YELPED and whispered all over town are these
recent interesting news about some/many administration people’s growing
enthusiasm for the sudden bright idea of trying to quickly change the charter,
better known in the media under the appellative of Charter Change (or Cha-Cha).
The goal, unabashedly intimated, is to give the President a chance to
run for a second term, currently an unconstitutional undertaking.
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| Photo borrowed from rappler.com |
Incidentally,
there are also these two interlinked announced upcoming events. One is the
August 23 multi-sector “people’s congress” in Cebu City backed by the Catholic
Church that hopes to launch on the same day the People’s Initiative Against the
Pork Barrel (or PIAP), an initiative that would criminalize pork barrel fund
creation and spending (and render as suspect certain items in the current
budget plan for 2015). Then there’s the August 25-scheduled rally against the continuing
pork barrel system (this will likewise commemorate the Million People March,
one year to this day, as well as formally bring the PIAP signature campaign to Luzon).
The initiative is a product of the awakened awareness in the Filipino
psyche of the people’s right and privilege to be participants in government care of that long-hidden direct
democracy instrument lurking behind Article XVII, Section 2, of the
Constitution, which instrument was enabled by Republic Act 6735 (The Initiative and Referendum Act of
1987-1989) that had likewise hitherto been a sleeping/unused law.
By this awakened direct-democratic awareness, therefore, some quarters
fear that the charter change being cooked by the Aquino government will also be used
to totally overhaul the 1987 Constitution, which could possibly result in
the removal of the direct-democracy clause that the political elite in Congress
will presumably do anything to be rid of to consequently keep its grip on
discretionary or confidential funds and keep the people and the Supreme Court (which recently rendered such funds as unconstitutional) out of the picture and the
ball game.
But, should that happen, … well, … wouldn’t the
Marxists triumph and feel vindicated in their belief that only armed
struggle and subversion can truly wrest abuse away from the management of the
political elite and place justice in the hands of the people? They’d say, “see?
We told you so. Since the political elite will never ever allow the people to
muster power for change, a change that the political elite in our fake
democracy fears will tear their access to privileges upon the country’s coffers
away from them, the only way to achieve change then is by
subverting their respective existences. Direct democracy, or true democracy (demos people, kratos power), will never be allowed to happen by the sublime royal class that rules our, actually, plutocratic state.”
STILL and all, I remain armed (not with a gun, but) with the hope that there are still ruling-party elements today who, 1.) in their hearts, would want to be true to their Liberal tag as social liberals and, 2.) in spirit, would opt to be placed an ocean away from their neoliberal, corporate liberal, interest-group liberal and limousine liberal peers, and therefore might perhaps to remember that RA 6735 used to be not an anti-Noynoy Aquino administration vehicle but a Liberal Party cause (after all, it was co-authored by that late LP stalwart, Neptali Gonzales, wasn’t it?). In short, they just might rally for more social liberal influence in the process of governance at Malacañang as this governance develops in the ticking present. Leni Robredo, for one, is an advocate of participatory budgeting and participatory democracy, albeit her bill on this issue is absent the Porto Alegre model’s requirement of electing the municipal district delegates. (The Porto Alegre participatory budgeting model with elected, instead of merely appointed by someone or by some committee, delegates is crucial to avoiding participatory budgeting’s being used again as just another Janet Lim-Napoles-scam-like instrument for the corrupt among the political elite. A frown on the absence of that requirement was made manifest upon the curious program of DILG Secretary and presidential aspirant Mar Roxas, which was porkishly called Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process, when the existence of that “process” of disbursing lump sums started to be known in the media). Robredo, however, is also an advocate of open government, and would thus be logically open to such amendments as we implied above to her participatory budgeting bill.
Isn’t it ironic that one of the lawyers defending the impeached Chief
Justice Renato Corona during his trial, Jose M. Roy III, is now one of the
voices rallying—behind former Chief Justice Reynato Puno—for the necessity and timely triumph
of the people’s empowerment through the People’s Initiative instrument? Ironic,
in the sense that he was then defending a Justice believed by many to be a puppet of
the former Macapagal-Arroyo royalist gang but now seems to have the people as
his pro bono client, whilst the Liberal Party of President Aquino’s allegedly anti-corruption “Straight Path”
governance is now being accused by the people of scattering an abundance of
pork barrels (for his political elite base) as well as of rigging biddings and protecting tax evading
companies that supported the party’s campaign.
But let’s go back to the ruling-party social liberals (Neptali Gonzales’ ideological children) currently trying to maintain influence in the Liberal Party against the influence of their corporate-liberal mates. And I’d say, should charter change win the day anytime this year and any amount of Million People Marches gets frustrated and produces nothing, then perhaps all that the social liberal faction in that ruling party can do (with the people behind them) is offer the following title and articles for incorporation into the new charter to counter the corporate liberals’ likely wish to remove the people’s initiative clause in the presently-existing constitution. The title and articles below are adaptations of a title and articles from the Swiss Constitution, which some would protest against for being Swiss, but must everything in our Constitution be copied from the texts of American political elitism and plutocratic accommodation? The text are from admin.ch,
with my adaptations for possible Philippine use:
Title
4: The People and the Regions
Chapter
1: General Provisions
Art.
