September 5, 2006

Is Charter Change Finally Coming True?

By P.B. Masdal |

Posted In : Philippine Politics

It seems to me like the wait has already gone for far too long and now, it might be finally over. Or so I thought.

The initiative to amend the constitution—-or revise it altogether—-has received a major push now that the House committee on constitutional amendments has already approved a list of amendments that may be tackled upon by a constitutional assembly—-if ever there’d be one. Of course, the ruling party is all but confident that it can railroad the plan to convene a constitutional assembly since the requirement of the law may be tenable at this point, they (the ruling party) having the right numbers at this point in time.

The present constitution allows the Congress to make any proposition for amendments or revisions thru a vote of three-fourths of all its members. Section 1 of Article XVII states:

Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by:

(1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or

(2) A constitutional convention.

There is a catch to this however. The above provision of the constitution is not very clear as to the three-fourths vote requirements, whether such would mean all the members of the Lower House and the Senate voting as one or whether such three-fourths votes be culled while the two houses of Congress are voting separately. If it’d be interpreted that the casting of votes may be held separately, then the constitutional assembly may not materialize just as yet since it has been long known publicly that most of the Senators wouldn’t agree to any amendment proposition that may cause the elimination of their existence, like when the set of changes includes the shift to a parliamentary form of government. It’s like them putting a hole in their own heads, some say. Or hitting themselves with a hammer in the head.

The second view holds that the whole of Congress, meaning all the members of the Lower House and of the Senate would be convened together as one body for one rare moment, and cast their votes together, without any division or separation.

There is even this unusual interpretation that says the three-fourths vote requirements only refers to the votes of the members of the Lower House, with Senate members not having to do anything about it at all. Now this is what I mean by a highly tenuous proposition; it is just not tenable and is completely unheard of.

In my view, the three-fourths vote requirement mentioned in the constitution refers to the whole of Congress voting as one; where all congressmen and senators would become one collective body for one exceptional moment and cast their votes together. The three-fourths vote requirements should be counted from the result of all the votes cast and not separately. It is clear that section 1 of Article XVII of this present constitution states and uses terminologies such as “The Congress” and supplemented by such phrase as “of all its Members”, where the present constitution itself defines the word “Congress” in this manner “the Congress of the Philippines which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives” (Section 1, Article VI of The Constitution of The Philippines) in the portion defining the legislative department. It is apparent to me that whenever the word “Congress” is used, without any further description or qualification, it should be interpreted as to mean the whole of the Congress of The Philippines, including all members of the Lower House and of the Senate.

So in this manner, the constitutional assembly may push through.

Do you think we should go on with the charter changes as contemplated by the house committee on constitutional amendments? I have not really seen the list of amendments or revisions being proposed thereat but I think it would include the initiative to change our system of governance towards a parliamentary form of government. If you ask me about my sentiments about the charter change propositions, I would say that I have not really studied this matter quite thoroughly, the upsides or downsides of it, its advantages and disadvantages, the good things and bad things about it. There is just really no knowing how to have a thoroughly educated view on this; there are just so many things to consider—-and it takes time to finally decide on it. But for this time, I feel that I am more inclined to support a transition towards the parliamentary form of government. It’s not a very educated opinion but merely one that is heavy on hunch. Maybe I have just grown so sick and tired of coup de etats or threats of them, of gossips about them coming and going, about unauthorized troop movements suddenly spotted in the dead of the night, about some civil groups holding secret meetings in order to plan the ouster of the present government, often thru violent means and often having an arm attack as an element of such plan. Maybe in a parliamentary form of government, we don’t need no more EDSA I or EDSA II in order to dispatch an erring president. I don’t want to wake up one day, about decades from now, and realizing that there was just another people’s movement that had toppled a gambling president and it was called EDSA XX or EDSA Beinte.

Just like I don’t want to wake up one day about decades from now and I’d still be seeing Superman movies like Superman 15. Or Godfather 20. Or Rocky 17. How about Spiderman 23?

23 Comments »

1. myepinoy says; September 5, 2006 @ 4:22 pm

   This Cha Cha and political activities, if you may call them, by our lawmakers are waste of time of money. While there are pressing matters that these officials should address for the survival of our nation, they are just playing around with our time, money and resources.

   Kailan kaya matuto ang karamihan sa ating Pinoy na magdemmand ng para sa kanya at pagsisipain ang lahat ng mga walang kwentang pulitiko na di makakatugon sa demmand ng trabaho nya.

   Just like you, I do not want to wake up decades from now watching the never ending show.

2. snglguy says; September 5, 2006 @ 8:17 pm

   Geez, are these guys trying to rush things before next year’s election?

3. JV says; September 5, 2006 @ 10:41 pm

   I thought that the signatures for the cha-cha petition is fake and have been fabricated to get the vote of the masses and say one big YES to cha-cha?

   Another question is: are the Filipinos ready for the change that would take place?

4. ipanema says; September 5, 2006 @ 11:53 pm

   Very cunning indeed, ah getting ready for election huh. What else is new with these politicians?

5. Major Tom says; September 6, 2006 @ 7:30 am

   To Myepinoy: Yeah, they should have been doing a lot more dutiful and important things. But if they need to do this and end the talk and mumblings about charter change, maybe this will be the only chance.

   To sngl: I suspect that it must have been that way sngl; baka planon na nilang isama and plebiscite for the proposed changes next year.

   To JV: The signature campaign was deemed to be inappropriate by COMELEC already so charter change through people’s initiative is not viable anymore. This time, the ruling party is trying another strategy, by way of constitutional assembly where all members of Congress—-congressmen and senators—-would convene themselves into one collegial body and decide on what changes to proposed and be presented to the people for affirmation in a plebiscite.

   I really don’t know if we are already ready for radical changes in our system of governance. As I said I have not yet really given so much thought about this and haven’t weigh things well. But maybe its wortgh a try. The problem with this present system is that we all have to wait six long years for a leader to be changed; even if such leader is so caught redhanded stealing from our coffers and malingering so heavily. It’s like we become trapped for half a decade. In a parliamentary form of government, we won’t be force to wait that long before we can change an erring leader…

   To ipanema: They may be already posing for publicity by this time ipanema…Such is the reality in our political world; whenever there’s a burning issue, these pols are one-upping each other and paunahan sa mga TV interviews…The publicity mileage is just so huge…

6. Sidney says; September 6, 2006 @ 7:46 pm

   I don’t think you need to fear change. It can’t get much worser than it already is.

7. JV says; September 6, 2006 @ 9:44 pm

   In case that we shifted from a presidential to a parliamentary form of government, wouldn’t the cabinet members keep on voting a leader, thereby leaving us with seasonal leaders, and dissolving each other?

8. Major Tom says; September 6, 2006 @ 11:52 pm

   To Sidney: That’s quite true sidney; it seems to me that the way our political sphere have turned out to be, we have nothing else to go but up.

   To JV: In a parliamentary form of government, the prime minister would be elected by the members of the parliament and not by cabinet members; the so-called cabinet members would be mostly do staff work for president to be designated by the prime minister. This is I think the French model. Actually it can be modified according to the framers.

   There should be inhibiting provisions against the circumstances that you fear JV, like the new constitution would not allow the dissolution of a government within the first six months of its election, or maybe in one yaer period; it should depend really on the framers of the new constitution…

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