You alone — against the world

As far as Speaker Bebot Alvarez’s plans for No Elections in 2019 is concerned, it won’t be “You and Me Against the World” as in the song. It will probably be “You Alone Against the World” or at least most of the Filipino voters who have always opposed any and all attempts at pushing for “NO-EL” especially when those pushing for it have an ulterior motive, which is to extend their term in an Unconstitutional manner.

As far as his public statements go, Speaker Alvarez would want us to believe that the reason he is pushing for NO-EL is because it places the members of Congress “Between a rock and a hard place”; either they concentrate on getting re-elected in 2019 or we postpone the 2019 elections so that members of Congress can concentrate on doing their work when they form themselves into a Constituent Assembly or CON-ASS. Seems fair and simple enough, EXCEPT, they are being shamelessly presumptuous by thinking that they and they alone should study or write a constitution for the proposed Federal system that President Duterte has been pushing for years before. The option and probably the more democratic and consultative option remains to be a Constitutional Convention where we vote a separate set of delegates who hopefully have no political agenda or ulterior motives.

To be blunt, the first mistake of Speaker Alvarez is to think that he has enough muscle or hubris to get his way. He would have been better off orchestrating the whole thing and letting a bunch of other Congressmen with more credibility to do the talking and proposition. By leading the charge, Alvarez simply woke up the natives and now they are making a call to arms or to oppose NO-EL and say NO WAY!

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If what I’ve been hearing is 50% actual fact more than analysis, then I can understand why Speaker Alvarez wants and will benefit from Oplan NO-EL.

First of all with NO-EL he gets to stay on in Congress without the expensive cost of re-election. Assuming all things being equal he might even get to stay on as Speaker of the House unless efforts to replace him with Congresswoman Gloria Arroyo who is a true economist, actually prospers. Its been said that someone in Malacañang is unhappy about how Alvarez has consistently been the disruptor of harmony among members of the Davao block. Instead of simply letting things take their natural course, Alvarez kept poking and stoking his feud with Tonyboy Floirendo. His push for a law that would lead to annulment or a lesser form of Divorce triggered public anger as well as a public rebuke by his wife Emelita Apostol Alvarez who said that they were never separated and that she was dumped right after Duterte’s first SONA.

Then there was the unexpected backfire of events where a comment from Alvarez earned a pubic tongue lashing from Sara Duterte. More recently I’ve been told that another reason why someone in Malacañang is unhappy with the current Speaker of the House is because Congress has come up with very little laws designed to boost the economy and the President’s “Build Build Build” agenda. Alvarez has reportedly gotten some form of assurance that PGMA won’t be replacing Alvarez as Speaker any time soon because that could open up a whole new can of worms politically. But after the 2019 elections, a young woman from Davao is reportedly being groomed for the top spot in Congress.

If the 2019 elections pushes on, rumors have it that the Speaker’s “Ex-wife” is being encouraged to run against Alvarez in his district. Whoever runs against Alvarez in 2019 can almost assuredly count on the whole hearted and wallet full support of Tonyboy Floirendo who has no love lost for his ex-buddy. As Speaker, Alvarez might be able to pull enough strings to put up a war chest against Tonyboy Floirendo but Alvarez has no one equal to Sara Duterte who will surely do more damage to his re-election bid than all the millions of Floirendo. If that is not bad enough, Alvarez has not been a consistent winner as a candidate. He has lost more times than he has won and given the number of powerful and influential enemies he has made within the Davao block, running for re-election in 2019 would be like Russian roulette with a very deadly long term outcome.

Apparently, Speaker Alvarez is not done with stepping on Land Mines. Now he brazenly wants to postpone the 2019 elections and form a Constituent Assembly (CON-ASS). That would be the equivalent of letting Alvarez have his cake and eat it too. As someone put it: “we can’t allow this because this outright conflict of interest. We will let “Trapos” / Congressmen/politicians decide on whether or not the provisions on Anti political Dynasties and Political Turncoatism will be allowed in the proposed constitution.

Objectively speaking, what Alvarez should be doing is to focus on their work, which is legislation, particularly on laws that would help the Duterte Administration achieve its many goals. Keep Congress out of the debate and let the people have their way. One serious proposal is for a year-long public information campaign and debate on the merits of the proposed Constitution. Alvarez should back that because it buys him all the time in the world to concentrate on getting re-elected while keeping public criticism off his back. After one year, we will all have a better understanding of the proposals, surely get a ton more of even better ideas and a clear idea if the Constitution has public acceptance or not. Once the people know what they want, their elected representatives would know exactly what to do. At this juncture it may serve Bebot Alvarez to start being the “Listener of the House” instead of being the Speaker in the house.

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