Local authority as a mediating force

It is unfortunate that the role of local authority in the people’s initiative now lodged with the Comelec has been so trivialized. Critics of Charter change, through their powerful media sponsors, claim that the initiative is not the people’s but the government’s because it is being helped by local authority. What better proof, they say, than it is led by ULAP (Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines). This has put local authority in the defensive. Intimidated by a television anchor, an ULAP official said Gov. Aumentado who heads ULAP was helping as a private citizen. Indeed, it has come to a point that some Charter change advocates feel they have to defend their role as if it was something to hide.

The fact is, without the mediating role of local authority, a people’s initiative us not possible because the law is skewed against it. That was tested in 1997 by citizen Jesus Delfin. Had the law been made to favor its democratic intent as it was intended to be, Delfin or any other citizen should have had access to institutions to make an initiative possible.

Alas, that was not to be. If we were more honest about a people’s initiative as a method for amending the Constitution, we will need to face embarrassing questions. A people’s initiative is not possible in this country without a mediating force. But we pretend it could be done spontaneously by citizens despite the very stringent requirements imposed by the Constitution. Ironically, those who propagate this illusion are EDSA stalwarts who claim it as the legacy of people empowerment.

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In a society like the Philippines with political power and wealth in the hands of the few, a spontaneous people’s initiative is not possible. It requires funds and organization as any elections. A political and economic oligarchy protects the status quo. The idea of a people’s initiative acting on its own steam as a legacy of EDSA 1 is a farce. Unless we meet this truth head-on, we will go around in circles lying to ourselves and to each other.

Call it a lucky break, but the entry of local authority as a political force is a breakthrough in our search for a more democratic society. That is not to deny that local authority can be abusive and some of them can be equally junked with the rest of the rent-seeking oligarchs. Here I am talking of local authority as a concept – the closest government will ever be to the masses.

It is hypocritical for some would-be democrats to say that today’s people’s initiative is a project of local authority. Ordinary citizens putting down their names to Charter change have their own reasons with their own limited understanding of what is good for them. As I have said it again and again in this column, people have signed up for a variety of reasons natural in a democratic society. Those who want them to sign only for one reason, for example, that they uniformly understand it, smacks of totalitarianism. They sign in various stages of understanding and politicization but it is a start. The Advocacy Commission has teamed up with Ulap and Sigaw ng Bayan for a continuing political education of the masses. It may have begun with signing up for people’s initiative but it certainly will not end there.

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The consequence of local authority’s mediating effort for people’s initiative has made it a political force to reckon with as it challenges our traditional power holders and brokers of Manila-based politicians, whether in Malacañang or in Congress. Local authority has awakened to a new awareness of the role they can play in national politics. If in the present structure they are beholden to top level executive and legislative officials, it will change in the structure they are working for when we shift to parliamentary federal government.

They must now translate this new-found political power to serve their constituents, the people, the masses if you like since the word ‘people’ has been so abused that anyone who can gather a crowd in Luneta or EDSA can claim they do so in the name of the ‘people’.

The people’s initiative mediated by local authority asserts ordinary citizenship while working within the framework of democratic institutions. I should add that President GMA, Speaker JDV and former President Fidel Ramos and other elected leaders of Lakas-CMD the majority party are playing a similar role. They may not be of the masa but they are leaders of masa. There is no denying they are also elite. If a line were to be drawn in this constitutional reform struggle, it would be between one for the status quo and the other for systemic change. Elite support for people’s initiative has struck a blow against the oligarchic structure of our politics and society.

In Simon Schama’s "Citizens", an atypical history of the French Revolution, he contends that the seeds of the French revolution did not arise merely from people’s discontent. He argues that the violence of the revolution that finally consumed not only the revolution but also all its leading players was inherent from the start. It happened because it was bound to happen. It was the direct result of a crisis in the Ancien Regime (status quo). Some of the towering figures of the French Revolution were nobles themselves or their sons and daughters, or what a reviewer called the biggies – Lafayette, Danton and Robespierre among others.

The same can be said of the Philippines today. It is a clash of elites with one side wittingly or unwittingly allied with change and inevitably with the masses because they correctly estimate that as the future. The other, while using revolutionary lexicon is against. In this clash of elites, the odds favor those helping to democratize our society. For whatever reason, President GMA’s support for Charter change will have far-reaching consequences beyond what the Opposition can conceive. If the people’s initiative succeeds, the political equation will change. Perhaps, not all at once. The roadblocks will be up. A big job lies ahead for charter change advocates. Indeed, at the risk of sounding banal, the work of reforming our society will only just have begun if people’s initiative succeeds.

The bottomline of Charter change is to diffuse power. It will filter down in time to the masses through local authority. Only then can we speak of a real people empowerment. The dominant position of elites will be effectively challenged under a parliamentary federal structure and we can expect more players in the political field.

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In the coming days, the struggle will intensify. The enemies of reform will champion the May 2007 elections at the same time that they will push hard to block a plebiscite on Charter change. That is a strategy that has blinded even some of the most astute political thinkers. Elections before a plebiscite on Charter change will be a triumph of the status quo, presided by an oligarchy that has held down the progress of this country.

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My e-mail is [email protected]