EDITORIAL - Unnecessary distraction

Malacañang officials have said Charter change is no longer a priority of President Duterte. Politicians are of course free to discuss their ideas about amending the Constitution, even if the President did not even mention the issue in his State of the Nation Address last year.

The only problem is the timing. The country is battling a still raging pandemic, with coronavirus disease 2019 infections and deaths still rising. As of yesterday afternoon, 1,505 new COVID cases in the country brought the total to 74,390, with 1,871 deaths and 24,383 recoveries.

Analysts from the University of the Philippines, whose COVID-19 projections have so far proven to be frighteningly accurate, have warned that infections could hit a high of 80,000 by the end of August. The COVID-19 response calls for all hands on deck, with no distractions, especially self-serving political initiatives.

Making the simplest amendment to the Constitution is a tortuous, politically contentious and divisive process that requires people’s approval in a national referendum. The result could be elevated to the Supreme Court. There is no way this latest Charter change initiative can be fast-tracked in the last two years of the Duterte administration.

Simply finding funds for the Cha-cha initiative, which is backed by the Department of the Interior and Local Government, raises questions about the priorities of the administration. The government cannot even find enough funds to provide assistance under the social amelioration program to those hardest hit by the economic dislocation from the pandemic. There are debates on whether the government can even afford a stimulus package for private enterprises to prevent a deeper economic contraction.

Local government units are in the forefront of efforts to prevent the further spread of COVID. And yet municipal mayors, backed by the DILG, are being distracted by the latest Cha-cha effort. While the mayors maintain that they simply want to institutionalize a greater share in national revenues and ease foreign ownership restrictions, their group’s president has disclosed a preference for a longer five-year term for themselves, with no limits to reelection.

The best time to initiate Cha-cha is at the start of a new administration, when there is enough time to draft the proposals and present these to the public so people can make an informed choice during the referendum on the changes.

Two proposed draft Charters, one for shifting to federalism, have been passed under the Duterte administration. Both ended nowhere. The latest effort is an unnecessary distraction that raises questions about the capability of the government to contain a killer pandemic.