The real issue is to change or not to change

A battle royale looms when charter change is finally taken up in the next Congress. Already political lines are being drawn for the epic struggle. It would be tempting to reduce adversaries to personalities – the President, senators, congressmen/women and professional agitators who have made a career of objecting to anything. These personalities are merely the dramatis personae playing out a simple human drama – to change or not to change.

We will hear the familiar accusations yet again - it is just another ploy to extend the President’s term, or let’s do it by convention, or this is not the time, or we have to change ourselves first. To top it all, Marcos’ ghost is resurrected. It may fool those who are politically unaware but more and more are willing to listen as events have proved charter change advocates right.

What are the facts staring before us that has made charter change imperative? I will mention three. There are more. One is a cumbersome, expensive, gridlocked legislature. TWe saw it happen to the VAT bill. We have to change a system which wastes time and end up with nothing new. How can we move forward with such a system? Even if Congress were peopled with saints, we will just have a gridlocked assembly of saints.

The next is our popularity driven, fixed term elections for national officials with a largely illiterate electorate who sell their votes or vote movie celebrities because of name recall. In both cases, money rules, with vested interests as paymasters to ‘popular’ candidates. That is how the vicious cycle of corruption comes in. We have to change the way we choose our leaders. We saw how a know nothing, do-nothing actor become President. Senators have been elected because they were popular broadcasters or basketball players. In a parliamentary system, there is a chance we will cultivate a better crop of politicians. Members of parliament have to defend their policies and actions by themselves. I know many in the political scene who will simply not be up to it, relying as they do on their chiefs of staff. We would be better off electing their chiefs of staff.

I fully agree that a fixed 6 year term for a President is too long. In a parliamentary system, the term of a Prime Minister depends on the success or failure of his or her program of government. We don’t have to wait for end of term to kick him or her out. Neither do we have to resort to destabilization frenzy or extralegal methods.

How we are able to remove bad presidents is more important than how we choose good presidents. The first is based on something proven or at least known and the second is mere speculation. We do not really know if a president will be a good one whenwe elect them. We just guess. A no-confidence vote in a parliamentary system is all that is needed to remove a bad prime minister..

Lastly, big government has become so unwieldy it has failed to address local concerns efficiently. That, by the way, is where our teeming poor are - in god-forsaken, far flung provinces whom national leaders do not even know about. We have tried decentralization but that has only half-worked because real power and money remained at the top. Local authorities depend on whatever national government decides for them. That can be addressed by a federal structre. We cannot have it unless we have charter change.

Charter change is not, repeat, not the panacea for our political and economic problems. It is a point of departure. We need to change the present system because it has been shown to be harmful and has worked against modernization and development of the Philippines. That is the real issue for charter change. Those who tell you they do not want charter change mean that, they do not want to change because they benefit from the present system.

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It is good President GMA will keep her word on charter change. Sen. Joker Arroyo, the habitual oppositionist, can no longer and mock ‘she’s really for charter change even if she says neutral as he said in 2003. She is for charter change and for the right reasons.

The pre-political summit of political parties called by Speaker JDV last Thursday is a step in the right direction for a multi-party effort for charter change, notwithstanding the dramatic exit of Senator Miriam Santiago. Conflicts are better resolved when people talk themselves out of it not, by dramatic, publicity seeking walk-outs. This is the same senator who appeared on TV with a gun on a table and daring the authorities to come and arrest her when she was in Erap’s camp. A combined Lakas-CMD-NPC-LDP, PDP and other opposition parties for charter change will be a formidable force that will not be cowed or lulled by the gatekeepers of the status quo. As Sen. Pimentel told me, this will ultimately be the political configuration when it comes to charter change. A founding father of federalism, he said he was always for charter change. He promises a passionate privileged speech in Congress when the time comes. This augurs well for political unity with a common cause beginning to emerge. The more difficult differences between the Senate and the House will now be tackled with their corresponding committees on constitutional amendments working together.

The 12 political leaders agreed on a seven agenda to implement economic and political reforms - human capital development, education, health, housing, population management land use; natural resources development and environment; income, jobs and wealth creation; food security among other things. But the overarching consensus was a flawed government system and corrupt governance cannot achieve such an agenda.

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Whatever critics say of Speaker JDV, bringing together protagonists has been his ouvre. By keeping protagonists talking no matter their differences, he has served this country and the region well. No one else would have dared a meeting of political parties, whether pro government or anti-government. He just keeps hammering at unity no matter the criticism or its seeming impossibility. He has brought the likes of Satur Ocampo. Edcel Lagman, Ed Angara and Ponce Enrile in one room. Bringing people together does not necessarily mean doing away with difference. Neither would the larger concept of unity to reform the country. Admittedly it is a difficult journey to unite in the face of diversity. Bt it should be attempted. That will prove crucial to the Philippines.

A columnist who has no great love for Speaker JDV says our situation is like ‘Waiting for Godot’. Maybe. The celebrated play by Samuel Beckett was hailed as a metaphor for the human condition. Although it affirms the human dilemma, it does not preclude action, even if the two tramps are just sitting there, waiting for Godot. As one review said, "the dramatic instinct reveals itself in a flow of unexpected, absorbing happenings upon the stage. The play portrays the gradual flow emerging as a significant image of life. Who Godot is, what his power is on the tramps, are never revealed except in indirect allusions about a savior. No matter the buffoonery of the tramps, ‘we feel palpably the passing of time that has been lived.’ It can be a metaphor for a gathering of squabbling politicians as well.

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