Building awareness on win-win

I hesitated to use the words win-win to describe an interesting proposal, mindful that the expression comes from the exuberant Speaker Jose de Venecia. It might be misunderstood just as the man, arguably the most creative politician here-abouts, has been misunderstood. But Christian Democrat guru Louie Lagdameo may just have the solution to break the impasse between those for constituent assembly and those for constitutional convention. In essence his flow chart suggests that Congress convert into a constituent assembly immediately so we legitimize the long process in the making of a federal government. This would also allay the fears of change advocates that if we wait for a concon until 2004, we may see it changed only in 2010 or not at all. Under Lagdameo’s scenario we would hold the federal concon in 2008 when the different states would have been created, ratified their own constitutions and elected their state assembly deputies. As it is, talking of a federal structure now is just a futile exercise because there is nothing to federate.

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"We still think unitary," Louie says "if we think we can just wish federal on paper." The constituent assembly would be the trigger mechanism to remove Article 10, Sec. 10 of the 1987 Constitution which prohibits the division or merger provinces and cities. The Federalists have done a lot of work nationwide among the grassroots and is a vital and large component of the constitutional reform constituency. Just as an aside I wonder why they have not been covered by surveys or why Cardinal Sin seems to be unaware of their work. One thing is true — all this debate on constitutional reform has sparked awareness among the public and that is not such a bad thing. Our group, the Consultative Forum for Constitutional Change Now, conducts meetings that put together differing advocates so they can conduct a civilized discourse .

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The Federalists. Contrary also to those unaware of their work, the federalists have been distributing pamphlets and other information materials around the country so more would be aware. Their basic information sheet describes a Federal system of government as a system that "institutionalizes the participation of local populations and communities to pursue development according to their particular competencies, culture, natural resources and its own charter or constitution." They regard the present unitary and centralized form of governance as a throwback to our colonial past with national government in Manila as the modern-day imperium. "It continues to be used as a tool for domination and control, hence the basic issue of inequality remains unsolved," says the pamphlet. Moreover it has spawned patronage politics, underdevelopment, poverty and unresponsive governance. It is not only wrong but unkind to say therefore that constitutional reform advocates are just corrupt politicians. Far from it.

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More than a right to vote. This weekend I had the opportunity to meet with cyberfriends like Cathy Ledesma and Edong del Rosario and others from [email protected] at the planning workshops on ‘Mobilizing Global Filipinos as a Force for Continuity and Change’ at the Oakwood Premier Suites in Makati. Edong was at the Constitutional Change Now forum we organized at Club Filipino. Others at the meeting were old friends Alex Esclamado, Victor Barrios, Chingbee Kalaw, Raffy Garcia, mostly Filipinos from the US. Raffy used to work with my husband in MERALCO. He is the wizard behind Botong Pinoy a program for computerized voting. Among the organizations there were Global Filipinos, Fil-Am Chamber of San Francisco, Overseas Filipinos WorldNet Foundation OFWNet Foundation, Inc, Progressive Times, Center for Servant-Leadership Philippine, Inc, Filipino Migrant Workers, Kasama OFW, United Seaman’s Wives Welfare Asociation of the Philipppine Global Alliance, NAMFREL and Publicus. They had come to Manila and met for a workshop in anticipation of the final approval of the Absentee Voting Bill.

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Global Filipinos. In a statement, the group said its vision was "to evolve a global community of empowered Filipinos proactively participating in their motherland’s mainstream activities and asserting their positions in the globalmarketplace." My husband, former Ambassador to the European Union, Alberto A. Pedrosa and myself, who have been in the forefront of campaigns for overseas Filipinos for more than twenty years joined the workshop to alert OFs (overseas Filipinos) on debates on constitutional change raging in the country. There were profound implications for them as a sector. For example, what happens to their right to vote if there is a shift to a parliamentary federal form of government? Indeed if one looked more closely the right to vote for OFs should not have been necessary. The right to vote is a constitutional right so why does it have to depend on an enabling act of a secondary body like Congress? Had this been envisioned by the framers of the constitution that right should have been immediately implementable subject only to the rules and regulations of COMELEC, the body designated by the Constitution to be in charge of elections. But all this is water under the bridge. Tapos na.

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Manifesto for change. We brought a manifesto for change to consider during the workshop that would improve on the right to vote. The group should ask the government that voting by overseas Filipinos and dual citizenship be stated explicitly as provisions of the Constitution. It asks that overseas Filipinos be given the right to participate in national referenda and plebiscites. More important, the right to vote should allow overseas Filipinos to elect on a geographical basis their own representatives in Parliament. OFs would not be just party list or sectoral candidates but full members of Parliament elected by kababayans. Filipinos in Europe will vote for their own member of Parliament in the Philippines, the same for Filipinos in US, Filipinos in the Middle East and so on.

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Anti-American? The looming US war against Iraq has driven friends, indeed even Americans themselves into the streets around the world. This is the time to clarify that protests against the war should not be regarded as anti-American. As a recent article in the London Sunday Times said "Anti-Americanism is in the process of being consecrated into an ideology. The term is usually used by the American establishment to discredit and not falsely — but shall we say inaccurately — define its critics. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they’re heard and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised national pride." It does not mean that you’re anti jazz or that you’re against free speech. You can still admire thousands of Americans who marched against nuclear weapons. It definitely does not mean you hate all Americans.

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My e-mail address: [email protected]