What kills ‘no-el’: term extension
HOUSE Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, whose mean streak seems to consist largely of sending the nation to a state of shock with shocking proposals, was at it again.
After a long silence, induced apparently by the angry outburst of presidential daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio, Alvarez proposed that the 2019 local and midterm elections next year be postponed until 2022 and, for that, allow incumbent officials whose term expires next June 30 to hold over for three years.
Past attempts
Has he not learned from past no-election (no-el) proposals under past presidents. which never took off or were shot down? He must have known it but he must think they could get away this time under President Duterte. After all, they’ve pulled a number of stunts that before had seemed, and turned out to be, impossible. “Anything is possible,” Alvarez said yesterday (Thursday, July 12).
Maybe they can do it, given a House in the thumb of the administration and a Senate that doesn’t have much of the grit and integrity of its senators of yore.
It’s the people’s outrage and the activism of civil society leaders that would make the difference and wreck the bestlaid plans of patriots or scoundrels.
Would the extension of term -- another three years without the benefit of an election -- be acceptable now? It never was before, those days of Estrada and Arroyo when amendment of the Constitution was made the excuse for staying longer in office.
Package wrapping
Term extension is often the wrapping of the package that contains the charter changes. Alvarez said the lawmakers need extra time to work on cha-cha, which in this latest attempt, involves a massive overhaul.
People always smelled the stink. It must be why Alvarez this time spilled it out; the wrapping is torn and the motive exposed: the public officials would stay for another three years sans people’s mandate. He said, “para walang utang”: debt to whom? The people who’d enjoy or suffer from the extra service? Election date
Two lawmakers look
at the proposal’s legality: Senate President Tito Sotto and Sen. Francis Escudero. Sotto points to the Constitution (Sec. 8, Art. VI) which says that “unless otherwise provided by law,” the regular election of senators and House members shall be on the second Sunday of May. Sotto gleefully points to the “unless” clause, the same qualifier that enables Congress to sit on the constitutional ban on political dynasties.
Ah, but the clause refers only to the date of the elections, which, reasonably, may be on some other day but before the term of the elected public officials expire on June 30. The Constitution, Senator Chiz notes, prescribes a fixed term: for 12 senators, six years (under Sec. 4, Art. VI) and for all House members, three years, (under Sec. 7).
In other words, Congress can play around with the election date as long as the new officials are ready to take over on June 30.
Public revulsion
Other public officials, such as, notably, Vice President Leni Robredo, says the elections are the core, the essence (“pinakabuo”) of democracy.
Yes, that too. But from the public outrage in the past, it was more of public revulsion towards overstaying, holding over, and exercising power – by public officials who should let go once their mandate is spent and exhausted.