Dancing the Cha-cha

In the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic that has killed 610,000 people as of yesterday afternoon and plunged the world economy into its worst recession in decades, what are certain local government executives thinking of?

Why, Charter change, of course. Maybe this is their idea of “dancing” with COVID: Cha-cha time!

Now you can see why coronavirus disease 2019 cases keep rising exponentially, with “clustering” detected in 600 areas as of Monday. Local officials are in charge of seeing to it that their constituents comply with measures to contain COVID transmission. The officials must not be distracted by the politicking that is required to get public support for Cha-cha – always an unpopular initiative, as consistently shown by surveys over the years.

It’s unpopular, not because it’s a perfect Constitution that no one should tamper with, but because people distrust the agenda of the proponents.

The situation is no different today, as many local government units are looking overwhelmed by COVID. In some areas, the contagion is just starting as travel restrictions are eased and more people are allowed to return to their hometowns from Metro Manila. LGUs should be focusing on the intractable health and economic problems posed by a still rampaging pandemic; we’re nowhere close to flattening the COVID curve.

Instead municipal mayors and other officials are busying themselves with “dancing” – not with COVID, as suggested by San Francisco author Tomas Pueyo, but the Cha-cha. What are they thinking?

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The League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP), composed of 1,488 town mayors led by Luis “Chavit” Singson of Narvacan, Ilocos Sur, wants a bigger LGU share in national government revenue. The group argues that it will improve local response to pandemics.

The administration’s economic team has warned that the move will wreak havoc on the national government’s fiscal position and funding of priority projects and programs.

Easing foreign ownership restrictions in certain economic sectors is also being pushed by the LMP. Senators have pointed out, however, that Cha-cha is not needed for this because Congress is already deliberating on various measures to liberalize foreign ownership.

As for what critics believe is a hidden agenda, the LMP has said the lifting of term limits is not a priority in its Cha-cha proposal.

In a TV interview yesterday, on the other hand, Singson said it would be more practical to give local executives a five-year term with no limit to reelection. The term limits, he argued, were circumvented and led to dynasty-building, as officials were simply replaced by spouses, children and other relatives after their terms ended.

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Members of political dynasties argue that they can always be voted out of office if they fail to provide satisfactory service to their constituents.

Prolonged control over a particular area by one clan, however, tends to give it undue advantage that shuts out rivals during elections. Through a combination of patronage and intimidation, such a clan tends to develop the kind of influence over every pillar of the criminal justice system that undermines elections and the judicial process. An extreme example was the Ampatuan clan and the 2009 massacre of 58 people in Maguindanao.

The Constitution left it to the discretion of politicians to pass an enabling law banning dynasties. Thirty-three years later, we’re still waiting for the law.

The consultative committee created by President Duterte to draft a federal constitution included a provision to limit dynasty-building, possibly as a sweetener to sell Cha-cha and federalism. But the House of Representatives in the previous Congress simply tossed the ConCom’s draft Charter into the wastebasket (literally, it seems) and drew up its own version, with no mention of any ban on dynasties.

Those were two efforts in the past four years alone, under a pro-federalism and pro-Cha-cha president, to amend the Constitution. Now here comes another one, in the last two years of Duterte.

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Framers of the Constitution designed it to prevent capricious amendments. It’s been both a blessing and a curse for our country.

While foiling attempts of venal, navel-gazing politicians to stay in power forever or reimpose authoritarian rule, the tortuous process of changing even a single provision in the Charter has also stifled national competitiveness in the globalized economy.

The Charter was passed before CNN and the internet became pervasive in our country, long before social media, Apple computers and the iPhone changed our lives forever. Today we have Netflix, Zoom and livestreaming, Amazon and a slew of ecommerce websites. Our infrastructure and regulatory environment have failed to keep up with new, globalized ways of doing business – and those ways keep evolving even as I write this.

It would be easier to keep up if we could amend certain provisions in the Constitution.

But because of the tedious process and enormous sums involved in amending the Constitution, the most feasible time for initiating Cha-cha is at the start of the six-year term of a president who is sympathetic to the effort.

Rodrigo Duterte was seen as this person. Because of his advocacy for federalism, which would require a constitutional overhaul and not just a mere amendment, proponents believed that his administration would provide the best chance for Cha-cha. Where his chief endorser, Fidel Ramos, failed, Duterte was expected to succeed.

There was hope that with Duterte just halfway through his term, there was ample time for the ConCom to pitch its draft charter to the political leadership and the people.

Duterte, however, did not even mention federalism and Cha-cha in his last State of the Nation Address. There was speculation that he had given up on the effort following the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and after his economic managers pointed out the enormous sums required for the proposed shift to federalism.

Whether a simple amendment or a total rewrite, Cha-cha needs a significant amount of funds. At this point, the government doesn’t have enough funds even for the COVID social amelioration program and for the proposed economic stimulus package.

It would be better for mayors to focus instead on dancing with COVID.