In search of a cause

Volunteers for Gibo in Negros invited this column for four days last week. Most of them were women but there were men too, so I could not really call them as women in search of a cause. They did have one thing in common and that was that they actively campaigned for Gilberto Teodoro because they believed he was the best candidate to carry out their cause for change and good government. But with the elections over, the momentum from the friendships they made continues.

It was Mia Gonzaga who suggested that it was time they take up their cause again. The focus might have been Gibo for president then but they were concerned citizens first and there was no reason why they should not continue the strong organization that they had put together then. That was how I came to be invited to speak at the West Negros University, a 60-year-old educational institution with some 4,000 students. They wanted to know about constitutional reform and what was being done about it. 

For me, it was a good time to launch the next generation constitutional reform warriors, so I asked the organizers headed by the indefatigable Lynn Gamboa if I could bring one of them – Orion Perez Dumdum, one of the organizers of a movement for constitutional reform that has gained wide attention in Facebook. He used to work in Singapore as a computer expert, but has come back because he believes there is a job to be done here. He read up and talked to as many people as he could and came up with such essays as Philippine Progress: Shift in Sports, Shift in System and The Parliamentary System Fits the Philippines (see both essays in antipinoy.com). Arnel Edrinal, Chino Fernandez and he have a talk show every Tuesday and Thursday at 8.30 on DWBL.

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I told the young university students and teachers about the history of the constitutional reform movement and how it has been frustrated time and again. It has been going on for years, the latest put down being the May 10 presidential elections. The Committee on Constitutional Amendments in Congress had already passed a consolidated resolution for a constitutional convention on the committee level and allocated funds for it. It was about to be debated in plenary when a concerted effort of media and partisan groups including then US Ambassador Kristine Kenney batted for “honest” elections instead. Suddenly constitutional reform was silenced.

There are three aspects of the reform — a shift to parliamentary government, gradual evolution to federalism and a more liberal environment for foreign investments.  These three aspects, in our view, of constitutional reform are absolutely and urgently needed if the Philippines is to move forward and cope with its political and economic problems. It is time to pass on the torch to the next generation. They must carry the burden for seeing these reforms through because it is their future and that could be bleak or bright for the Filipino nation depending on the reforms.

Orion used graphs and pictures to highlight the three aspects but was especially focused on the economic aspect because as he said, the crying need today is to provide opportunities - jobs, education and health for our millions of poor. He showed why the present presidential system is not helping achieve those goals, in fact it is hindering fulfillment.

The audience was receptive to new ideas, impatient with the continuing status quo despite the obvious defects that could be corrected by a re-structuring of our politics and society.

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The third speaker, Edmundo G. Casino, consultant for Industry Solutions Consulting APC Center at the Asia Pacific College Building was a pleasant surprise. A computer expert and alternate representative in the Comelec Advisory Council for the May 10, 2010 elections, he has continued to pursue issues questioning the automated election system used in the election into doubt.  He and his group were not into partisan politics or about losers and winners. As a computer technician he draws on his wide knowledge of systems to show that it is not true as alleged by Smartmatic and its local partners that the system they had put up was fool proof. Neither was it fail proof.

He has dedicated time and expertise for the many groups that continue to seek the truth. At present, groups of concerned citizens are awaiting the decision of the Supreme Court on a case filed November 11, 2010.

They seek a mandamus petition to compel Comelec to disclose the digital photo images of all ballots cast during the 10 May 2010 elections. This petition seeks to pave the way for a people’s recount to audit the automated election system (AES) and verify the correctness of the electronic election results.

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It may have been fortuitous that constitutional reform and the suspected fraud in the first automated election system should be chosen topics together. As Lynn told me, she and her friends were talking over coffee one morning and realized that they did not really have first hand knowledge of what is happening in the country. They only see it on television and to them it was important that they make personal contact with advocates so they could be, as they say, in the loop.

That is how the topics were chosen. It was only after that they realized the intimate link between the two issues. In other words, our defective presidential system lends itself to election fraud. Elections have become commercialized with results traded to the highest bidders.

Filipinos should be grateful to those who have persisted against all odds to investigate what happened in the last elections. Unless we know what happened then, it would be foolhardy to use the same system in coming elections.

We will continue to question whether election as done in the Philippines today is helping to forward democracy in the country. In the coming days, certainly in Negros and especially among the students and teachers who were in the symposium will connect the two issues, constitutional reform and the alleged fraud in the May 10 elections.

Under an envisioned constitutional reform to shift to parliamentary government, national failed elections would not happen.

It may have been inadvertent that the two issues were discussed together that day but taken together they offer a correct perspective of what is happening to our country today.