Who's fooling whom?

Media reports on House Resolution 1109 tell us that we have an abusive legislature, that members of Congress who voted for it are minions of President GMA and they are being bribed to change the Constitution so she can stay in power beyond 2010. That is the gist.

I watched the proceedings on television of the Tuesday vote, focused on the personalities of the critics. They were opposition figures - a young ambitious congresswoman from the south with a traditional politician’s name, another young ambitious congressman with a name that used to matter in politics although he has done nothing worth remembering by himself except to be part of the cheering squad against government, and then of course, the typical “leftists” who are against everything. They do not represent the Filipino people.

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They were a bunch of do-gooders who have not shown they are capable of running this country. They kept complaining in their interpellations that they were not being given a chance to talk but when they took the rostrum they offered nothing substantial on why they are against Charter change except to say they are afraid it might be used to extend the term of President GMA. They said nothing or probably could not recall that Charter change was always anathema to the opposition whose agenda is to take over with their presidential candidates. But to the rest of us, it is worth considering that only an incumbent President, determined to change the fundamental law that carves the relation between government and citizenry, has the power and wherewithal to make it happen. The undertaking is simply too big for anyone less.

So who’s fooling whom? It is said that President GMA is fooling us, that she is really the one promoting Charter change. That has never been a secret. I think two Congresses ago, she did endorse it as essential to her program of government in a state of the nation speech.

As a Charter change advocate, I view the passing of HR 1109 with mixed feelings. It is more symbolic than real, as some constitutional experts have said. It is nothing. Maybe. I am happy because it gives a boost to the idea of changing the society in which we live. The vote, critics said, was rammed through. Well, at least this time the movement for Charter change is not “dead in the water” that has been the usual refrain.

The advocacy is being sustained and I can see why that can be very infuriating to those who are used to calling the shots in this country. The will to change the 1987 Constitution began in former President FVR’s term when his allies feared that advances made by the country in his term were in danger of being destroyed by an inutile successor. Strangely, it was attempted again during former President Erap term but he limited his reforms to “economic provisions.” That itself is a mystery as it is also a mystery that initial proposals by Speaker Nograles were limited to “economic provisions”. Why? There are other reasons far weightier than local politics why all attempts to change the 1987 Constitution have failed. If blame is to be made, it falls elsewhere. On the surface it looks like local skirmishing between an incumbent government on one side and the opposition with protectors of the status quo on the other, but scratch deeper and the images that will appear will become quite different.

If the process by which the Tuesday vote was distasteful, blame it on how it has been stopped again and again in the past. The institutions mandated by our Constitution, particularly the Senate, to debate and cobble proposals for a plebiscite in an orderly manner are intimidated by threats from the oligarchy, sectors of the church, the opposition, leftists, pseudo religious sects and professional agitators for hire. 

That is the reason why our senators have refused to discuss the issues for Charter change in President GMA’s time as in President FVR’s. The objection against Charter change because of President GMA is a ruse.   

Is it surprising that those for Charter change should maneuver to find a way out of this gridlock?

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I would take it step by step. I am a great believer in the now, and for the moment the extension of President GMA’s term is not what is happening in the now. The issue is an excuse used by the enemies of Charter change. What “now” tells me is it is better to put the country in the direction of change than to surrender to forces that have stopped change throughout contemporary Philippine history. The forces arrayed against Charter change are the same forces that have kept the status quo in this country. The Philippines will not achieve greatness if these forces win yet again in this battle for change.

 We should do some detective work to find out why and how Charter change has been stopped through the years by vested interests with the support of a former colonizer even if this is denied. Their interests coincide because both are threatened by a new political structure. President GMA’s alleged term extension is incidental, a mere sideshow so the true reasons are kept hidden.

We take a risk if President GMA stays longer than we want her to, opening ourselves to another dictatorship. But that is exactly why we should restructure our system. We can change the head of government in a parliamentary system by a mere vote of no confidence.

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It is not true that no one wants Charter change. I had just come from an exhausting trip traveling around the provinces of the Bicol Region where I saw and heard first hand why local authorities suffer because of the inequitable division of IRA. To achieve a more equitable division we would need Charter change but they are not using the word federalism even if that is what it would mean. In the case of Bicol, the greater autonomy advocates want the region treated like ARMM and the Cordillera region.

Some thinking Filipinos understand we have a small window of opportunity during President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s time to reform our Constitution. That is what is driving this government and its allies to get it done while it is possible to do it. Come the elections of 2010 that window of opportunity will be gone and will not come back again for a long, long time.