Philippine Congress receives “People’s Draft” petition

 

Philippine Congress receives “People’s Draft” petition

The two houses of congress recently received a petition to revise the constitution with a “People’s Draft”, signed by various organizations and some individuals. The Philippine Senate received the petition two days ago while the House of Representatives also received the same petition a day later.

According to Atty. Dindo Donato, general counsel of Tangulang Demokrasya (TanDem) – lead proponent of the People’s Draft, the petition seeks action from our lawmakers to deliberate, approve, adopt and endorse the draft to the Commission on Elections for the conduct of a plebiscite “simultaneous with the national and local elections” next year.

“TanDem has initiated the framing of the People’s Draft four years ago and has had consultations with various groups and individuals to write the draft reflecting the desires of ordinary Filipinos”, said Donato. “Concerns voiced through those consultations include the creation of more meaningful and decent jobs in the country, the perennial fight against corruption, the need for better election process and the distribution of economic gains to the poorest of regions”, he added.

Still according to Donato, the result is a draft which seeks to promote “free and open competition in the economy through foreign investment liberalization, subject to safeguards and reciprocity; participation and consensus in governance through ’collegial rule’, vesting ultimate political power in the national assembly and the local councils; fair and equal opportunity in local governance through multiple ‘single-member districts’; immediate accountability for chief executives through removal by ‘vote of no confidence’; regional empowerment through delegation or devolution of major ‘decision-making powers’; and inclusive society of Christians, Muslims and Indigenous Peoples for national unity.”

Among the groups who signed the People’s Draft petition with TanDem include the Center for Preservation of Historical Rights of the Sulu Archipelago – an unincorporated people’s organization that advocates the preservation of the “History and Rights of the Sulu Sultanate”, and the CoRRECT (Constitutional Reform & Rectification for Economic Competitiveness & Transformation) Movement – a broad unincorporated alliance of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), local employees, professionals, entrepreneurs, and the youth, that advocates the “Three Point Agenda” common among “constitutional reformers” (i.e. economic liberalization, evolving federalism, parliamentary system).

Also among the petitioners are the Kapatiran Party (or Alliance for the Common Good) – a national political party registered in the Philippines since 2004, and the Lumad Mindanaw Peoples Federation (LMPF) – a people’s organization registered as a non-stock corporation promoting the interests of the Indigenous People in Mindanao.

The individuals who signed the petition are political analyst Ma. Lourdes N. Tiquia, and former Congressman Wilfrido B. Villarama.

For its part, TanDem (Tanggulang Demokrasya) is a people’s organization of concerned citizens organized in 2010 under the guidance of its advisor, the late Fr. Romeo “Archie” J. Intengan, S.J. It was officially registered in 2012, with Mrs. Evelyn Kilayko as Chairperson and Mrs. Teresita Baltazar as President. Among the other advocacies of TanDem include transparency in automated elections as it supports the Hybrid Bill that calls for the manual counting or audit of votes cast, combined with the automated canvassing of precinct results.

There are several moves to reform the constitution already resulting in several drafts in the past. Most recently, there are the Bayanihan Draft written by a constitutional committee formed by President Rodrigo Duterte and the PDP Laban Draft written by members of the political party to which the president belongs. However, the People’s Draft is the only one that claims to be crowd-sourced, having gone through different revisions over the years from comments and suggestions from “crowds”. The People’s Draft is also the only one that comes from the ground up, meaning it is not initiated by government officials or institutions but by ordinary people, hence its name. - S. A. Mable
Mai News, 24 September 2021 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=4383590078345013&id=452401011463959

Civil society for constitutional reforms (Part 2) - Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas

 

Civil Society for Constitutional Reforms (Part 2)

Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas

06 July 2017

      TanDem, a part of civil society organized by concerned citizens to promote inclusive growth through political reforms, has proposed to amend the Philippine Constitution of l987 by removing the restrictions, limitations and prohibitions against foreign direct investments.  After consulting a group of experts over a period of six months, the members of TanDem summarized the major reasons for their proposed amendments. I enumerate their major arguments.

