Reviving Cha-cha

The people’s initiative to amend the Constitution is not dead, as promised by its proponents. One day soon the public will face a new effort for a people’s initiative, which is likely to start in Bataan, as announced recently by Bataan Rep. Enrique Garcia Jr.

Will the effort be for real this time?

The last one in 2006, which landed in the lap of the Supreme Court as usual, seemed designed to fail. This gave rise to speculation that administration allies simply humored Speaker Jose de Venecia, the biggest pitchman for Charter change or Cha-cha through whatever mode.

Lawyer Avelino Cruz, at the time the secretary of defense, called the people’s initiative “legally harebrained” and warned Malacañang it would surely be junked if it ever reached the Supreme Court.

The objective of the people’s initiative was as muddled as the document that initiators were supposed to sign, with certain portions primitively crossed out, as if the proponents changed their mind at the last minute and did not bother to clean up the mess.

Either the proponents were so confident that they could ram the initiative down an apathetic public’s throat, or they in fact did not care if the initiative failed, as long as they went through the motions of trying.

When the Supreme Court did throw out the initiative and the blame game started, suspicion among genuine Cha-cha proponents focused on Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno for not so secretly sabotaging the effort.

The government cannot be involved in a people’s initiative for Cha-cha, and Puno denied any hand either in sabotaging or supporting the initiative.

But he disclosed what the administration thought of President Arroyo sharing power with anyone in a transition to a parliamentary system, if ever the initiative and Cha-cha succeeded, as suggested by proponents of the initiative. To borrow a phrase from Noon Cruz, power-sharing for the President, as far as the administration was concerned, was a politically harebrained idea.

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It was no big surprise that the people’s initiative flopped.

Even before it went into full swing, questions were raised by various quarters about how the proponents intended to guarantee the integrity of the signatures.

The Constitution allows amendments to be directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition of at least 12 percent of the total number of registered voters, of which three percent of the voters of every legislative district must be represented.

That’s no easy task in a country where the list of registered voters is a total mess.

The task was not made easier by the failure of the principal proponents of the initiative to allow for proper authentication of signatures.

Questions were also raised on whether a shift to a unicameral parliamentary system, which would abolish the Senate and diminish the power of the presidency if it is retained at all, involves a revision and not a mere amendment of the 1987 Constitution.

Article 17 of the Charter specifies that “any amendment to, or revision of” the Constitution can be proposed either by Congress through a vote of three-fourths of its members, or through a constitutional convention.

Section 2 specifies that “amendments” – no mention of revision – can be directly proposed by the people through initiative.

This question has not been resolved in the Supreme Court ruling on the last initiative.

Cha-cha proponents also briefly toyed with the idea of forcing Charter change through a two-thirds vote of the House of Representatives, excluding the Senate, since the Constitution did not specify the two chambers of Congress voting together. The inevitable uproar in the Senate shot down the idea.

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Now that Cha-cha proponents have presumably learned their lessons, can they undertake a people’s initiative the right way?

Yesterday Garcia disclosed that the President’s allies were planning a so-called two-step Cha-cha. One phase, through a people’s initiative, will push for the shift to a parliamentary system. A second phase, through a constituent assembly, will move for other changes in the Constitution.

One question is whether the administration will now be pushing for Charter change, not necessarily through a people’s initiative, and whether it will support a shift to a parliamentary system.

The administration has maintained that it supports Cha-cha for economic reforms that can make the country more attractive to investments.

Several of those proposed economic reforms have been opposed by those whose businesses would be affected by lifting protectionist provisions in the Constitution.

And because political reform proposals always piggyback on the economic agenda, Cha-cha has consistently failed to get off the ground.

If it’s not people marching in the streets to oppose the possible perpetuation of public officials in power through Cha-cha, it’s the President and De Venecia looking at each other in distrust that dooms Cha-cha every time.

De Venecia, belatedly seeing the folly of candor in this country, announced that he would not seek the post of prime minister if Cha-cha paved the way for a shift to a parliamentary system. But by then no one believed him.

Now that De Venecia has been grievously wounded by endless backstabbing, and there’s a chance for the President to remain in power under a parliamentary system, would she give her full blessings to her political allies to initiate Charter change?

Malacañang officials, including the President’s chief political adviser Ronnie Puno, are no naifs. Surely they realize that any hint that the President still wants to hold on to power at the end of nine interminable years — under any form and no matter how diluted — isn’t going to go down well in this country.

And yet, for a President with just two and a half years left, what’s the harm in trying? She doesn’t have much to lose.