Are the people really sovereign in this country?

Here's a sad commentary about the people's so-called "sovereignty". This blogger just has one note on the "overwhelming" approval of the 1987 Constitution. He almost voted NO during the plebiscite, primarily because he didn't like the bicameral structure of Congress, among others. At the end of the day, he still voted YES because he thought political stability was the most pressing need at that time. He thought we could always amend the Constitution later. More than twenty years later, we still could not amend the Constitution. Dodong aka Ka Kiko

It will fail again
FROM A DISTANCE
By Carmen N. Pedrosa
(The Philippine Star)
Updated January 09, 2010 12:00 AM

Charter change advocates were asked to be patient. Let’s talk about it after 2010. Then there was the long standing debate of what mode should be used to introduce the reforms pulled out of the hat time and again. Should it be by constituent assembly, constitutional convention and people’s initiative as prescribed by the Constitution? All have been tried without success. There was always an excuse to block it.

All presidents after Marcos one way or another, if for different reasons, wanted to reform the Constitution. That includes Cory Aquino herself but she was clever enough to keep it away from the public.

But facts do not lie and neither do archival documents (even if removed from the Congressional archives, I already have copies) that she certified the implementing law of the people’s initiative in the last days of her term. This was combined with the implementing rules and regulations for the Comelec headed by her appointee. This was the chosen route that would have used her ‘popularity’ as the icon of democracy to stay in power.

FVR was more forthright and also attempted constitutional reform but he was stopped dead on his tracks by a warning from the establishment and their foreign protectors. Unlike Cory though he did have a vision and a program that he wanted continued to put the country on a more stable path. It was not so much for an extension of term than it was for the continuation of his program.

Erap also tried but with no mind of his own he did not understand the substance of reform and limited his actions to the commercial aspects.

And now, we have President GMA who openly espoused constitutional reform during the entire period of her term. She understood the substantial defects of 1987 Constitution and that in time, after the euphoria of victory, she will face the same blank wall other presidents before her did.

Experts, both foreign and local derided the Constitution as “baroque”.

It could have done better with simple principles, not a tract of administrative details. In the end many important provisions were simply left hanging “just to get the Constitution done with asap”. And when time ran out, the saving words to very important provisions were “subject to an implementing law”.

That means worthy provisions such as a people’s initiative, anti-dynasty could not be implemented. More horrific, we have a Constitution that cannot be amended. The framers claim they forgot to put the word jointly or separately on how the Senate or Lower House would meet and vote to submit proposals for amendment. Is that an acceptable excuse?

We now have an authoritarian government by error. Although a constitution is subject to the people’s approval, we would never reach the point to exercise that sovereignty. We can not reject or accept proposals for reform so long as the Senate and the Lower House are at odds with each other. That renders the sovereignty of the people useless. Therefore it is not even a democratic Constitution.

It was merely a reaction against the Marcos dictatorship without thought and deliberation on how the country could be restructured for good governance and to foster its ability to give a better life to majority of its people.

Yet it was approved overwhelmingly by a people who did not comprehend its shortcomings. As one polling expert said some 90 percent of the people who approved it later said they did not know why they did.

* * *

Despite this history, constitutional reform will fail again. All efforts toward the reforms have depended on reasonable dialogues.

There are still those who believe constitutional reform can be done in this country. They think it will happen so long as some consensus is reached for the two Houses to meet. Among those who have harbored this kind of thinking are the members of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments in the Lower House headed by Chairman Cong. Victor Ortega, and Vice-chairmen Cong. Pedro Romualdo. Edelmiro Amante, Georgidi Aggabao, and Elipdio Barzaga Jr. They had worked hard on House Bill 6975 incorporating seven concurrent resolutions calling for a constitutional convention instead of a constituent assembly. The seven concurrent resolutions were HB 4075, HB1752,HB 3149, HB 3473, HB 5564, HJR 28 and HB 5700.

Briefly, HB 6975 that is now under attack simply calls for the election of delegates to propose amendments to the 1987 Constitution and appropriating funds thereof. It was co-authored by 51 lawmakers, both pro-government and with the opposition. The elections would be held simultaneously with the barangay polls on Oct. 25. Curiously, some of the same lawmakers (getting cold feet?) that voted for it are now said to be recalling their signatures. Why?

* * *

Members of the committee are wasting their time and should not have bothered about an acceptable alternative to a constituent assembly.

I was in one of their committee hearings and remember them say adamantly “we will just have to bite the bullet in performing a paramount duty as representatives of the people.” Can they go against the establishment who want no reform, no change, not ever on a moribund constitution at whatever cost to the people? A bishop has called President GMA’s decision to run for a congressional seat a “hidden agenda” even if it is in full public display. He does not say how this hidden agenda will play out.

Another bishop banking on the ignorance of the masses said “we should watch and pray. The devil is like a roaring lion ready to devour its prey.” What? Again? It reminds me of a cardinal who called constitutional reformists devils during Ramos’s time.

