A constitutional mandate

Frankly I was taken aback by the headline: Enrile now open to Charter change. The way I understand it, cobbling and debating proposals for constitutional change is part of legislative work and mandated by the Constitution. It is a duty if not the most important duty of lawmaking. Lawmakers do not actually change the Charter, they merely propose and go through the motions that lead to Charter change. It is the people who do when they vote in a plebiscite. What is clear by the ravings and rantings of politicians who are against Charter change is that they do not want the sovereign people to vote for a change.

The headline, therefore, about the Senate President is an insult to the good senator, because it implies that if he is now “open” to Charter change there was a time when he was not. That means that during the time when he was not yet ‘open’, he did not think nor wanted to do his most important duty as a lawmaker. I wonder how many lawmakers see the contradiction?

It is hilarious to even imply that lawmakers could ever be right by being closed to Charter change. If it is mandated by the Constitution, lawmakers must be open to it at all times. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said as much, he will keep an open mind and that is correct. We expect that he will use his leadership to shepherd his colleagues to study the issues, debate them and then put it in a form that the sovereign people can vote upon in a plebiscite. Why should that be wrong? Unless of course, he is intimidated by ambitious senators who see lawmaking as merely a stepping stone to the presidency would not countenance change that would frustrate their personal ambitions.

On another vein, why should proposals, repeat proposals, be limited to economic provisions given that, the debate on Charter change since time immemorial has been on the structure of governance, that we would be better off with parliamentary government than we would under the presidential system that was imposed on us by the Americans as a condition for independence?

The Philippines may need investments but it is not just an investment haven. We are more than that. We are a country. We are a nation. And that means more than just running businesses. We are concerned with good governance and the bigness of life including social justice that cannot flourish in a plutocratic structure.

I hope Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile stays the course and keeps an open mind about Charter change. This is his last hurrah, with an exceptional opportunity to be the statesman that began in EDSA.   Senators Francis Pangilinan, Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero may be youthful but sadly also as ruthlessly motivated by personal ambitions like the elders they disdain. They misunderstand their mandate if they think that to propose is the same as to institute Charter change. Lawmakers do not institute Charter changes. It is the people who do, unless, of course they are anti-republican and anti-democratic by instinct they forget that the heart of Charter change is the act of the sovereign people through a plebiscite. It begins and ends with the people, not the whims of politicians.

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More hilarious is the statement of a come-backing disgraced former President who says “all” Filipinos are against Charter change. He predicts there will be fire and brimstone if it is even suggested that Charter change should be put to a vote. After all, never say die. He wants to run again and is already campaigning after having been convicted for plunder. Where has the man been? Maybe we should diagram it for him so he understands.

Mr. Erap, here let me draw it up for you, if you can’t get it. There is a nationwide debate on Charter change, with some who want it and others who don’t. That is to be expected in a democracy. Charter change is about politics and politics is necessarily a conflict of interests. We have to divide the house. The job of Congress is to make it possible to conduct a plebiscite so that the issue of Charter change can be voted upon once and for all. It has been postponed too long, indeed through generations and administrations by stakeholders of the status quo. Among them are those who support those who want to run the country even if they are unfit and brainless. Erap is a prime example of the anomaly of our presidential system and he does not even see it.

I can visualize an Erap or his like at question hour in a Parliament forced to explain by his lonesome self what his government is all about. He would not have a clue. That is, if he wakes up early enough to walk straight into Parliament in time after a night with his drinking buddies. Have Filipinos forgotten those dreadful years when we were led by a fool? That is one of the many reasons why a parliament is superior to a presidency. It prevents dolts from becoming heads of government.

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It may be precipitous to assume that if the World Bank says something in a report, it must be true. I wonder. Senator Barbers has been dead for three years now. He may or may not have been part of the scam but how is he to defend himself now? So the more intriguing question is why the World Bank should make its revelations only now? Is it another plot to overthrow our government?

We should not put too much faith in World Bank reports whose credibility as an institution is itself under question. Those who know better must be laughing — a World Bank report on corruption and collusion between governments and contractors? What about the corruption within the World Bank bureaucracy that has been under fire for the very things they accuse country borrowers of.

How many know that the World Bank harbors its own untouchables. It is bruited about that the real reason for firing former Bush administration official Paul Wolfowitz as World Bank president was an anti-corruption campaign he championed that met a flood of opposition from entrenched bureaucrats. “The stuff about his girlfriend was all contrived,” former World Bank official Steve Berkman who wrote an entire book on the workings within. “It was a mini-scandal people at the Bank used to nail him.”

These bank bureaucrats are “gods of lending” and believe “they can do no wrong,” Berkman writes. If World Bank insiders cannot trust their own bureaucracy, why should we believe their reports?