buy back" the project. Can that be done? C’mon. Let’s get real.

What’s at issue then? The allegations of monstrous bribery? $14 million worth? With a "missing" $7 million which is claimed to have "gone to the boys"? If money changed hands and palms were greased, will anybody confess to it? Both bribe-giver and bribe-taker are liable under the law. True or not, everybody will deny to the death. What we’ll be left with is plenty of froth, lots of juicy newspaper stories, a ton of suspicions, a mountain of recriminations – and the death of foreign investment of any sort. (Foreign investment is close to zero, already, anyhow.)

What suicidal individual, corporation, conglomerate, or chaebol for that matter, will invest a dollar, euro, yen, or dong in a country where the investor, instead of being welcomed with open arms, is endlessly investigated, called names, and accused of bribery? Not the Argentinians (who’re already broke these days, to boot), not the Americans (Edison and Mission of California are also IMPSA backers), not the Germans (whose FRAPORT AG got horribly burned and lost some $400 million in the PIATCO NAIA Terminal 3 mess), not anybody in the American continent, the Euro-zone, and Japan.

The Chinese, indeed, are poised to overwhelm us. Thus far, though, the most prominent investment of Chinese illegals who filter into our country is in shabu trading and methamphetamine "underground" factories.

All those inquiries "in aid of legislation" make great copy for us in the newspaper and radio-TV business. But for Philippine business, employment, progress and financial recovery? They’re sending all of us into the ICU – the "intensive care unit".

Instead of jerking us around, our politicians would do better to get cracking instead – towards finding creative solutions and jump-starting money-earning activities. Let’s do something positive for a change, not interminably accentuate the negative. We must learn to become, once again, builders – not wreckers.

* * *

In my hotel room in Bangkok the other day, I watched Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair defending, in a press conference aired on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), his decision to send in more British units to the Gulf. Blair insisted that Britain was waiting for the United Nations Security Council to make a decision on Iraq, but it made sense to send British military assets to where they could move swiftly to respond to any development, or at least demonstrate to Saddam Hussein that they meant business.

One reporter tried to trap Blair into an admission that he and US President George "Dubya" Bush would move soon – perhaps unilaterally. His question, cunningly put, indicated that Bush and Blair would have to move soon – at the latest by February – because mounting temperatures in that region of the Middle East in March, April and May would make troop movements difficult. Blair neatly parried that one, but nastier queries will increasingly be put to him in the days and weeks to come.

Yesterday (Thursday, Jan. 16), a dispatch from London by Christopher Adams of the Financial Times said that Bush "will meet Tony Blair, the British prime minister, in two weeks to decide their next moves on Iraq . . . The summit at the Camp David presidential retreat on January 31 will be used by Mr. Blair to make the case for US pressure on Israel to resolve the Palestinian conflict".

"Although declining to set a timetable for any military action," the FT article went on to say, "Mr. Bush said this week he was ‘sick and tired’ of the games and deception of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader."

Perhaps the announcement of a meeting "in two weeks" is just a ploy. Possibly, the two "powers" could move sooner than that. Yesterday, the Chief of UN Weapons Inspectors, Hans Blix, warned the Saddam regime that Iraq must produce more information in order to head off any possible "war". Those were strong words for Blix, a usually mild-mannered but firm Scandinavian.

I think it’s interesting that The New York Times yesterday ran an article by Steven Weisman datelined Washington DC. The piece disclosed that President Bush’s "new approach to North Korea" is to offer food and fuel aid, not try to isolate Pyongyang – the carrot instead of the stick. For me, this is a sign that the US is readying itself to launch an attack on Iraq. You don’t – as Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler both discovered to their sorrow – fight a war on two fronts. When Washington gets "nice" to Pyongyang, you can bet your bottom dollar that it intends to get going on Baghdad.

And besides, a "sits-krieg" in which 150,000 US troops are kept sitting on their fannies in the Gulf region surrounding Iraq would cost $1.4 billion per month. You don’t move all these men, armor and aircraft into place and then do nothing. The clock is ticking. And it’s ticking very fast.