They blame President GMA but this music has been playing since we were granted our independence. The trouble is there are those who do not believe in our independence and self-determination.

Just as in Spanish and American times, sectors of the Church have again taken the lead against government. Naturally, the Upper House of vested interests cannot be far behind. Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada and Sen. Francis Pangilinan said the Senate would not agree to any Cha-cha initiative during President GMA’s time. Someone should tell them there would be a different administration by the time delegates are elected in October 2010. It does not matter. They do not like reform period, and we have a constitution that gives them the last word. But is that democratic? Are the people really sovereign in this country?

"Delete Option"

Here's an interesting article on economic reform. While I do not share the writer's pessimism about related political reform, his proposed approach in pursuing constitutional amendments appears practical and doable.

Delete
FIRST PERSON
By Alex Magno
Updated December 13, 2008 12:00 AM

Some groups here have made a cottage industry of resisting constitutional reform at every instance and for any reason at all. These groups constitute a volatile alliance of churchmen, ideologues from the usual movements of rage and whichever politician feels at the moment to be at the cusp of the next presidency.

This creates a predicament for those of us who feel strongly that constitutional reform is in the national interest.

I have outlined, in previous columns, the main reasons I feel that Charter change ought to be at the top of the national agenda. The sum of these arguments is that, under the present constitutional framework, we have a set of institutions that are vulnerable to capture by the domestic oligarchy and powerful vested interests.

But the Charter change agenda always seems to be trapped in the politics of the moment. If it is undertaken by way of a constituent assembly, the interests of the sitting politicians come into play. If it is done by way of a constitutional convention, the process would be open-ended, creating too much uncertainty and opening up too much political space for ideologically-driven players.

Those rabid opponents of Charter change who marched in the streets of Makati yesterday would not yield to the prerogative of elected representatives to begin consideration of a mode of Charter change. Whatever they propose, railroaded or not, will have to be, at any rate, submitted to the people in the plebiscite. That is the more appropriate time to debate the reforms submitted to the people for consideration.

Yesterday’s march was, from the standpoint of representative democracy, grossly premature. It preempts any discussion of reforms by duly-elected representatives who are acting within their proper mandate.

Yesterday’s march was an event of bigotry. It was undertaken in the spirit of rejecting even a mere discussion of proposals for Charter change. It is act trapped in the presumption of malice. It does not enrich our democratic culture.

I did say, in one televised interview, that I have lost hope constitutional reform will ever happen in my lifetime. A freshly-elected administration has no incentive to surrender its electoral victory to Charter change. A sunset administration, when it does initiate a constitutional reform process, will always be suspect.

We saw that in the case of Pirma at the end of the Ramos period.

We see that today.In one recent public forum organized by civic groups sympathetic to constitutional reform, I suggested that if there is anything that is politically feasible it has to be narrowing down the debate to only the economic provisions in the 1987 Charter.

Forget about reforming our institutional arrangement. That will always be divisive because there will always be vested interests finding themselves on opposite sides of any political question. The Senate will always oppose any shift to a unicameral assembly. Oligarchic interests will always oppose a shift away from the presidential system because any other option will be a lot harder for them to control.

The only possible aspect of the constitutional reform agenda where some amount of consensus may be forged is that section that “constitutionalizes” our nation’s economic policy.

That section is anomalous to begin with. A constitution should never prescribe economic policy. Economic policy ought to be an evolving thing, shaped by the continuing process of legislation and policy-making. (emphasis supplied)

In the scenario I propose, the House majority could simply pass a resolution deleting the provisions in the 1987 Constitution that preempt economic policy-making. With a limited scope, the Senate has to agree with the revision. No one, except the ideologically blinded, wants our economic policy to be fixed like religious dogma. (emphasis supplied)

I call this the “Delete Option.”

Because the provisions to be removed will not be replaced, there is no need to debate wording. The debate on economic policy, henceforth, will occur where it must: in both chambers of Congress.

It is a simply, surgical operation that will not disturb the institutional arrangement. It will not endanger the political ambitions of those who now so vociferously oppose constitutional reform.One might call it Constitutional Appendectomy.

The necessary reform of our economic architecture has been delayed because deleting the economic provisions has been tied up with the other messy political issues in the Charter change agenda. There is an immediate benefit in liberalizing the economic architecture the soonest to help us cope with the global recession.

We will likely debate the reform of our institutional arrangement forever and ever. But let us not hold our economy hostage to the endless bouts of partisan positioning.

The commission that gave us this Charter, which we hurriedly ratified in the context of political fluidity, debilitated our capacity for economic growth. Over more than two decades, our people incurred immeasurable opportunity costs because of the restrictive constitutional provisions.

Let’s do what can be done in the area of constitutional reform. Forget about lifting term limits or shifting to a parliamentary form of government. Only a revolutionary government can manage to reinvent our government so that the oligarchs will finally cease to control it.

In the meantime, let us align Charter revisions with the urgent effort to save our economy in these uncertain times.