The last several months saw the unraveling of grave issues affecting national interest. We convulsed to hear the expose that the mechanism called PDAF was, actually, an unbridled mismanagement of public funds. "No to pork" became not just an outcry. The pork barrel system, long suspected to be a conduit of corruption, ignited a public outrage.
There was the DAP, a major portion of which fund-allocation channel was found unconstitutional by our Supreme Court. No matter how our leaders attempted to justify the way billions of people's money was expended, an apparent majority of our race seemed unconvinced. It lingered in our mind that notwithstanding the announced public weal as predicating the DAP, somehow the tinge of its inappropriateness prevailed.
Then, there was the bunch of impeachment cases filed against His Excellency, President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III. The experience we had with former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo facing such kind of cases taught us bitter lessons. When leveled against a president who controls the patronage of the members of the lower house, an impeachment charge is, beyond the noise upon its filing, unlikely to dent the president's front line of defense consisting of his solid hold on the House of Representatives.
What about the political issue of Vice President Jejomar Binay being considered for adoption by the ruling Liberal Party for its presidential bet in 2016? It created quite a stir such that that those who were uneasy with such a future development had to do damage control like the renewed charges of corruption raised against the vice president.
Believe me, while these stuffs became interesting topics in my Constitutional Law classes, I steered away from them in this column. Acknowledging that more knowledgeable minds expressed their profound thoughts on these issues in print and in public discussions, I refrained from adding my shallow perspectives.
But, the other day, when it was reported that the president turned back on his earlier steadfastness to the constitutional mandate of one term for the president, I could not afford to be silent anymore. Alas, upon the alleged rationale that "his bosses, the Filipino people" would want him to consider agreeing to the amendment of the 1987 Constitution so that he may be elected to another term, I thought the idiot in me has to sound off, even if my opinion is both insignificant and perhaps, flawed.
1. The constitution outlines various approaches to amending or revising it. Constitutionalists call this part of our charter as the "constitution of sovereignty". The easiest method is for congress to convene as a constituent assembly. Our legislators may not say it openly, but, when such a marching order is issued by a president of Pinoy's popularity, albeit secretly, it can be done. True, the pollsters are saying that the president's rating has plummeted to all-time low level, but he still commands the patronage of a huge number of lawmakers that should he embark in that direction, it can be achieved. Our vociferous resistance to an amendment of the constitution via the vehicle called the constituent assembly, like our then united front against Arroyo in her impeachment days, may be futile exercise.
2. Why did the president change his stand? In earlier pronouncements, he made us understand that entertaining a new term in Malacañang, of course, after a charter change, was not in his radar. We believed in him specially that when he gave his SONA, the memory of his parents caused him to break his voice as to indicate the weight of his emotion. His late mother, then also president of the republic, repudiated all calls for her to run again for the presidency.
I think that his most recent pronouncement was designed to galvanize his loyal supporters. Part of psy-war, a calculated gamble, so to speak. No, he would not really want to sit anew as president, an office where he is truly incompetent. But, he thought that the idea might be acceptable to the vast majority of our citizens, and if that be the case, he hoped to marginalize those ganging up on him on various issues and reduce them to utter insignificance. Unfortunately for the president, this gamble is bound to fail. He risks a tumultuous end of his reign as president compared to his auspicious entry as our number citizen. Before it damages him even more, let him go back, clearly and in an unequivocal term, to his prior position that he would do everything not to touch the constitution that could allow him to seek for a new term.