EDITORIAL - Cha-cha fast break

If gathering the required number of signatures nationwide for a people’s initiative to amend the Constitution proves so easy, with the threshold allegedly already met even before the month is over and a nationwide plebiscite planned for July, the nation can be sure it will not be the last time that this mode of amending the basic law of the land will be employed.

And the nation can be sure that it can quickly deteriorate into a bad habit, based on the whims of whoever or whichever group is in power. Amendments can be reversed with every change of leadership, and reversed again, with plebiscites not even coinciding with elections. If provisions can be changed with such speed, simply through legislative action, even annual amendments are possible.

Like many rules in this country, and business contracts especially those involving the government, constitutional provisions can quickly lose their integrity if these can be changed at the drop of a hat, or as quickly as the funding for a signature campaign is rolled out. Yet this is what proponents of the ongoing fast break for Charter change are doing.

President Marcos is correct in saying that the 1987 Constitution “was not written for a globalized world.” But the means is just as important as the end in making the Charter attuned to globalization. It cannot be done through deception, or by buying support, as Cha-cha critics say the proponents are doing. An amended Constitution cannot simply be presented to the nation, with the people being told to sign blindly on the dotted line, and to just read what they signed after the fact.

Making the country more competitive in a globalized world also requires so much more than just easing foreign ownership restrictions. Local business groups and foreign chambers alike have long pointed to the problems that make the Philippines unattractive to investments, and these have nothing to do with constitutional restrictions.

Apart from inadequate infrastructure and high power costs, the investors have long cited red tape and ineffectual rules and processes for ease of doing business, the failure to enforce the sanctity of contracts, a weak and compromised regulatory environment and judicial system, and uncoordinated business rules of national agencies and local government units. Simply acquiring right of way even for a critical project can take years.

These problems require resolute action and cannot be cured by instant Cha-cha. A country’s constitution can always use amendments, but the objective is just as important as the method for its attainment.