Bad time to cha-cha
The Department of Interior and Local Government was widely criticized when in the midst of the pandemic, the move to change the charter is still high in their menu.Bad timing again. Why ask people to consider charter change when the country is still gripped with fear because of the spreading corona virus? Me and many others can’t understand this latest move. I have the strong belief that there will be no charter change that will succeed even Duterte’s people will muster all their strength in this last two years of him in Malacanang? Time run out already. The first four years were wasted. If at all it was done, it should have been in the first two years of Duterte administration. Not in its last two years.
There’s really a need for a charter change because many of its outdated provisions acutely need amendments. The party system for one. The multiparty is another one. The system is too confusing. Let’s tackle the political system. I grew up knowing two political parties in our country, the Liberal Party and the Nacionalista Party. Our political system
copied the two party system of the United States of America. The counterparts in the USA are the Republican Party aka GOP (Grand Old Party) now headed by President Donald Trump and the Democratic Party led by heavyweights presidential bet Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
There was a time when the voting age in our country was 21 but later on congress lowered it to 18. Curiously, I asked few eighteeners to name at least two political parties now accredited by our Commission on Elections (Comelec). I got blank answers. Those above 21 whom I queried mentioned the Liberal Party and the Nacionalista Party. The Liberal Party (LP) is one of the oldest extant political parties in the country and pride itself with big names like Manuel Roxas, Elpidio Quirino, Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino and Diosdado P. Macapagal. It was founded after the war, sometime in 1945. And the oldest party is the Nacionalista Party (NP) which was founded in 1907. The NP was the ruling party from 1935 to 1944 and was headed by President Manuel L. Quezon till the war broke out. Quezon took the submarine with General Douglas Macarthur for the United States via Australia and left the country and the party under the care of Sergio Osmena Sr.
The NP big guns include former Presidents Ramon Magsaysay of Zambales, Carlos P. Garcia of Bohol, Ferdinand E. Marcos of Ilocos Norte and Claro M. Recto of Batangas. One national figure coming from Pampanga was the late Senator Gil J. Puyat of Guagua who became senate president. The late Rafael L. Lazatin of Angeles City and the late Congressman Igmidio Bondoc were the last known prominent members of the party coming from Pampanga.
The leaderships of this country changed hands from stalwarts of these two parties. No political figure during those years can become president unless they belong either to the NP or LP. I remember I was still in the high school when Raul Manglapus, a brilliant senator run as an independent candidate and assembled prominent names in his senatorial slate and all of them failed to get the approval of the electorates.
When President Ferdinand Marcos proclaimed martial law in 1972, the political system was overhauled and the multiparty system was born.
(Bayanihan to Heal as One Act) means prioritizing poor families only in areas covered by ECQ.
The Department of Trade and Industry vouches that areas under modified ECQ (MECQ) and GCQ will restart the economy, with citizens working and earning again.
For Purita and neighbors who did not receive SAP cash aid and have to wait before holding cash again, there is not much disappointment harbored for a government they did not, in the first place, harbor a lot of expectations for.
The bayanihan among Visayans who trace common roots and share the dilemmas of risk-takers cut off by diasporic work is the social glue that helped them overcome the deprivations and anxieties of two months of containment.
Post-ECQ, Purita wonders if their two older daughters can go back to school in August. Public grade schoolers, the girls need school supplies and allowance for commuting, meals, and projects.
During the two months Dionisio stayed home and earned nothing, the couple was unable to send money home to her brother’s family in Alegria and to Dionisio’s widowed mother in Davao.
Purita hopes they can afford in the next months to budget a little cash for the families back home.
Covid-19— whether on the first, second or third wave, as she often hears reporters and politicians warn— fades into the background of Purita and her neighbors trying to survive after the quarantine.
---Sunnex