The US presidential race: Who will win?

Finally, it's down the proverbial wire for the US Presidential elections and I watched the final debate between Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and the mercurial Republican nominee, Donald Trump, held in Las Vegas. The heated debate started with the most important issue of all, abortion rights. Hillary wants to keep Roe vs. Wade, while Trump wanted to reverse this Supreme Court ruling.

Hillary bewailed the interference of Russia in the US Presidential race because she believes that Vladimir Putin exposed her emails through Wikileaks, yet when it came to the Syrian conflict, it is crystal clear that the reason why there is a civil war in Syria in the first place is the reality that the American policy in Syria supported regime change. They wanted to remove Assad by hook or by crook. This is America for you. Their political interference in a foreign country resulted in the disaster of millions of migrants who fled the conflict in the Middle East and migrated to Europe in what has become one of the greatest refugee movements ever.

Now it has come into this, who will win the US Presidential elections? The choice is up to the American voter. The add on favorite is Hillary Clinton, but I dare say that any US President who cannot guarantee that children inside the wombs of their mothers cannot be given any constitutional rights should not be allowed to sit as president of the United States. My friends always argue that abortion is legal in the United States of America. But that's due to a liberal Supreme Court. But it still doesn't make it moral.

This is why the last debate started in the right foot for they went into the jugular with Donald Trump saying to America that he is Pro-Life, while Hillary Clinton repeatedly pointed out the children inside the wombs of their mothers had no constitutional rights. During the debate they talked about the 2nd amendment that guaranteed "The Right to Bear Arms" yet Clinton vowed to regulate firearms in America as if firearms kill people. No matter how many firearms a person owns, he only has two hands to use any of them. Again, this issue has come down to the wire.

Funny for Clinton to talk about regulating firearms because it is being used to kill people, but she hides under that Supreme Court ruling that virtually condemns a fetus, even in its last day of the ninth month, to death because the Supreme Court has deemed that aborting a fetus in America is legal. Well, slavery during the time of Pres. Abraham Lincoln was legal, but it was still immoral, which is why America had its own bloody civil war.

If at all, I was terribly disappointed that the issue of corruption in the US media was not discussed at all. We in the Philippine media used to idolize our American counterparts especially when two famous journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward exposed the break in of the Democratic National Convention headquarters and ended with the resignation of then US President Richard Nixon.

Today, the secret emails of Hillary Clinton have become coffee house fodder and the mainstream media looks the other way. Clinton in my book has committed a more serious crime than the cover-up of Pres. Richard Nixon. How times have truly changed in America. In my book, this should have been a major issue of national interest when the US media networks go on a conspiracy to put their own candidate to the White House. So the future of America is on the hands of the American voter. While we are far away from the US, their elections would certainly be of importance to us Filipinos.

* * * Did you know that the House of Representatives' committee on constitutional amendments approved through a vote of 32-7 with three abstentions to create a constituent assembly or con-ass as the method of changing our charter? I have always believed that the right way to change our charter is through a constitutional convention (con-con) and that a con-ass is a shortcut way of doing it. Remember we are changing our system of governance from the present unitary form into a federal/parliamentary form of government and therefore, we need to thoroughly discuss these issues in a proper forum of delegates duly elected as members of a con-con.

It's been 30 years since the EDSA Revolution and con-ass was used by the pro-Aquino groups to create what is now the 1987 Constitution where 49 people were elected to hammer this new constitution. In the end, 30 years later, the 1987 Constitution needs changes. While it is not too late to debate the issues on the pros and cons of a federal/parliamentary form of government, it is still better if this was discussed by duly elected members of a constitutional convention (con-con).