Go back to basics

By the time any amendment can be made in our Constitution, the nation would have achieved the opposite of the purported chief objectives of Charter change — to attract investments and bring political stability.

Investors would have been fed up with the ruinous political warfare and our failure to deal with problems that do not require constitutional amendments, that they would have packed up for other countries.

Those hoping to present constitutional changes to the people for a plebiscite in January next year or, at the latest, to coincide with the elections in May should realize that with the Supreme Court’s ruling the other day on the people’s initiative, time has run out on Charter change. The Cha-cha train has been seriously derailed.

The losers should just take a deep breath, survey the damage and move with greater prudence if they truly want to introduce changes in the Constitution.

Amending or revising the basic law of the land, like regime change, should never be easy. We have seen the consequences of throwing out a president by simply gathering a big crowd at EDSA and calling in military commanders to announce their defection.

While Cha-cha proponents plan their next move, policy makers should not forget that there are many things they can do, even without waiting for changes in the Constitution, to bring political stability, raise national competitiveness and make the country a more attractive investment site.

Foreign investors have already submitted a long list of proposals to make the country more investment-friendly. Many of those proposals do not need Charter change.

Good government is the best way of bringing long-term political stability. Various sectors and institutions can also do their share even without waiting for Charter change.

The military, for example, can continue with its reforms to create a professional, apolitical army and modernize its equipment.

Lawmakers should tear themselves away from the pork barrel they need to finance re-election campaigns and focus first on electoral reforms.

I don’t know how we can pin such high hopes for political changes in the elections next year when we will be using the same voting system and the same old voters’ lists, with the same old Commission on Elections counting the votes. Either our naiveté is boundless or we’re simply too lazy to work on sweeping electoral reforms.

For that matter, I don’t know how any plebiscite on constitutional changes can be credible when the same tainted Comelec and the same defective voting system will be in place for any referendum next year.

We should all be going back to basics after the Supreme Court decision on the people’s initiative.

But it’s plain that Cha-cha proponents aren’t giving up the fight just yet.

* * *

After the people’s initiative, the next focus of Cha-cha proponents is the constituent assembly.

There is another scenario: initiative petitioners will seek a reversal of the Supreme Court decision when a new ruling can be handed down by a tribunal with a new chief justice plus a new member, both of whom will presumably be more sympathetic to the Arroyo administration. Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, as we all know, will bow out in early December.

At the same time, Cha-cha proponents in the House of Representatives will move to convene Congress into a constituent assembly, most likely locking out the Senate in the effort. The constitutionality of this move can later be brought to the Supreme Court, which again by that time would have a new chief justice.

There are so many scenarios and supposed hidden agendas circulating in the wake of the SC ruling that we are sure to be distracted from more pressing matters till way past Christmas.

The thing that surprises some people about the Supreme Court vote is that nearly half of the justices actually believed the issue should not be junked outright but tossed back to the Commission on Elections.

The signature-gatheringsignature gathering for this latest initiative attempt was done so hurriedly and haphazardly that you’d think it was in fact meant to fail. But seven of 15 justices believed it merited another look by the Comelec.

Another not too surprising thing was that everybody and his mother seemed to know days in advance how the voting in the high court would go, and how it would require a swing vote.

Now some initiative proponents are making noises about filing a motion for reconsideration within a time frame in which the final ruling will be handed down by a court under a new chief justice, who presumably will be indebted to the appointing power and do her bidding on the issue.

But both Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and the justice who penned the majority decision, Antonio Carpio, were appointees of President Arroyo. So there’s no guarantee that a presidential appointee won’t declare independence from Malacañang as soon as he or she gets the coveted position.

Unless the majority decision was in fact what the President wanted. Speaker Jose de Venecia may be in funereal mood these days, but the President seemed to be in high spirits when she visited The STAR the other day for the wake of our dearly departed (not "deeply departed" as I erroneously wrote) editor Alex Fernando.

When we asked the President if the SC decision had upset her timetable for Charter change, she merely said, "It has taken a life of its own."

Yesterday she called on Cha-cha proponents to "keep the fires burning."

Opponents of Cha-cha say the President supports a shift to a parliamentary system because it would allow her to perpetuate herself in power.

On the other hand, there are those who suspect that the President, though she wants Cha-cha for economic reforms, isn’t too keen about the shift to a parliamentary system but has been forced to support the proposal in exchange for surviving the latest effort in the House to impeach her.

The shift will force the President to share power during a transition period with a prime minister who just might turn out to be De Venecia. I don’t know if that sort of power sharing can work in this country, even in transition, and how it can bring political stability.

While we are debating these matters, there are pressing problems such as public health care and education that do not need Cha-cha.

Other such pressing matters will just have to wait.