Cha-cha

On anything that remotely resembles work, Malacañang’s default response appears to be aversion.

A couple of weeks ago, seizing upon President Aquino’s remark that he will not stay in office a day beyond his term, some solons raised the possibility of restarting the process of constitutional reform. This was, after all, the best time to do it. The President enjoys immense political capital and is generally perceived to be disinterested in self-perpetuation. Immediately after an election year, there will be less reason for partisan interests to come into play.

Former Chief Justice Reynato Puno, on being awarded a doctorate in law (honoris causa) by the UP, delivered a lecture that endorsed Charter change. The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines supported the idea of undertaking constitutional reform now.

Advocates of Charter change found reason to hope the great project of reinventing our constitutional edifice might finally be undertaken. The first year of a new administration is always the best time to see this through. The leadership will have about five years to see the process through.

Palace spokesmen, however, were quick to douse cold water on the proposal. Deputy mouthpiece Abigail Valte dismissed the idea of constitutional reform, saying this was not a life-and-death matter for the nation.

As an advocate of constitutional reform, I will say she is dead wrong. The flawed constitutional order we labor under kills many Filipinos because it perpetuates poverty, retards our progress, causes our electoral system to be both corrupt and violent, and closes opportunities each day for the most exasperated among us.

Among the more urgent items that require reform are the inward-looking economic provisions in the 1987 Constitution. Ours is the only Charter that preempts policy-making by “constitutionalizing” the economic rules of the game. In a world that requires nations to be nimble and innovative at all times, that flaw in the 1987 document ties us down to old orthodoxies and condemns us to obsolete development outlooks. That is a deadly mistake. It is harmful to our people.

Every president since Ramos tried to initiate the process of constitutional reform. The Estrada administration convened economic experts to propose changes in the Charter. The Arroyo administration convened a consultative commission to examine the possibilities of constitutional overhaul.

Only this administration sees the prospect as nothing more than needless work. Ironically, this is an administration that courted our people’s electoral support by promising reform. All reform requires hard work.

No comprehensive reform process can be undertaken in the idle interludes between long drives on a gifted Porsche.

As we saw in the last competitiveness report, the Philippines is sinking like a rock in the global surveys. The principal reason for this are inward- and backward-looking economic policies embedded in the basic Charter, beyond the reach of progressive legislation and innovative policy-making by even the most talented technocracy.

 Apart from the outdated economic doctrines implanted in the present Charter, other aspects of the present constitutional order are arguably dysfunctional.

 The present set-up condemns us to a very short three-year electoral cycle. This is not only costly, it also encourages our politics to be hyperventilated. Everything eventually becomes a partisan maneuver.

The short electoral cycle prevents our officials from sustained and longer-term development planning. That, in turn, shortens our planning horizon and encourages only project with impact within the present electoral cycle.

 The short electoral cycle is dictated by the single six-year term given the President of the Republic. That single term was prescribed to prevent a repeat of the Marcos experience. We cannot labor long into the future under an inefficient electoral process designed against previous experience.

Perhaps even the presidential form of government is not the most effective way this country might be governed. It has failed us consistently in the past. It will fail us in the future.

The logic of a bicameral legislature continues to escape me even as I have spent my entire professional life as a political scientist. It duplicates all steps in the legislative process. It installs a Senate elected at large, the majority of whose members were installed by more votes than the President. At the rate we are going, the population of Congress will be as large as a small city.

The design for a “party-list” system completely discombobulates. The constituencies for this system are defined by the party-list people themselves on the basis of some ideological or self-serving configuration.

The powers of review given the judicial branch are intentionally unbounded. That was thought to be a measure to prevent the reemergence of authoritarianism. It has largely functioned to make every executive and legislative decision subject to judicial contest. It hangs a Damocles sword over every contract entered into by government, multiplying the uncertainties and adding to the cost of doing business in the country.

 I can go on and on, detailing what at the very least needs serious review in the present Charter. But the question at hand seems to be this: Can constitutional reform ever proceed without the explicit support of the sitting president?

 This might be a good time to consider the hard work for constitutional reform. But the presidency seems incurably work-averse.

Without the active involvement of the President, there seems little that could be done by concerned Filipinos convinced the Charter needs reform. In which case, we are doomed to live the rest of our lives laboring under the imperfections of this constitutional order.

 The window for progress has just become narrower.