The EDSA revolt and its failed promises
One of the most controversial issues happening in the Visayas is the oil exploration drillings that the Department of Energy (DoE) has authorized for certain areas in the Visayas. One such drilling is the Ipil-Ipil Exploratory drilling project at the Ta?on Strait done by JAPEX Phils. Ltd., a subsidiary of the Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. This exploratory drilling well was done in the waters around Aloguinsan and Pinamungajan on the eastern seaboard of
To give us a primer on this Oil Exploratory project, we have with us Mr. Antonio Labios, Director for the Visayas of the Department of Energy (DoE). He will explain to our viewers the concept behind this oil exploration and the high probability that JAPEX could announce a huge oil find in the waters around the
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It’s a non-working holiday today because it’s the 22nd anniversary of the 1st EDSA People’s Power Revolt that ushered in a new phenomenon that hard ore dictators who cling to power at all cost can, after all, be driven away if the people would find the courage to rise up against tyranny. But as we all know, the past celebrations in EDSA has produced dismal crowds. Those millions who filled up the Epifanio Delos Santos Ave. 22 years ago have most probably grown old, tired and weary and realized that changing the President via the usual election route or via a People’s Power Revolt will not necessarily or automatically result in a better governed country.
That the EDSA Revolt is our “Unfinished Revolution” has been said so many times. Today, the old oppositionist who marched against the Marcos Dictatorship led by Tita Cory Aquino will certainly make another attempt to remove Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA). But I’m willing to bet that it won’t happen anymore simply because in hindsight, the Filipino people already knows that regime change that catapulted Tita Cory into the Presidency after Pres. Ferdinand Marcos did not produce the needed change that we all wanted or wished for our country.
Today we’re practically back to square one with regards to our political system. If Tita Cory agreed to use the old and tested 1935 Constitution, we would have been better off. But she refused that. She also refused to hold another Constitutional Convention (concon) saying that it was just a waste of time. Well as the old saying goes, “Haste makes waste” so she allowed 49 of her close advisers to hammer a new constitution and had it ratified with the slogan “Yes to Cory, Yes to a Constitution”. With the “Cory” euphoria still fresh in the air, naturally the 1987 Constitution was ratified. But did it solve our problems? Nope, we’re still a sick nation!
A case in point is the term limits that the 49 Cory Constitutionalists who made the Cory Constitution, still reeling from a Martial Law hangover, imposed. From the original four-year term of the President, which allowed for a reelection (copied from the US Constitution) for another four-year term, we shifted into a one-single six-year term for the President. Thus, we have learned that a six-year term is considered too short for a good President like Pres. Fidel V. Ramos and too long for a bad one, which the oppositionist point to Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA).
What about our Congressmen, who are prevented to run again? Most of them let their sons or daughters, fathers or mothers run in their stead, thus making a mockery out of this election proviso that supposedly would prevent a political dynasty. Under the Cory Constitution, it got worse!
Prior to the Marcos Dictatorship, we had two great political parties, namely the Nationalista Party (NP) and the Liberal Party (LP) which was patterned after the US Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Well today, a popular actor can make his own political party and if he wins a position, that party becomes the dominant political party. This is the legacy of Tita Cory’s constitution; it’s called “Personality Politics” where only the famous names that the voters can recall get elected into seats of power.
To cut a long story short, the Cory Constitution failed miserably in giving equality to the supposedly co-equal powers on the three major branches of the government, namely the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. If only we shifted to a Federal form of government, I would like to believe that it would result in better governance because Federated States are in effect smaller nations bonded together to form a Federal Nation, akin to the United States of America where each State is autonomous from the other. Today we are still under the gun of Imperial Manila. I dare say that the time for change has come. By this I mean, let’s call for a concon and become a Federalized nation.
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