Aberrant cha-cha

Here’s a quote from French writer Stendhal that sums up why doing Charter change, including the one that’s being presently foisted on us again, often ignobly fails: “The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.”

The sheep, in this case, are us and the shepherds are the fat cats in Congress, presently profusely sweating over an aberrant Cha-cha.

And the supposed interests we the sheep are being fooled about is that by amending the Constitution’s restrictive economic provisions it will not only liberate our economy but also promise that we’ll all be wallowing in prosperity.

Promising prosperity, of course, politically sounds enticing.

But as good as political intentions go, we can’t fully trust it. Since in a republic, even in a sad republic like ours, people can only give their favor to constitutional revisions, never their trust.

As such, it is why these days my fellows in the business of responsibly commenting on public affairs are strenuously objecting to the resurgent marketing of Cha-cha through a People’s Initiative, which also suspiciously comes with the application of unaccounted funds.

It’s not because they don’t find cha-cha politically sexy, it’s just that most find it distasteful that our worthy legislators are again scratching their genitals in public.

They have every reason to puke since our lofty legislators usually have two reasons for doing something — a good reason and the real reason.

We need not go further on the good reason since it would get us nothing but banal motherhood platitudes.

Far more interesting is the real reason. And the real reason happens to be: “When the words Charter change are said, the immediate thought of the people is that (the politicians) just want to extend their terms,” as one professor on government recently piped about the recent cha-cha maneuvers.

In other words, the mad rush to do the cha-cha — which supposedly has a July deadline — is clandestine subterfuge, as in legislators hijacking it to stay in power longer than mandated.

Hijacking the serious business of Charter change isn’t some fatuous folderol. In fact, it is almost canonical.

Canonical since in the long curious history of cha-cha attempts — which had been the usual political endeavor of all administrations since Fidel V. Ramos — it always managed to turn on undisguised attempts to lift term limits for elected officials.

Given that cha-cha’s sordid history predicates the present effort, no wonder many end up distrusting smiling lawmakers promising they can improve our lives through only one course of action — cha-cha.

Again, be reminded that if a man is smiling all the time, he’s probably selling something that doesn’t work or that would benefit only him.

Nonetheless, if you still want a more reasoned analysis on why calling for amendments to the Constitution’s supposedly restrictive economic provisions is meant to hoodwink, look no further than recently passed laws that practically opened up the economy to foreigners.

To wit, several new laws and regulations are in place which skirt those restrictive constitutional economic provisions that are being criticized.

Take just one recent law, the Public Service Act. Enacted in 2022, the PSA distinguishes between a public service and a public utility such that a public utility no longer includes telecommunications, shipping, airline, railway, toll road, and transport network vehicle industries.

Because of the PSA, as one news website put it, “these industries are longer subjected to the 40 percent constitutional limit on foreign ownership. Simply put, foreigners can now fully own corporations in those industries.”

Similar 2022 laws, like the Foreign Investments Act and the Retail Liberalization Law, practically do the same thing to entice foreigners to set up businesses in the country.

All of these new laws, therefore, now beg the question: Of what use is the politically divisive cha-cha for opening up our economy when foreigners can now freely come in if they want to?

“Given that Chacha’s sordid history predicates the present effort, no wonder many end up distrusting smiling lawmakers.

“Hijacking the serious business of Charter change isn’t some fatuous folderol.