Hard sell

Political dynasties will be curbed and there will be a two-party system under which party switching will be banned.

Ordinary Filipinos have been hoping to see those changes institutionalized in politics. Only those whose personal and family fortunes will be affected will oppose these provisions that the consultative commission or Concom has proposed for inclusion in a revised Constitution.

Now if only those enticing proposals could allay public concerns about the other planned amendments that our self-serving politicians could not help including in the latest effort to rewrite the 31-year-old Charter.

Despite the attractiveness of the latest proposed amendments approved by the Concom, Filipinos have not forgotten that the main issue being pushed by the current bunch of Charter change proponents is federalism. And people suspect that this shift will only further entrench the tribal, feudal nature of Philippine politics.

How much change can there be if we shift to another form of government, but with the same characters in place? The incumbents will only enjoy term extensions and possibly the lifting of term limits, and the same political clans and warlords will enjoy greater control over public funds, with less accountability to the central government.

There are many cautionary tales about devolution of power and the perils of federalism in our country. As it is, we already have enough independent republics, with the ruling clans or tribes controlling everything in their fiefdoms, from business and politics to the pillars of the criminal justice system. A number of these clans control organized crimes such as jueteng, gunrunning, smuggling and drug trafficking. They use dirty money to finance their election campaigns and to pay hired guns to kill political rivals, critical journalists and witnesses.

President Duterte was a mayor for a long time so he has surely heard of the illegal activities of certain local executives. His narco list includes a number of local government officials apart from barangay personnel.

In the turfs of these political kingpins, impunity reigns. Such warlords believe they can get away with murdering 58 people including 32 journalists and then smashing the victims in their cars with a backhoe so they can be buried quickly in a shallow, makeshift mass grave.

The current mess in Boracay is a failure of local governance. Some quarters are saying that there was in fact a master plan for the sustainable development of Boracay, prepared by the Department of Tourism when Fidel Ramos was president. This was long before the big players invaded the island and before boxing idol Manny Pacquiao lobbied with his political patron to allow the construction of a hotel on a mountain slope.

The disastrous state of other popular tourist destinations such as Baguio can also be blamed on bad local governance. So why should politicians be rewarded with a federal system?

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The latest survey conducted by Pulse Asia showed how unimpressed people are about federalism and the latest Charter change initiative. Filipinos have been consistent in rejecting Cha-cha as soon as a self-serving agenda is seen as the principal reason for the effort.

Federalism has worked for countries such as Switzerland, a melting pot of major European cultures. But we aren’t the Swiss, with their adherence to the rule of law and celebrated efficiency.

The latest Cha-cha effort, which entails not only amendments but a thorough revision of the Charter, is being fast-tracked like the previous attempts, with many of the usual suspects cheering on. The haste is aggravating public distaste for Cha-cha.

It’s unfortunate that the latest Cha-cha effort looks doomed in any plebiscite. The basic law of the land must be dynamic and revisited regularly.

Economic provisions in particular need amending, to make the country more competitive and create those jobs that might entice our millions of overseas Filipino workers to come home.

There was a proposal to limit amendments to a handful of restrictive economic provisions and let the reform process go through something similar to legislation. But this was shot down. This proposal does not stand a chance in the current Congress, whose members are salivating over the personal gains they hope to enjoy from political reforms in the current Cha-cha effort.

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Noynoy Aquino during his presidency was correct in refusing to support Cha-cha that would ostensibly focus only on economic amendments. Having served as both senator and congressman, he said politicians could not be trusted to stick only to economic matters if given the opportunity to change the Constitution.

The only time Aquino expressed some openness to Cha-cha was when he was bickering with the Supreme Court and he wanted to curb the “judicial overreach” enshrined in his mother’s “Freedom Constitution.”

Most members of the super majority in the current Congress, however, don’t seem concerned about judicial overreach, or even of allowing the Supreme Court to usurp the legislative power of impeachment.

Their principal concern at this point is to consolidate their hold on power and public funds in their bailiwicks, through the shift to federalism.

Fortunately for our democratic republic, flawed though it may be, the people will still have the final say, through a requisite referendum on any constitutional changes. As of the first quarter of the year, 64 percent of Filipinos were against both Cha-cha and federalism while only 23 percent favored it, with the rest undecided, according to the Pulse Asia survey.

And the more you listen to the principal proponents in Congress with their federalism hard sell, the less you will like Cha-cha.