Calling the Senate bluff

In a brilliant countermove after the Senate rejected the House invitation to a constituent assembly, Speaker Jose de Venecia and other members of the House decided to call the bluff of the senators once and for all. The ball is now in the Senate court. Speaker JDV announced two dramatic steps to hold the elections in May next year. At the same time it also announced that the House is itself prepared to produce at least a two thirds vote for a con-con whose members would be elected simultaneously in the May 10, 2007 elections. With the two announcements giving the Senate all they ask for, the onus is now on the senators. Moreover, the raison d’etre for any protest has been removed in one fell swoop.

The members of the House belonged to different parties who have come together to arrive at a consensus on the two issues that the Senate claims to be standing in the way of their cooperation with the Constitution mandated duty to propose constitutional reforms from Congress subject to ratification by the Filipinos people.

"It is in the best interest of the country." De Venecia said that we give the Senate the options they claim to want at this time. But if despite this conciliatory, almost humbling gesture from the House, the Senate still continues to refuse to work with them to find the best way the country can go forward with Charter change, the House can no longer be blamed nor be accused of going it alone, as it has been made to appear in media. Going it alone was never the case. There are resolutions in the Senate calling for its participation in a constituent assembly that have been gathering dust and unacted upon.

At the same time, if the Senate decides it was not interested in constitutional reforms, the House cannot neglect its duty to pursue these reforms with the country facing a dire future in a changed world for which we are unprepared for. So the House while giving these concessions have put a time frame to await the Senate’s response. After the 48 hours, some say 72 hours, then the House will continue with its constituent assembly.

This gesture of goodwill it is hoped will assuage any suspicions that the majority coalition was only seeking Charter change through constituent assembly in order to postpone or cancel the elections scheduled on May 10 or to extend the tenure of elected officials.

"We also agreed to hold the national local elections of May 10, 2007 and not consider other proposals to hold the elections in November or a technical extension of six months to enable the Commission on Elections to computerize the elections and prevent the recurrence of dagdag bawas," the statement read.

"The House was hurling the challenge at the Senate on behalf of the Filipino people ‘who clamor for constitutional reforms to provide the lasting structure; to enhance the country’s political stability and economic growth," it added. Time and again the Senate claimed that it also wanted Charter change but it wanted it through a convention. So there it is. Let us have a convention. The coalition said that if the Senate accepts its challenge to convene a constitutional convention, then the country would have achieved a major breakthrough towards "a non-partisan effort to effect urgent political reforms through Charter change." But if the senators ‘ignore this challenge, then we say they are morally bound to join us in the constituent assembly.

"We are prepared to suspend actions by the Assembly by 72 hours to await the Senate’s response. But after that time, the House of Representatives will proceed with the assembly," de Venecia said.

The speaker said the driving force behind the reform movement was to support the nations ‘quest for stability and progress through constitutional change.’ In other countries, proposals for constitutional reforms are standard practice with elected leaders fully conscious of their duty to their constituencies rather than their personal interests. It is part of the mandate of lawmakers to see to it that they do their job and proposing constitutional reforms when these are called for is one of them, indeed a primary one.

Most Filipinos accept that the 1987 Constitution has failed to deliver governance that would have propelled the country to political stability and economic progress in behalf of the many although some of our elite citizens are in the league of some of the richest in the world.

Government after government, not even with the best intentions, could sustain the momentum to keep the country stable and moving forward because of the defective political system characterized by mere popularity and money contests. Sooner or later all attempts at reform have been frustrated. We can only look enviably at how some of the countries around us have leaped forward with their parliamentary governments. The system is preferred by countries around the world because it is responsive to the speed of the changing times. If we are to catch up, we have to do it soon. We do not have the luxury of time with our burgeoning population, undeveloped resources and dearth of investments because of an antiquated system benefiting only both an unelected and elected plutocracy. Such reforms have been sought for more than a decade by Charter change advocates, not counting a history of failed attempts to establish parliamentary government during our struggles for independence, first against Spain and then against America.

But while it seemed that political skirmishing between the Senate and the House was the main show, a more fundamental conflict has suddenly surfaced that merits equal if not more attention: the role that churchmen play in our politics and governance. These churchmen and their cohorts seem ignorant of the separation of church and state or that Pope Benedict issued the encyclical Caritas Est to guide church officials in their conduct with relations with the State.

Many Filipinos think that the church leaders have gone too far but are unable to articulate that dissatisfaction. Here is a sample of a letter that if you agreed with you can sign your name to and sent to bishops, priests, and even if we have to storm the Vatican:

"The Filipino nation is in a debate on how we could pursue better governance in the country through constitutional reforms. The proposal is for a shift from presidential to parliamentary government, more local autonomy that will ultimate give federal powers to different regions and economic liberalization. Some of these reforms are envisioned to bring peace to the troubled Muslim Mindanao.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has put her government solidly behind these constitutional reforms as the only way we can sustain economic stability and ensure progress to alleviate the sufferings of our millions of poor and underprivileged.

The effort at seeking better governance in the Philippines has been going on for generations. Our history books will demonstrate how the Catholic Church because of its large following has time and again frustrated any effort on such proposed reforms even before it could be presented to the people for their approval.

In one such attempt at proposing constitutional reforms through people’s initiative in 1997, the late Cardinal Sin, obliged Catholics to hear mass in the venue of a protest (prayer) rally under pain of mortal sin in order to muster crowds he had promised.

Today it is happening once again with an imminent chance that the government will finally be able to propose Charter changes to the people. Helping the CBCP to gather the crowds in this disgraceful display of naked political power, is a religious charlatan, Mike Velarde who heads the religious cult El Shaddai. They will be supported by ousted former President Estrada, opposition and leftists. While we accept that Church members have every right as individuals to express their own political views and opinions we do not believe that actions being contemplated by the present CBCP using the church’s followers as political muscle is in conformity with the Papal encyclical, Caritas Est, "The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply. "

"Furthermore, we take heart in the encyclical that "We can now determine more precisely, in the life of the Church, the relationship between commitment to the just ordering of the State and society on the one hand, and organized charitable activity on the other. We have seen that the formation of just structures is not directly the duty of the Church, but belongs to the world of politics, the sphere of the autonomous use of reason. The Church has an indirect duty here, in that she is called to contribute to the purification of reason and to the reawakening of those moral forces without which just structures are neither established nor prove effective in the long run."

We beseech your Holiness to enlighten the apostles of the Catholic Church in the Philippines and that they reflect on the encyclical Caritas Est before more and more Filipinos turn against the church that they have looked up to for their spiritual and religious welfare.

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