Bolivia changes its charter

Those of us who are striving for charter change in the Philippines for better governance can draw heart from countries that have been able to do so. With enough will, it can be done. The most recent country that changed its charter to deal with problems in governance is Bolivia, one of the poorer countries in Latin America. This was done in the most expedient and quickest way — through constituent assembly.

This is not to discuss the merits or the demerits of the changes the Bolivians have voted for, but to admire, even envy them for their courage and persistence to enact the changes needed to reform governance. And this without firing a single bullet. Moreover, they have resisted any attempt by outsiders who would intervene thinking they know better how to shape the Bolivian nation.

I don’t think Filipinos are less intelligent or poorer than Bolivians so we should look into why and how they are able to change their charter and we are not able to. As this column has said many times, our approach to charter change is to design a structure of governance that would address unique problems spawned by our culture and history. Our expensive multibillion but meaningless presidential elections is just one of them. To the Bolivians reforms are meant to open them up to the modern world and compete in the marketplace of goods and ideas. Why shouldn’t the Philippines as well?

*   *   *

Let us look what the Bolivians considered as their problems that led them to change their constitution. No, they did not just go for superficial changes like the removal of the nationalist provision for land ownership to encourage investments in our own constitution. That may be desirable but it is not at the heart of the advocacy for charter change in the Philippines. As others have already said making our country a desirable place to invest may be important but not the most important reason for charter change as some critics would have us believe.

Investors go to countries where they can make money. Governments, whether centralized or democratic in whatever shape and form, are seen as instruments that ensure continuity of policies and political stability.

The Bolivians voted for jugular transformation by giving the country’s indigenous population greater political participation.

They voted, in a hotly contested referendum by 57 percent, that indigenous groups should be empowered. Indirectly, this was also a vote of confidence for President Evo Morales who proposed the charter changes in the first place.

They also voted to change their charter to limit land ownership and perhaps most significantly, to decolonize the country. Morales, the first aboriginal president, is Bolivia’s answer to Barack Obama the first African-American president. The Bolivian president after winning the referendum for charter change said his country aims to recover indigenous values lost under centuries of oppression dating back to the Spanish conquest. Like the Philippines it was once a Spanish colony with the Catholic Church holding sway long after it had been declared a republic.

Bolivia’s indigenous groups only won the right to vote in 1952 by revolting against haciendas on which they had been peons for generations.

That does not mean that all Bolivians were for the charter changes. There were other Bolivians, Western oriented elites who prospered with the status quo and saw no need for further democratization. So the biggest lesson that Filipinos can learn from the Bolivians is how to push for constitutional reforms democratically.

“The poorest people are the majority. The people with money are only a tiny few. That’s what you have to consider,” Eloy Huanca said outside a polling place in El Alto, a sprawling satellite city of La Paz, the country’s administrative capital. “They ran things before, and now it’s our turn.”

These advocates are conscious that the reforms will have teething problems, but at least the first step was taken to restructure government for social justice. That is something to cheer about even here in far-away Philippines where charter changes have been blocked for generations simply to protect the status quo.

In Bolivia where the teeming poor who are in the majority have won, it does not mean that the rest of Bolivians are out. By the statements and positions they took, the Bolivian opposition is more enlightened than ours. “People will go to vote for the possibility of dreaming for a better country, but a country for all of us,” said Ruben Costas, opposition governor of the eastern state of Santa Cruz. “We should all be part of this change.”

In the new Bolivian Congress there will be seats for indigenous groups. The new constitution would also eliminate any mention of the Roman Catholic Church, instead recognizing and honoring the Andean earth deity, Pachamama. They voted for a secular state, that recognizes “reproductive rights,” and prohibits “all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The charter change has called for a general election to be held in December. Morales could run for a second consecutive five-year term (he was first elected in December 2005). The current constitution permits two terms, but not consecutively.

In what can be described as similar to a federalist option, the proposed constitution also gave autonomy for 36 indigenous “nations” and several opposition-controlled eastern states.

How did the Bolivians do it? In October Congress approved holding the constitutional referendum only after Morales agreed to seek one more term instead of two.

As the second poorest country in South America after Guyana, Bolivia’s charter change has moved it closer to the region’s “pink tide” of leftwing governments that have ousted traditional elites and challenged US influence. “Here begins the new Bolivia,” he said. “Here we begin to reach true equality.” Bolivia is named after the country’s legendary revolutionary, Simon Bolivar.