Cha Cha: Rocking The Boat In Tempestuous Times

You don't rock your boat when it is sailing in turbulent waters. But the honorable Rufus Rodriguez, aided by the ruling class of the House, and the honorable Robinhood Padilla in the Senate, obviously following the political headways from the Palace, are going ahead full blast. They are palpably being unmindful of the welfare, interest and predicament of the very people they are supposed to serve.

Any Charter Change, whether economic provisions or political, whether Con Con or Con Ass, is very bad to the country and very destructive to the people's interests, especially at these very difficult times. The country has P13.7 trillion debts, Inflation is at an all time high, budget deficits are huge, prices of prime commodities are sky-rocketting, trade deficits are worsening, unemployment is rising, poverty incidence is at its worst. The Philippine peso is diving to its lowest ebb relative to the US dollars and no direct foreign investments are coming, despite all the bragging. Unemployment rate is rising like crazy and more than five thousand workers are leaving the country each day to seek dirty, difficult, dangerous and degrading jobs just  to avoid starvation in the supposed land of imported onions, sugar and rice.

The people are suffering. The trapos are callous, insensitive and impervious to the social and economic pains of the masses. They want to change the Constitution just to allow their foreign masters to own lands and exploit our natural resources, to put our ancestral domains at the mercy of foreign predators.  Several global and macro-economic factors are still shocking and derailing the post pandemic  recovery efforts of the Philippine economy. A confluence of internal factors also are preventing direct foreign investments from coming to our country. The foreign investors are opting to prefer Thailand and Vietnam and the more investment-friendly economies in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Their policy frameworks are more stable and predictable and their governments are less corrupt and less inept. Now, the Cha Cha wants to shake the very foundations of our government and state, at a very perilous time in our history.

The country is not even capable of defending our territories from the blatant incursions and gradual annexation by the bully, China. We need to dance to the music of America in exchange for protection of the West Philippine Sea. We need to allow American military troops to reopen bases in our country because we believe that their presence is a deterrence to any Chinese invasion.  We do not realize that precisely because of such bases, we are increasing the risks of an attack by China and its allies. The Cha Cha proponents are pushing for such a draconian move that could further divide the nation and shake the political foundations of our institutions. The proposal is bad and the timing is even worse. We are facing an impending famine or food crisis and natural disasters are expected to come intermittently to devastate the economy of the whole nation.

The House railroaded the passage of the Con Con bill and happily the Senate is not warm to the proposal. There are so many more important and more urgent bills that are waiting for legislative action. But the House chose politicking instead of addressing the more pressing needs of the nation and the people. The obvious rush being bamboozled by the House leadership is expedly enjoying the blessing of Malacanang. The favorite cousin, Speaker Ferdinand Martin would not be moving at such an urgent sense of rush if the Palace did not covertly approve such a move. And if Senate President Migz Zubiri would refuse to dance with the Music of the Palace, he may wake up one day being replaced by Cynthia Villar or Francis Tolentino.

The House which refused to increase the SSS pensions of ageing pensioners and the aid to the impoverished seniors, instead allocated 18 billion pesos to fund the biggest political zarzuela of the decade, the Con Con, promising, as if they own the money, to give ten thousand pesos a day to every Con Con delegate. They cannot even instruct the Regional Tripartite Boards to increase the minimum wage law to 750 a day, and they promise ten thousands to people whom Chief Justice Reynato Puno calls the factotum of the oligarcs, or the dummies of the ruling class. Senator Robinhood Padilla, who is the new expert in Constitutional Law in the senate, is batting for Con Ass and for limiting the area of engagement only to economic provisions.

Will somebody credible enough tell these trapos to come down from their ivory towers and see for themselves the sufferings of the people. The masses  cannot eat Cha Cha. Even if we overhaul our Constitution, the people will still be hungry and angry with these kinds of leaders we have. Cha Cha is going to destroy the land and further exacerbate the pains of the masses.