         The Philippines has embraced massive poverty since the birth of the Republic until today. Out of the present estimated 104 million population, where some 65 million are in the labor force, about 4 million are unemployed while 12 million are underemployed.  To address massive poverty, it is necessary to raise equally massive capital to create or support sustainable jobs.  It costs about Php100,000.00 to employ a single employee for one full year, based on the lowest minimum wage and cost of business operations.  It would, therefore, cost at least a staggering 400 billion pesos to employ all the unemployed for just one year.

         Unfortunately, instead of making use of all available capital resources, whether local or foreign, for job generation, the 1987 Constitution—together with numerous congressional statutes and implementing rules and regulations—have instead chosen to restrict foreign direct investments in several sectors of the economy, to protect the monetary interests of Filipino business people belonging to the “mayaman” class, at the expense of Filipino workers and consumers of the middle and the “masa” classes, who are then systematically deprived of better job opportunities and cheaper goods and services.  These restrictions curtail the fundamental right to employment, which is the most important labor right that gives life to all other labor rights, such as those providing for the minimum wage, working conditions, social security, security of tenure, and self-organization.  Without the actual jobs, all other rights under the labor laws and social legislation mean nothing to the workers.

         About 10.2 million Filipinos live overseas of which some 2.4 million are overseas Filipino workers.  Common sense tells us that it is better to allow foreign investors to move into the country and hire Filipinos locally, rather than force Filipinos to move overseas, many of whom leave their families behind, and then work for foreign employers in a foreign land under a foreign government.  The liberalization of foreign investments, to complement local investments, reasonably lead to job creation (by establishing new business enterprises or expanding existing business enterprises); consumer price reduction (by increasing the supply of goods and services); technology transfer (by adopting and improving foreign technology); access to foreign markets (by tapping foreign investors to sell Philippine goods and services in their homelands); and anti-corruption (by allowing the entry of independent foreign competitors that can counteract the monopoly power of existing Filipino cartels of government suppliers.

         The fear of foreign investors taking over the Philippine economy is outdated.  We are no longer in colonial times during which foreign investors came with their foreign colonial armies who helped them take control of the national economy.  Foreign colonial armies have long gone, with only the Philippine security forces remaining to protect the interests of the Filipino people.  It is furthermore proposed that a Foreign Investment Council be established to address the risk of foreign governments, cartels and other groups who may pursue agendas prejudicial to the basic securities (external, internal, food, water, energy, environmental, resource, etc.) of the Filipino people.  The institution of a Foreign Investment Council may strike a balance between the need to liberalize foreign investments for economic and social gains, and the need to protect the basic securities of the people and the State.   The existing inflexible legal framework providing for blanket restrictions and criminal liability for violations drive away the legitimate foreign investors while endowing Filipino business people the license to capture the local market for themselves, disregarding the divergent interests of the Filipino workers and consumers. 

         These arguments were not arrived at willy nilly. They were distilled from volumes of proceedings of many hours of discussion of members of the academe, government, business and civil society.  The only guiding principle was the common good of society, defined as a juridical or social order that enables every member of society to attain his or her fullest integral human development.  By being more open to Foreign Direct Investments, countries like China and Vietnam, have within the last twenty or so years attained higher levels of human development that we have.  It is about time that we do amend the Constitution for the sake of future generations who will benefit most from a more open economy than the one we have lived with over the last thirty years.  For comments, my email address is bernardo.villegas@uap.asia.

http://www.bernardovillegas.org/index.php?go=/Articles/723/

Civil society for constitutional reforms (Part 1) - Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas

 Civil Society for Constitutional Reforms (Part 1)

Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas

06 June 2017

 

          Reforming Philippine society to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth is painstakingly slow that sometimes one is tempted to give up.  Even President Duterte realizes how difficult it is to promote good governance and fight corruption. In a less than a year of his Administration, he has sacked a good number of officials he appointed himself and whom he trusted as good and loyal friends because they were not beyond reproach.  No society can progress very much without a clean and efficient State.  When can we reach that desirable goal?  Probably not in my lifetime, considering how other countries very much ahead of us in economic development like South Korea and Malaysia still have their shares of corruption scandals. 

