Mitra’s bill: a con-con with no hidden agenda

Malacañang reportedly will resume its bid for constitutional reforms after the holidays. If so, one can only hope it has learned its lessons. That is, that Charter amending, to be acceptable, should be for the greater good. If still self-serving for politicos, Filipinos will reject it.

It’s obvious why people’s initiative and constituent assembly failed. Both were waged on immoral grounds. The first was, as the Supreme Court ruled, deceptive. As signature gatherers, local officials hid the amendatory items for parliamentary shift. One secret proviso, it turned out, would have deferred the May 2007 election till the old extended Congress, as an interim parliament, was willing. The second was crass. Congressmen rewrote their amendments to include the hated No-El (no election) and push parliament alone without the economic and federal platforms. Worse, they altered their own rules to be able to ram the amendments through without the Senate, in the dead of night.

There’s only one way left for the administration to push reform: via constitutional convention. And if it wants to recover lost face, it must drop all selfish political motives and let such body chart the course of a drifting, distressed nation.

The administration has the lead. One of its congressmen had drafted a con-con bill long before the opposition concocted a politicized version. And the provisions are so written to ensure a convention of good men.

Rep. Baham Mitra’s bill is for one delegate to be elected per district, unlike the opposition’s, which would have two to three delegates to make room for party discards. More than that, Mitra would have candidates renounce any political affiliation, and waive the right to elective or appointive office up to three years after the convention. Candidates would be closely monitored for campaign spending, and delegates’ financial wealth would be made public – guarantees against dummying for vested interests. The delegates would have a stringent budget, and the convention a reasonable deadline, so that no one is tempted to overstay.

The idea is to make a convention seat unpalatable for politicos. That way, delegates would not be beholden to them, or to anybody else. Why, they could even insert a proviso to tax churches that meddle in politics, the same way each constituent is taxed.

For some strange reason, though, the majority congressmen are not helping Mitra push the clean, no-agenda con-con bill. Minority members, meanwhile, are bent on that multi-delegate-per-district clause because it’s the only way they can accommodate all party mates in case a con-con is elected simultaneous with the local and congressional balloting.

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In a report that President Gloria Arroyo had cut her ties with the law firm of Villaraza & Angangco, it was mentioned that the lawyers hold office in a Makati building owned by First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. The item could be misleading.

The Firm, originally named Carpio Villaraza Cruz, in fact owns more floors in LTA Building on Perea Street, Legaspi Village, than Arroyo does. It owns and occupies the fourth, fifth and ninth floors. Too, it leases and occupies the first, second and half of the sixth from a bank that foreclosed the property. Arroyo owns and occupies only one floor, the eighth. Other parties own the rest, like the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas for half the sixth floor.

As most senior partner, Antonio Carpio led Pancho Vilaraza and Avelino Cruz in foregoing profit shares to invest in office space in the ’80s. Except for half a floor bought from Arroyo, the real estate was purchased from two banks, BPI and Citibank. The building was erected by the parents of Arroyo, and is named after his mother, Lourdes Tuason Arroyo.

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Some factions accuse Carpio, Villaraza and Cruz of conspiring to jam Charter change. That’s another misimpression of the three, who have their own beliefs about the system.

Carpio, I gathered from chats before he became Supreme Court justice, is a "presidentialist". How he wanted in early 2001 to have Charter change, ideally by constitutional convention – but only to strengthen the presidential system. Gloria Arroyo had just ascended to Malacañang after a long, excruciating impeachment of Joseph Estrada, and Carpio as adviser had wanted political stability. He talked of three constitutional reforms: a vote for President should be counted as well for the Vice Presidential running mate or vice versa; a run-up election of the top two contenders in case no one from among the more than two garners a majority; and a return to the two-party system.

Villaraza likewise is a believer in the presidential system. But that doesn’t mean he’d blindly go wherever Carpio does. Carpio had dissented twice from the majority rulings of the Tribunal to declare the Mining Act as constitutional. Villaraza continued to help Malacañang explain the virtues and intricacies of mining investments.

Cruz has his own views. It was he who drafted the executive order that formed in Sept. 2005 the Consultative Commission on Constitutional Amendments. Specifically stated in the EO is that the Con-Com study a shift from bicameral-presidential to unicameral parliament, along with federalism and full economic liberation.

If the three differed from the Arroyo administration that they helped to set up, it was in the people’s initiative. For them, the signature gathering was a farce the minute a Cabinet member secretly jumped in to orchestrate it. That secretary, by the way, also later said he never believed in the PI in the first place.

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