Racing against the clock

If we miss the boat this time, there’ll be no hope for Constitutional change for the next ten years!” said Speaker Jose de Venecia at the Manila Overseas Press Club dinner-forum one Friday night in 2006.

I remember my father, the late Max Soliven writing about JDV’s passionate pursuit of “Cha-Cha, how he exerted tremendous effort and used his every ounce of charm, persuasion, and hard bargaining to achieve his aim. Getting both Houses to reconstitute themselves into a Constituent Assembly for Charter Change did not happen. The Senate did not want to play and a total of the votes cast by Congress (not the Senate and House voting separately) had to be tested in the Supreme Court.”

De Venecia said that if we did not push through with Charter Change at that time, there won’t be any prospect of amending the Constitution or adopting a new Charter which converts our system from Presidential to Parliamentary for many years to come. His argument was said to have been based on the fact that then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was the only President to have expressed willingness to have her powers diminished during her term by accepting the creation of the post of Prime Minister – a Prime Minister who would effectively be the “chief operating officer” of the government.

De Venecia concluded that the next President who is going to be elected in 2010 will surely not welcome any Charter which would diminish her or his powers. True enough, ConAss nor Cha Cha did not happen during P-Noy’s term.

Eleven years after, we are back to square one – a feeling of de ja vu. The only difference is that we now have a President who will move mountains to effect charter change. And now, after so much had been said about the pros and cons of the different modes of doing this, it now appears inevitable that the super majority in Congress will vote to constitute itself as a Constituent Assembly (CON-ASS) to propose amendments or revisions to the Constitution and hasten the shift to a Federal system of government, WITH DISPATCH. But it seems the two chambers are not in agreement as to the manner of doing this. A senator wants the Senate to be constituted as a Constituent Assembly independent of the House, and the latter seems to likewise constitute the whole Congress as a Constituent Assembly as if the Senate is not an independent body. The concern is focused on the issue of whether the lower and upper houses should vote separately or jointly. Understandably, if the required vote of “three-fourths of ALL its members” to propose amendments or revisions should be taken jointly, the voice of the 24-member Senate may be drowned and rendered almost insignificant by the sheer number of congressmen, about 297 district and sectoral representatives. This means a constitutional amendment may be proposed even if all the senators would vote against it.

One view suggests that voting must be done separately in line with the bicameral structure of congress. A contrary view posits that it must be done jointly because the constituent assembly will not be performing legislative functions but constituent powers, thus the theory of bicameralism becomes irrelevant. Should the members of both chambers fail to agree on a common stand and the House decides to bulldoze its way to CON-ASS, while the Senate will insist on its own version of an UPPER CONASS, the Supreme Court may need to rule on the proper interpretation of the constitutional provision.

In a past column in 2016, I ventured the view that a CON-ASS is better than a CON-CON in terms of expediency, cost and time consideration. With the requirement of a national election for members of a Constitutional Convention (CON-CON), the period it will take for the Supreme Court to decide the CON-ASS voting controversy may pose a shorter delay to the presidential advocacy, but what happens if the Supreme Court will not decide the case promptly? The writing is on the wall. The President, who still enjoys the support of the people and the military, might do it his way, as he mentioned during the campaign – a fourth but extra-constitutional way of charter change – a Revolution by the people for the people. In this scenario, the whole Congress would be rendered irrelevant, and the President may come up with his own version of an interim Constitution like what President Cory did in 1986, preparatory to the organization of a Constitutional body to draft a Federal Constitution. Will this be bad or better? Houses of Congress, better agree, or else!

But to my mind, the more important consideration is our preparedness for a drastic change in our form of government. Considering how we are already fragmented as a nation of several tribes, will not federalism further separate the Tagalogs from the Ilocanos or the Cebuanos from the Bicolanos? Will the federal form not worsen our problems on political dynasties and criminal syndicates as the President may no longer have the power to fire abusive local politicians and neutralize criminal elements in a federal set-up? Or would this be a blessing in disguise in the event the next occupant of Malacanang would not even approximate half of the current President’s political savvy and leadership?

Would the proposed 7 or 9 federal states manage to finance their operations from their own resources? Would it be better to have three federal states of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao? Is the perennial peace and order problem in some parts of Mindanao enough reason to also grant some sort of self-rule to the rest of the country? Is the autonomy granted by the Constitution not sufficient? If only a number of provinces embraced autonomy in Mindanao, how is federalism different? Are we racing against the clock all over again? Or is it finally going to happen this time? These and many more questions need to be answered in the months to come.

At the end of the day, it will be the people who will decide in a plebiscite what is best for Filipinos. We must remain vigilant in discussing the proposed changes and this may be better guaranteed if the process is done within the framework of the Constitution, instead of a revolutionary shortcut.

Yet, whatever form of government we will adopt, nothing is bound to change if we remain the Filipinos we are now… a people with the least respect for the law. Instead of a revolutionary government, I reiterate the need for a revolution from within ourselves. Let us start by patiently falling in line, observing simple traffic rules, properly disposing our garbage, being honest, and going back to the good manners and right conduct of the past. As was said before,

“Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan.” Federalism or no federalism, more than half of our problems as a nation could be things of the past if we only learn how to discipline ourselves and our children.