136 Political rights
1 All Filipino citizens over the age of
eighteen, unless they lack legal capacity due to mental illness or mental
incapacity, have political rights in national matters. All citizens have the
same political rights and duties.
2 They may participate in elections to the
National Parliament and in national popular votes, and launch or sign popular
initiatives and requests for referendums in national matters.
Art.
137 Political parties
The political parties shall contribute to
forming the opinion and will of the People.
Chapter
2: Initiative and Referendum
Art.
138 Popular initiative requesting the complete revision of the Constitution
1 Any 1,250,000
persons eligible to vote may within 18 months of the official publication of
their initiative propose a complete revision of the Constitution.
2 This
proposal must be submitted to a vote of the People.
Art.
139 Popular initiative requesting a partial revision of the Constitution in
specific terms
1 Any 1,250,000
persons eligible to vote may within 18 months of the official publication of
their initiative request a partial revision of the Constitution.
2 A popular
initiative for the partial revision of the Constitution may take the form of a
general proposal or of a specific draft of the provisions proposed.
3 If the
initiative fails to comply with the requirements of consistency of form, and of
subject matter, or if it infringes mandatory provisions of international law,
the National Parliament shall declare it to be invalid in whole or in part.
4 If the National
Parliament is in agreement with an initiative in the form of a general proposal,
it shall draft the partial revision on the basis of the initiative and submit
it to the vote of the People and the Regions. If the National Parliament
rejects the initiative, it shall submit it to a vote of the People; the People
shall decide whether the initiative should be adopted. If they vote in favour,
the National Parliament shall draft the corresponding bill.
5 An
initiative in the form of a specific draft shall be submitted to the vote of
the People and the Regions. The National Parliament shall recommend whether the
initiative should be adopted or rejected. It may submit a counter-proposal to
the initiative.
Art.
139a…
Art.
139b Procedure applicable to an initiative and
counter-proposal
1 The People
vote on the initiative and the counter-proposal at the same time.
2 The People
may vote in favour of both proposals. In response to the third question, they
may indicate the proposal that they prefer if both are accepted.
3 If in
response to the third question one proposal to amend the Constitution receives more
votes from the People and the other more votes from the Regions, the proposal that
comes into force is that which achieves the higher sum if the percentage of
votes of the People and the percentage of votes of the Regions in the third
question are added together.
Art.
140 Mandatory referendum
1 The
following must be put to the vote of the People and the Regions:
a. amendments to the Constitution;
b. accession to organisations for collective security
or to supranational communities;
c. emergency national acts that are not based on a
provision of the Constitution and whose term of validity exceeds one year; such
national acts must be put to the vote within one year of being passed by the National
Parliament.
2 The
following are submitted to a vote of the People:
a. popular initiatives for a complete revision of the
Constitution;
b. popular initiatives for a partial revision of the
Constitution in the form of a general proposal that have been rejected by the National
Parliament;
c. the question of whether a complete revision of the
Constitution should be carried out, in the event that there is disagreement
between the Parliamentarians.
Art.
141 Optional referendum
1 If within
100 days of the official publication of the enactment any 700,000 persons eligible
to vote or any of the Regions request it, the following shall be submitted to a
vote of the People:
a. national acts;
b. emergency national acts whose term of validity
exceeds one year;
c. national decrees, provided the Constitution or an
act so requires;
d. international treaties that:
1. are of unlimited duration and may not be
terminated;
2. provide for accession to an international
organisation;
3. contain important legislative provisions or whose
implementation requires the enactment of national legislation.
2 ...
Art.
141 Implementation of international treaties
1 If the
decision on ratification of an international treaty is subject to a mandatory referendum,
the National Parliament may incorporate in the decision on ratification the amendments
to the Constitution that provide for the implementation of the treaty.
2 If the
decision on ratification of an international treaty is subject to an optional referendum,
the National Parliament may incorporate in the decision on ratification the amendments
to the law that provide for the implementation of the treaty.
Art.
142 Required majorities
1 Proposals
that are submitted to the vote of the People are accepted if a majority of those
who vote approve them.
2 Proposals
that are submitted to the vote of the People and Regions are accepted if a majority
of those who vote and a majority of the Regions approve them.
3 The result
of a popular vote in a Region determines the vote of the Region.
NOW,
certainly there are parts of the 1987 Philippine Constitution’s Article XVII,
Section 2, that could be incorporated here, where they don’t conflict with what
is here.
Obviously, also, Republic Act 6735 will henceforth need some rewriting to adapt it to the above constitutional requirements and terms, and perhaps even partly incorporated here.
But, there you go. That’s my piece. I’ve
been transparent with my Cha-Cha dreams, and, now, how I wish the Aquino
government will likewise publish somewhere its proposals for its Cha-Cha dreams
in their transparent totality. . . .
But, of course, I’d totally understand if this now-only-arguably-“liberal” Aquino administration faction opts to continue to be secretive about it. I would
totally, totally understand if it does. Wouldn’t you? [END]
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