’72 hours’

I had a long day last Saturday when I had to get up very early in the morning to attend a briefing by Japanese government officials who accompanied the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe in his state visit here over the weekend. I joined a small group of Filipino media in a working breakfast with Hiroshige Seko, official spokesman of the Prime Minister’s delegation at the Japanese restaurant of the Diamond Hotel in Roxas Boulevard. Incidentally, Prime Minister Abe, his wife Akie, and the rest of their official delegation were billeted in this Japanese-owned five star hotel.

It was a very enlightening discussion of the Philippine-Japan relations from the point of view of the Japanese government officials. But since he has to join the Prime Minister in the official welcome rites scheduled that morning at Malacanang Palace, Seko left the briefing after one hour. At the end of the briefing, we were reminded that Speaker Jose de Venecia was also slated to confer the Congressional award to Prime Minister Abe later that day at the Hotel Dusit in Makati City.

But before the awards rites, De Venecia had a caucus with his House coalition allies supporting his Charter change (Cha-cha) campaign and a press conference afterwards at the same hotel. As I was watching the televised event at The STAR office, the press conference of De Venecia broke into mayhem. It was at the point when militant activist leader Renato Constantino stood up and started to berate the Speaker and the other House solons and accused them of "raping" the Constitution.

Constantino ranted against De Venecia in pushing Cha-cha through the House-approved Constituent Assembly (con-ass). This naturally caught by surprise not only the Speaker and the Congressmen but also the media people attending that press conference led by our very own STAR columnist Carmen Pedrosa and Inquirer columnist Victor Agustin.

I can understand the consternation of Ms.Pedrosa. She has actively supported the Cha-cha initiatives of De Venecia but she has been very positive in her campaign to gain adherents and convince others to join her crusade for constitutional reforms. She literally did not take sitting down this affront to the media by Constantino and barked at the latter to conduct his own press conference elsewhere. And like some of his fellow Cha-cha opponents, Constantino would hear none of it and insisted to impose his own views on this issue.

But since he was intruding into this press conference, the hotel security had to push Constantino out of the venue as he continued to scream "bunch of serial rapists" to the face of the solons. Out of nowhere, Agustin threw a glass of water, or two, at Constantino and hell broke loose. Only the proverbial cooler heads prevented the drama from turning into full-scale scuffle. Agustin was his usual unrepentant self while telling others why he did it. That’s the only way he said he thought to quickly douse cold water on a "hot-headed" man like Constantino at that time.

I was not surprised at all when I saw that it was Agustin who threw water at Constantino. It was funny to remember those days when I used to pound the Malacañang Palace beat together with Agustin during the time of former President Corazon Aquino. Agustin had figured in a similar "throwing" incident. It happened during the most bloody coup d’etat staged against Mrs.Aquino in August 1987. We were all at the press working area in the Kalayaan Building inside the Palace while waiting for the airing of the President’s message.

Emotions were running high as local and foreign media waited for the televised message of the President. There was a mad dash by reporters to put our tape recorders in front of the TV to get the best audio. In the heat of the moment, Agustin had an altercation with a fellow Palace reporter Victor Sollorano over their tape recorders. Then suddenly, Agustin grabbed the heavy typewriter on my table and nearly threw it at the much taller Sollorano. It was a good thing the typewriter was so heavy that even if an angry man like Agustin failed to muster enough strength to throw it at Sollorano. The two Victors ended as losers on their petty quarrel because they became the butt of the joke later on among us, their Palace colleagues. Those were the days. And looking back, it makes you laugh to realize you made those silly things in the exuberance of being young during those times.

But nearly two decades later, such kind of spur-of-the-moment acts are not the proper and civil way of settling differences of opinion. Certainly, this is not an issue of freedom of expression. For sure, Constantino and his colleagues would again immediately denounce this incident as another violation or infringement of their rights to speak up and be heard. As I’ve said in my column last Friday, there is enough democratic space for everyone, whether in favor, or against this Cha-cha issue. Nobody has a monopoly of fighting for what is best for our country’s national interest.

Despite the harangues by Constantino, De Venecia kept calm and continued his single-minded quest to provide all avenues to reach a meeting of the minds for those opposed and supportive of Cha-cha. He made this challenge to the Senators and other opponents of Con-ass to live up to their sincerity of pushing for an elective Constitutional Convention (Con-con) as their preferred mode of Cha-cha while the Lower House puts on hold Con-ass at least for the next 72 hours from today.

As De Venecia clarified, the 72 hours is not a deadline but enough time to give the Senators their chance to come up with their counter proposal on elected Con-con. But instead of making categorical stand on this challenge, some Senators pushing for Con-con hemmed and hawed again.

Mutual suspicions and hurling of accusations over motives were again thrown. When will these end? Certainly, the Senators should not waste any minute of these 72 hours to make up their mind. There is now the opportunity to settle this quarrel over Cha-cha without having to risk the welfare of the country to go to the dogs. The continuing silence of President Arroyo on the matter is not helping De Venecia in carrying out this priority agenda of her administration to pursue constitutional reforms.

The moral of the story is to have more intelligent discussions of issues and concerns, rather than seeing people just go around letting off their steam in the crudest manner but still lead us nowhere.

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