Wanted: Reforms in the Philippine Senate

Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III is in China for his first State visit and in tow are more than a hundred Filipino businessmen, eager to bag a deal with Chinese businessmen who may want to invest in the Philippines. Now whether Pres. PNoy can bring home the proverbial bacon largely depends upon whether or not the President or his staff would stumble into another faux pas or a repeat of the Vietnam brouhaha last November 2010.

Just to remind you, it was Pres. PNoy’s first ASEAN Summit when Presidential speech writer Carmen “Mai” Mislang posted in her Twitter about the quality of the wine that the Vietnamese served (the wine sucks!) and that there were no handsome Vietnamese men. As this was not enough, she twitted “Crossing the speedy motorcycle laden streets of Hanoi is one of the easiest ways to die.” She made all these public statements while the Presidential entourage were still in Hanoi. Worse of all, this faux pas was defended by her boss Ricky Carandang. As Carandang is still there, there is no telling how this state visit would go.

While we cannot yet make any report about Pres. PNoy’s China State visit, there was some good news that The Philippine Star Business Section reported last Aug.24th entitled, “Japan firms eyes Phl as alternative site.” This was admitted by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) especially after the March 11th earthquake that the whole world witnessed on TV that showed so much devastation, not just by the earthquake, but also the problems of the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor.

That the Philippines is a possible alternative site for Japanese manufacturers is something that many Japanese investors can vouch, especially when it comes to Filipino workers. Here in Balamban, Cebu, the Tsuneishi Heavy Industries has put Cebu on the map as one of the top 5 shipyards in the world. The Tamiya, Inc. that Japanese manufacturer of model airplanes, tanks and ships have been operating in MEPZ II for more than 10 years now. These are just two remarkable examples of Japanese investments in Cebu and there are many more in the CALABARZON Area.

If the Aquino administration also sent a delegation of businessmen to Japan, perhaps they could even bring more investments into our shores, after all, shifting some of its manufacturing business from the Japanese mainland to the Philippines frees them from the almost daily earthquake problems that they are now experiencing. The Japanese government is planning to phase out its nuclear plants, which means, they would be constructing more clean coal-fired power plants simply because that’s the only cheap alternative to the cheaper nuclear powered plants.

At this point, I suggest that the Aquino administration should come up with new initiatives to grant Japanese investors special status for at least 10 years, which no doubt would entice many Japanese businessmen to consider the Philippines as an investment haven, while at the same time giving jobs to our jobless people. Let’s hope that the Aquino administration makes this a priority after the China visit, more so that Japan just elected its 6th Prime Minster Yoshihiko Noda just a day ago.

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Finally, two Senators namely, Sen. Joker Arroyo and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago openly admitted what most of us journalists already knew… that “Senate hearings do not contribute to legislation anymore.” Indeed I don’t recall of any law that was enacted or a law that was revised that was directly related to the numerous and very celebrated Senate investigations that made the news headlines of our national and local newspapers. So the question is, will both Sen. Arroyo and Sen. Santiago spearhead a move to stop these useless, time-consuming Senate hearings, which they call “valueless?” Perhaps its only value is to re-elect our Senators.

The statement of these two Senators only tell us that there is indeed a dire need for a genuine political reform, which is best done through a Constitutional Convention (ConCon). Charter change would solve this problem because we can create a constitutionally-mandated investigative body, which could include members from both houses in Congress, the Executive Branch through the Department of Justice (DoJ) and a representative from the Judiciary and civil society.

This body will be tasked to investigate any scandals that Congress or Malacañang may want to investigate. But for every investigation they do, they must wrap it up and come up with legislative suggestions to improve an existing law or come up with suggestions for a new law to be enacted. This, the Senate investigations would no longer be used for the so-called “in aid of elections,” which we have known too well has only elected a few noisy morons in the hallowed halls of the Philippine Senate. But the question is, will the Senate open the floodgates to allow charter changes to start? Abangan!

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