Initiative

Among the few redeeming points of the 1987 Constitution is the institutionalization of "people power" through the provision for recall, referendum and popular initiative.

Ironically, that provision could not be used to undertake constitutional renovation. Faulty legislation, judicial rulings and the infernal factional games politicians play have conspired to render that unique provision impotent.

To begin with, the provision was stringent. For a popular initiative to prosper, the Constitution requires the signatures of 3% of all registered voters from every congressional district and 12% of total voters nationwide. No entity – except the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) – could have the network and the clout to accomplish those minimum requirements.

ULAP supported the 1997 effort of PIRMA. It has also strongly supported the on-going popular initiative led by Sigaw ng Bayan.

Last Friday, Sigaw submitted its petition for amending the Charter to the Comelec. That petition contained about 10 million signatures verified by the Comelec registrars. That is nearly twice the percentage required by the Constitution.

In every district, the proponents of Charter change tried to sign up about twice the minimum percentage of voters required. That is to make sure that the petition would be bullet-proof, considering that critics of the present administration would pull every trick in the bag to kill the initiative.

There is another irony involving those critics: most of them, at one time or another, claimed to represent the spirit of "people power." Now they are seeking to suppress the exercise of popular initiative endorsed by 10 million Filipino voters.

As soon as Sigaw submitted its petition, 8 groups filed counter-petitions before the Comelec. All of these groups are, in varying degrees, hostile to the administration. Several of them figured in the failed second impeachment attempt against the President.

A mere enumeration of the groups opposing the Sigaw petition indicates they did what they did putting factional interest above the national interest in constitutional renovation. Having failed to oust the President, they now seem bent to frustrate all her undertakings – whether this be a national identification system or the reform of our constitutional order.

They are obstructionists in general. In this particular case, they are determined to obstruct constitutional reform. Better the whole nation be doomed than the President succeeding in any one of her undertakings.

The Senate, of course, may be counted on to help amplify the propaganda of the factions critical of the present administration. That chamber takes constitutional reform as nothing more than a petty effort to eradicate this useless chamber from the face of our politics. The senators see the debate over constitutional reform as nothing more than a battle for their own political survival.

A hurriedly convened hearing at the Senate featured claims that signatures were forged. Strangely, all the claims of fraudulent signatures emanate from the two opposition-controlled localities of Makati and San Juan.

As would be imagined, as Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos observed, the proponents of the popular initiative would be doubly-careful in their signature gathering in those two municipalities whose mayors actively and unremittingly fought the signature gathering door-to-door and house-to-house.

At any rate, if there are any signatures that may be questioned, the proper thing to do is to have them excluded. It is quite another thing to try and smear all the 10 million people who did willingly sign to the clamor for Charter change.

Another group opposing Charter change submitted a threat instead: saying they would have the Comelec cited for contempt if the Sigaw petition is entertained in any way.

The basis for that threat is the erroneous interpretation that in the 1997 PIRMA case, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional people’s initiative as a means to realize Charter change.

I have read the 1997 ruling that saw an evenly divided Court, especially the brilliant dissenting opinions of Justices Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno. It is clear that the Court did not declare initiative unconstitutional. The ruling said that the Roco law was inadequately constructed to allow initiative to happen.

In the dissenting opinions, the justices mentioned above said the ruling was an editorial comment on the manner the law was written up. In which case, commenting on the literary merits of a written law is beyond the competence of the Court.

The Court’s competence lies in issuing a clear ruling on the constitutionality or otherwise of the issues presented before it. That the Court did not do in the 1997 PIRMA case.

Given the unseemly nature of the 1997 PIRMA ruling, it deserves to be revisited. The present popular initiative should provide the Court an opportunity to revisit that ruling and probably correct whatever deficiencies might characterize it.

However one may, for whatever unimaginable reason, be so thoroughly infatuated with the 1987 Constitution, democratic ethics requires that 10 million citizens expressing a preference for reform should not be so flippantly dismissed. They constitute a third of people who turn up to vote.

Whichever way the Comelec responds to the submitted petition, the matter will surely end up before the Supreme Court. In the contentious politics we now endure, everything ends up in court.

When the matter finally ends up before the highest tribunal of the land, the contending sides should be prepared to battle with ideas and contend with wisdom. There should be none of the sort of burlesque that everything seems to be reduced to when they are taken up during Senate hearings.

At that point, we should hear something weightier than Jejomar Binay’s flimsy attempt to smear what has been a sincere effort of patriotic citizens genuinely desiring reform of the constitutional order. By then, listening to the arguments propounded by the opponents of reform might be worth listening to.