Exercise in futility

Earlier this week, a jolly group of senators and congressmen met amid the green fields of the Manila Polo Club, determined to be polite and pleasant to each other, having decided to cease and desist from mutual snapping and calling the other next to useless in terms of value to the Philippine body politic. None of the protagonists was brave enough to note how close both were to the perceived truth.

On the agenda was, yet again, Charter change, specifically its "timing" and "mode." The bone of contention was that, while there was willingness on both sides to cause the Congress to retire to a constituent assembly, the Senate was bent on "voting separately" to achieve the three-fourths vote required to approve proposals to revise or amend the Constitution. The House, on the other hand, wanted the three-fourths vote based on all the members of Congress counted together.

A separate vote of the two Houses would maintain the "bicameral" nature of Congress, according to the Senate contingent. Thus, whether the proposed constitutional amendments would be treated as a species of legislation, as Senator Dick Gordon proposed, or a constituent assembly was convened to propose such amendments, the matter would be resolved in accordance with the processes and rules established in the reigning bicameral system which means, again, voting separately.

The House, in addition to opposing separate voting, remains convinced that the matter could well become fait accompli. Die-hard pro-Cha-cha congressmen really believe the senators will eventually agree to a three-fourths vote of all the legislators, i.e. three-fourth of 230 or so congressmen plus 23 senators. Other congressmen maintain that in a con-ass, the affirmative vote for Cha-cha will be so overwhelming as to persuade the senators to withdraw their insistence on a separate vote.

The senators refused to be bamboozled. Some of them swore they could sense the gamy aromas of horse manure wafting through the room from the nearby stables. They stood their ground, arguing that their stance was merely consistent with Senate Resolution No. 75 which crystallized their stand on separate voting.

And so, the media present said, the attendees "agreed to disagree." In diplomatese, that usually signifies a yawning gap in positions which cannot be bridged. While they broke up still polite and pleasant to each other, there was heard in the room some grumbling about so much time wasted, about exercises in futility, and about girding for war, which they warned was as inevitable as the Second World War when Adolf Hitler began his adventure in the Sudetendland.

The Senate and the House are, in a word, back where they started, on square one. And no matter how polite and pleasant the two houses of Congress resolve to be toward one another, a Constitutional crisis is as certain as, to quote Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the night follows the day. Or is it the day that follows the night?

The crisis will be resolved at the one institution where most perceptive analysts foresaw this whole matter was bound for in the first place: the Supreme Court. There is no use trying to pussyfoot around the issue. It is ridiculous to think, whatever some individual senators say, that the matter of each House voting separately can be papered over. There is no use pretending that an impasse does not exist.

No amount of politeness or pleasantness will break this impasse. If time is of the essence, it is best to send the matter to the Court posthaste, or with "all deliberate speed." Time is a-wasting and too much has already been squandered in wishful thinking and daydreaming.

The JDV Express, which projected a May or June plebiscite has already been derailed. However, the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) and Sigaw ng Bayan have announced that they are asking the Commission on Elections to set the plebiscite by August at the latest.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago famously pronounced that the Senate would be "no more" by June if the "timing" of the GMA administration for Cha-cha were to be followed. Some House leaders have actually been talking about a plebiscite by September. At the present rate of Cha-cha, none of these scenarios will come to pass.

Ever the optimist, House constitutional amendments committee chairman Constantino Jaraula told reporters staked out around the Manila Polo Club that the meeting had seen a "breakthrough." When pressed, he said the breakthrough was that the senators had agreed to a constituent assembly and that some admitted that amendments were called for.

That’s a breakthrough? To start with, there has always been a consensus among the legislators that certain Constitutional amendments are necessary. However, most senators strenuously object to the proposed shift to a unicameral, parliamentary system of government. But that’s hardly a surprise. The Senate cannot be expected to be gung-ho about its own demise. Many of them argue the unicameral parliamentary system is a ploy to perpetuate GMA, and the administration majority, in power.

Moreover, the senators’ concurrence with a constituent assembly is premised on separate voting by each House, as in the formulation of legislation. So, when congressmen complain that it will take an "eternity" to approve Constitutional amendments or revisions through the bicameral system of both Houses voting separately, they are not being paranoid, they are being both sensible and realistic.

If, as the Gospel of Mark…Jimenez, that is…is correct and it really is politics that is destroying this country, then it is also politics that will destroy Cha-cha. Politics is the art of the possible, I know, but if compromise is not possible, as it seems impossible in this case, then it is time for political will to take over.

Political will is not manifested by talking, and talking, and talking. Both the Senate and the House have brought this matter to the brink. It is now time to put up one’s dukes, or shut up and forget all about Cha-cha.

But there are many, not only in ULAP or Sigaw, who are unwilling to forget about Cha-cha. The question for them has always been how best to get it done, in the shortest time possible. Will this effort to get agreement in both the Senate and the House on the "mode, timing, and procedures" provide the answer to that question? I think not.

There is no avoiding the Supreme Court on the thorny issue of separate voting. The sooner the legislators realize that, the sooner our definitive answer will come. Of course, the Senate also sees the value in the so-called step-by-step approach which, to me, simply means that Cha-cha is meant for a slow, excruciating, but no less certain, death.