The campaign against change

Whoever scripted the oppo-sition’s campaign for change is just not on. It even includes a somewhat overfed personality they have called Juana Change to carry the message and crack jokes to trivialize constitutional reforms. While it pretends to campaign for change through the 2010 elections most Filipinos are not fooled. They want more than just a new president and if they can have their way, they do not want new senators or for that matter any other elected officials if these do not redound to a better life for them. The more intelligent understand the need for systemic change but this is being frustrated at every term.

Indeed, the campaign against Charter change is a campaign against change. It is a campaign propelled by oligarch owned media, paid surveys and sanctimonious statements from sectors of the church but its capacity to mislead is limited by the harsh realities of our country’s millions of poor victims of the status quo who will not wait for elite approval. The country needs the time and space to deal with this poverty and catch up with the rest of the region and it will not come with another money and popularity elections under the presidential system that has been the source of graft and corruption.

 As Dante Jimenez of the VACC said accurately “Charter change is needed and it will happen not because of politicians but because the people’s stomachs are rumbling and they will decide how they will save themselves from their dire situation.” He was, of course, referring to the Bicol Region where he and several others have convened Bicol Region for Greater Autonomy through Charter Change as the way forward. We do not hear or read of them except in this column and some scattered broadcasts because oligarch-owned national media are blind to anything pro-Charter. The agenda of the few has become the agenda of the entire country. News events that might reveal there is an equally strong movement for Charter change outside Manila are crowded out and derided as pro-government as if the only decent stand is to be against the government.

 My colleague, Bobbit Avila who writes from Cebu knows the Cebuanos’ feelings on the ground. He says that even if we choose a new president during the 2010 elections through an automated counting system and it is honest and clean it is no guarantee that things would change in this country. It will be the same as when Tita Cory took over the reins of power from the Marcos Dictatorship. “After the euphoria of EDSA disappeared, we became worse than before! This is because Tita Cory gave us a Constitution that cemented the control of Imperial Manila with its centralized form of government, which is no longer working for the country!” Call me stubborn but the only real change we can do to make this nation better is through Constitutional Change a.k.a. Charter Change.”

These are ignored because the agenda is to kill any attempt at Charter change until an election is held in 2010 by which time it will be a fait accompli with a new president and newly elected officials from the Senate down. It is not the first time that such a strategy of “elections first” has been used to kill real change through constitutional reform that might shift us from a presidential to a parliamentary system as it is with the rest of our neighbors in the region who have left us behind.

The campaign of Juana Change is against change. It is for the status quo. The same players are there to make sure change does not happen. That is why, the congressmen/women were right to pass HR 1109. It gives real change through constitutional reforms a chance by the very boldness of its action. As for the numbers behind them they can count on the millions who comprise their constituencies, the local authorities from governors down to the barangays and Charter change groups from parliamentary to federal to economic reform advocacies.  

On the other hand, what do those against change have behind them except the numbers of dubious surveys. A big rally that promised thousands could not even muster 6,000 people. It was 5,000 but another 200 was added so it would not be too embarrassing. Yet despite its lack of support, news items about this rally spoke of thousands against Charter change. Siyempre, if it is 5,000 that’s more than one thousand so it is not wrong to just keep saying thousands even if it is meant to deceive those who do bother to think!

These numbers can only be proven if we have a referendum that is why any attempt to put Charter change to a vote is being blocked.

It is not as if we have not been through this before. Elections before Charter change is a strategy that has been used again and again against change. It happened before and all those who had hoped there would be Charter change after the elections were left eating the dust. The time never came. I read somewhere that the idea of the media thrust to saturate the public with candidates, surveys, statements, speculation on who is the front-runner are not just news, these have a purpose. It is believed that by talking about nothing else but election from hereon, the public mind will have been so brainwashed there will be no room for any alternative.

 Charter change will be crushed by the weight of the publicity for presidential elections 2010. Too few are aware of it or even care to understand what is happening. They have gone along with the strategy that began with vilifying President GMA because her support is crucial to getting it done. Charter change advocates should not allow themselves to be put in the defensive. Charter change as Charter change is a noble objective and should inspire citizens/patriots who want our country to move forward, not stuck in the status quo.

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For me, there is a different reason behind this determined campaign against change. It had to do with America’s growing power not just militarily but as the political and cultural exemplar for the world at the time they took over the Philippines.

It goes back to 1934 when we were fighting for our independence. There were witnesses to this important episode who were still alive during the 1971 Constitutional Convention - one of them was Miguel Cuaderno. Our leaders would have wanted a parliamentary government in 1935 but they were told in no uncertain terms that independence would not be granted if the American model of a presidential system were not followed. President Quezon brought home the bad news after a trip to Washington. The repercussions of that episode are still with us today He told them that the Constitution could not depart from the American presidential system or it would be disapproved by President Roosevelt. The choice before them was stark and clear:

“Gentlemen, No Constitution, no independence. “