EDITORIAL - Common cause

If we are to believe its proponents at the House of Representatives, the latest Charter change initiative is all about economic reform. So what do these proponents make of the warning issued by no less than the secretary of economic planning, Ralph Recto? Political instability arising from the latest Cha-cha initiative, Recto warned, could put at risk the country’s much-ballyhooed economic resiliency amid the global downturn.

Groups with divergent interests are now rallying behind a common cause. These groups are uniting to fight the plan, approved through a voice vote by President Arroyo’s House allies on the eve of the second regular session of Congress, to convene the House into a constituent assembly that will revise the 1987 Constitution without the participation of the Senate. The House is unfazed by the protests, though what its next move will be seems unclear even to congressmen. All that was needed as Congress prepared to adjourn was the approval of Resolution 1109, a measure endorsed, abandoned and then supported again by its original proponent, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte.

Speaker Prospero Nograles Jr. said he wanted the issue to be settled by the Supreme Court. So far senators are in no rush to challenge the resolution, which they consider invalid without their concurrence. If senators refuse to go along with the script, perhaps Marcos loyalist Oliver Lozano can do the job. Lozano, who filed defective impeachment complaints that were accepted and then thrown out by the House, thereby inoculating the President from further impeachment attempts every year since 2005, brought to the Supreme Court with unusual speed the con-ass question.  

Malacañang, which has the true power of the purse in this country, denied that it dangled additional pork barrel allocations of P20 million for every congressman who voted for the con-ass resolution. There was no such denial from congressmen themselves. Palace officials pointed out that the additional “pork” was not possible because the government was having trouble raising the needed revenues for the year. President Arroyo, who doesn’t have trouble spending those revenues on frequent foreign trips bankrolled by Philippine taxpayers, is calling lawmakers to a meeting this week to discuss the legislative agenda that the con-ass deliberations pushed aside.

The 22-year-old Constitution can use amendments, but there is too much public distrust of the Arroyo administration for Cha-cha to push through before the 2010 elections. Even the economic planning secretary thinks con-ass is a bad idea. Only the House and its invisible backers think otherwise.