         I console myself, however, that the Philippines is fortunate for having a civil society sector that is one of the most developed in the world.  This civil society oftentimes compensates for the ineptitude and lack of integrity of government officials.  There are really thousands of nongovernmental organizations that are assiduously working for the common good in fighting poverty, improving governance, educating the masses, preserving Philippine culture, protecting the physical environment, strengthening the Filipino family, overcoming gender and other forms of discrimination, fighting crime, and addressing human trafficking and the drug problem.  And many more.  Although some may disagree, I attribute this strength of Philippine civil society to two factors:  the Christian culture we inherited from the Spanish colonizers and the spirit of voluntarism learned from the Americans.  As documented by a professor of history at the University of Asia and the Pacific, Dr. Juan Mesquida, charitable foundations for the sick, for the poor and the needy founded by Catholic lay people, were already important institutions during the Spanish colonial times.  I am not even referring here to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy that religious orders, especially of nuns, have put up very early in the history of Christianity.  As regards the spirit of voluntarism in the United States, one can only read the writings of French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville about the dynamism of American civil society very early in their history as a democratic nation. 

         I would like to pay tribute in this article to an NGO that has been working for the improvement of Philippine democracy.  I am referring to Tanggulang Demokrasya (TanDem), Inc., an association of distinguished professionals led by Chairperson Evelyn Kilayko and President Teresita Daza-Baltazar with the expert legal assistance of Atty. Demosthenes Donato. TanDem patiently and laboriously organized a series of Roundtable Discussions (RTD) in which they engaged experts on the issue of amending the 1987 Philippine Constitution to help the present and future Governments to promote inclusive growth, that is, growth that will improve the lives of the impoverished masses.  Let me go for the jugular.  After mustering some very powerful arguments culled from leading economists, political scientists, sociologists, philosophers, and legal experts, they are recommending the following: 

         a)   The amendment of the 1987 Constitution and conduct of the required plebiscite on or about the next national and local elections set on the second Monday of May in the year 2019 under the term of office of the incumbent Duterte administration, to repeal ALL limitations, restrictions and prohibitions against foreign investments and services, to the end that the Constitution will embody only the general principles governing the national economy and patrimony, leaving specific economic policies to the wisdom of the legislative branch of government. 

         b)   Pending the amendment of the l987 Constitution, the urgent repeal of congressional statutes that impose limitations, restrictions and prohibitions against foreign investments and services, to the full extent practicable and beneficial, subject to the principle of international reciprocity and the protection of the basic securities of the State through the institution of a Foreign Investment Council. 

         c) Pending the amendment of the 1987 Constitution, the immediate repeal of implementing rules and regulations that impose limitations, restrictions and prohibitions against foreign investments and services, notwithstanding the lack of any constitutional or statutory bases for the limitation, to promptly initiate the progressive pursuit of liberalization of foreign direct investments to augment local investments for national development and job creation. 

         With due respects to the other surviving members of the Philippine Commission of 1986 that drafted the Philippine Constitution of l987, some of whom are not in favor of amending the Constitution, I fully endorse the recommendations of TanDem. They capture very faithfully the personal opinions I held as a member of the Philippine Commission about the need to open the national economy to foreign investments. I was, however, constantly overruled by the majority of the Commissioners who held protectionist and ultra-nationalistic views that led to the restrictive provisions enshrined in our present Constitution. Having participated in the RTDs organized by TanDem I can attest to the fact that its members had nothing but the common good of the Filipinos, especially the needy and the poor, in mind.  May their tribe increase.  In the second part of this article, I outline the strong and lucid arguments that they presented for their recommendations.  (To be continued). 

 

http://www.bernardovillegas.org/index.php?go=/Articles/721/

Constitutional change - Ma. Isabel Ongpin

 

Constitutional change

By Ma. Isabel Ongpin

September 10, 2021

 

IN last week's column I mentioned that some provisions of the Constitution like the party-list system and the anti-dynasty sentiment should be revisited. We have seen that in their present configuration in our society these two provisions have been manipulated to result in undemocratic and exclusive benefits for the very people already holding political power, shutting out the rest. Ironically, this is the class that the party-list and anti-dynasty provisions are meant to remove and make room for others. A travesty of the intent of the Constitution has been made, which cannot be left as it is.

