‘I still believe that the 1987 Constitution needs a serious review, written as it was in a very strong anti-Marcos environment rather than under more objective and dispassionate conditions.’
STILL on the subject matter of Charter Change, which we fondly call “Cha-Cha”: there are indeed “selfish reasons” that motivate many a proponent, one being the matter of term extensions. As the politically conversant well know, the 1987 Constitution imposed term limits on public office, something that then US Speaker Newt Gingrich also proposed as part of his ten-point Contract with America during the 104th US Congress (1995-1997).
Of the ten proposals that Gingrich put to a vote – including one on welfare reform and another on a balanced budget – all but one passed the House of Representatives.
The only proposal that failed? Term limits for Congressmen.
It is not surprising that many legislators who today labor under the term limits imposed by our 1987 Constitution itch at every opportunity to have that scrapped. This, despite the fact that I’m very Filipino fashion, our political class has found ways and means to honor the limit by effectively going around it when they have their spouses or children or other kin run in their stead for at least one three-year term before themselves running to regain the office they had to vacate.
Oh – and while the 1997 Charter did speak up against political dynasties, no enabling law was ever passed by Congress, which should not be a surprise, making that Constitutional command a dead one.
At the same time, however, the opponents of Charter Change also have a vested interest in objecting to the idea. The Senators, for example, wouldn’t want to lose their unique perch of being a smaller but at times more powerful half of our two Houses of Congress. As I wrote last week, maybe it’s time to explore the idea of a regionally elected Senate, to better guarantee representation from each of the main geographic regions (Mindanao, Visayas, NCR/Metro Manila and Balance Luzon) in the upper chamber.
Other vested interests (read: business) also are jealous of their protections under the Charter, and there are nationalists who, rightly or wrongly, are horrified at the idea of, say, allowing foreigners to own land in the Philippines when, they argue, Filipinos themselves have a hard time owning land under their names simply because they couldn’t afford it.
To this last point, I distinctly remember a conversation I had with Enrique Zobel, who told me that in some other jurisdictions he as a foreigner is allowed to own land, an idea he thought was very practical for two related reasons: first, he could never ever take the land home to the Philippines since it was real estate and not a movable object, and second, an owner of real estate would usually wish to develop it – and the development process (say, into a housing estate or a commercial property) would be additional investments in the same jurisdiction resulting in employment and income that could then be taxed.
It wasn’t a politically popular point of view but I think he had a point or two there.
So for me, this whole issue of Cha Cha is all about whose vested interest we will side with.
I still believe that the 1987 Constitution needs a serious review, written as it was in a very strong anti-Marcos environment rather than under more objective and dispassionate conditions. Whether that review will result in tweaks here or there or a major overhaul, who is to say – but to be opposed to the idea just because we suspect the intent of this or that proponent is just as equally an injustice to Democracy and Constitutionalism as it is to argue that the 1987 Constitution should be seen as writ in stone, never to be touched. Ever.
