Sigaw: 6.3 M ‘initiative’ signatures gathered legally

People’s initiative advocate Sigaw ng Bayan maintained yesterday the over six million signatures in their petition for amendments to the Constitution were "painstakingly gathered through legal procedures allowed by law," debunking critics’ claims that the signatures were fake.

Efren de Luna, Sigaw ng Bayan secretary general, said he traveled to remote places of the country to personally explain to ordinary citizens the benefits of amending the Constitution "and was met by barangay folk with open arms who were willing and eager to listen."

"They did not know me from Adam but when I started talking about what a very smooth unicameral parliamentary government can do for the ordinary people, they asked more questions, which I gladly answered," De Luna said in a statement issued to the media.

"The rural people are already tired of too much politics and bickering of political leaders in Congress, which they read and hear every now and then in the media," he added.

Adel Lazaro, whose Akbay Pinoy group was allegedly harassed by Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, a key figure in the political opposition, claimed that "opponents of Charter change went above the law" and actually threatened them.

"We went literally through the eye of a needle in Makati and despite threats to our physical safety, we plodded on. We found that many Makati residents favored Charter change," Lazaro said.

Zeny Gonzales, secretary general of Kilusan ng Mamamayan sa Matatag na Republika, said she ventured to the hinterlands of the Cordilleras and spoke to the indigenous tribes in Kalinga and Apayao.

"They listened to us because they loved hearing the voices of real people, not from politicians who only visited them during elections when their votes were being courted," she said.

Tribespeople were up-to-date with developments even though they seldom travel to the lowlands. "They are very well informed and they signed the petition because they really wanted change to happen in their lives," Gonzales said.

Albert Ong, of the Alliance for Peace and Improvement, said people he met in the Agusan and Surigao provinces "were the faces of Filipinos who wanted to get over poverty and lack of education."

Mike Manota, whose group Kamangagawa represents the labor sector, said he spoke in Occidental Mindoro and Zamboanga del Sur and was asked many questions about how the economy would improve under a parliamentary system.

"After I explained to them the benefits, they said it’s only right that politicking be reduced because nothing is happening in our government," he said.

Sigaw ng Bayan and the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) are asking the Supreme Court to allow them to proceed with their people’s initiative petition now pending with the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

In August, the Comelec refused to act on their petition, citing a 1997 Supreme Court ruling, which declared that the existing law, Republic Act 6735, was insufficient to allow such an exercise.

Sigaw ng Bayan and the ULAP are persuading the court to reverse its 1997 ruling on the argument that ordinary citizens have the right to make amendments to the Constitution. — Jaime Laude