Recently, the House of Representatives tried to pass certain economic provisions to amend the Constitution, but the Senate was not interested. Every so often a proposal for constitutional amendments is presented and shut down, usually by people in office.

There have been appeals during various administrations after 1987 to amend the Constitution of that year. We have had three constitutions in our history - the 1935 Constitution in the Commonwealth era, the 1973 Constitution during Martial Law and the 1987 Constitution after the EDSA Revolution.

It seems as we speak that there are organizations of citizens out there who are seriously pursuing amendments to the Constitution or even a new constitution from a people's perspective, aside from a few members of Congress. It may be germane to mention here that the 1935 Constitution was made by an elective assembly of citizens who were not all necessarily politicians. The 1973 Constitution was done by an elective assembly, but it was under Martial Law, which dilutes its standing as representative of a society's wishes. The 1987 Constitution was drafted by a commission consisting of appointed members who reflected the administration of the time.

Constitutions are the bedrock of laws and government procedures. They are considered the foundation of a society's way of governing and living. There is expected to be a certain sacredness, impermeability and timelessness in them.

But sometimes they need to be reviewed, particularly if new conditions and new problems come after they were adapted. The United States Constitution, famed and emulated as it is from the day it was formulated, has had many amendments over the years in keeping with the times.

Here there is a people's organization called Tanggulang Demokrasya (Tan Dem) that is a proponent for adopting a whole new constitution. They have come up with a crowd-sourced draft together with another group, Publicus Asia (a registered lobbying and campaigns group). The Tan Dem draft is a 10-page document that it claims would strengthen and defend our democracy. Tan Dem was organized in 2010 under the guidance of Romeo J. Intengan, the Jesuit activist, who devoted his life to fighting for an inclusive Philippine society. Tan Dem's crowd-sourced draft is from 2012.

This proposed constitution as drafted features a parliamentary democracy, transparent automated elections (they support the hybrid electoral system) and new economic, political and social reforms. It is entirely new and recalls our current constitution basically only through the same language and terms. But it is completely different.

 

Among their minor proposals is the lifting of restrictions on the entry of capital into the country for job creation, price reduction and tax generation subject to safeguards.

 

The government it envisions is one of collegial rule with power vested in a National Assembly and local councils, including regional empowerment where the decision-making is from the bottom up and not top down. It has detailed its proposals for a complete change of governance.

 

The point is that there are people-oriented, mass-based organizations that are not happy with the form of governance in this country today. Opportunities, they say, are limited for the general citizenry and skewed towards the elite - politicians, big business, some institutions. Our leaders are more interested in keeping themselves in office than governing for equality or the future for which there is very little interest in making changes in governance. Too much power is vested in certain offices without the necessary use of checks and balances. The constitutional reformers want a system change which they say will result in culture change. It sounds easier said than done even with a new constitution. In other words, there exists a demand for revision, addition or more explicit provisions for the constitution that make for more equality and opportunity for the general public.

 

While there are these sentiments and organized efforts for constitutional change, it must be realized that it would take a long, drawn-out effort to arrive at a new constitution, or even some crucial amendments. To be genuine and widely accepted, an elected constitutional assembly should be formed to undertake the amendments and not our current legislators making themselves as such.

 

Moreover, in the present conditions of political crises and polarization, moving towards something that demands unity to compose is not easily done. Patience, stamina, longevity must be present, and the right time for them.

 

But certainly, it is time in the coming elections to bring up the need for constitutional change and reach out to candidates for office to convince them that constitutional change is needed. The candidates should be made to think about Charter change. It would be the first step towards getting there.

 

Perhaps amendments rather than a totally new constitution is the way to go when things calm down to post-pandemic, normal economic times. We need to catch up from the present crisis just as much of the world has to.

 

But we must always keep an open mind for reform, for inclusion and for a better society. It can help to amend/change/reform our basic law accordingly in the right time of awareness, calm and introspection. And the main proponents should be ordinary citizens expressing the will of the majority. And they should be heard.

 

 

https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/09/10/opinion/columns/constitutional-change/1814137