STREETWISE
Railroading Charter Change
There are
clumsy attempts to create a bandwagon effect by mobilizing the pro-GMA
local government officials to manufacture millions of bogus voters’
signatures; by creating media hype through paid hacks and public relations
operators; and by utilizing a discredited Commission on Elections (Comelec)
to supposedly verify the signatures gathered despite an earlier Supreme
Court ruling that had stopped the Comelec from doing so.
BY CAROL
PAGADUAN-ARAULLO
BusinessWorld
Posted by Bulatlat
The summer heat grows more and more intolerable with only the occasional
rains brought by La Niña providing momentary relief. On the other hand,
there is no reprieve from the political heat being generated by the
prolonged crisis over the legitimacy of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s
presidency.
It grows even more intense with every attempt by Malacañang to hide the
truth and to suppress with brute force the popular movement seeking to
remove Mrs. Arroyo from power.
What Proclamation No. 1017 – that is, undeclared martial law has failed
to do in terms of squelching the fires of unrest, rebellion and resistance
among the people, Mrs. Arroyo and her lapdogs led by House Speaker Jose de
Venecia hope to achieve using the ploy of revising the 1987 Constitution.
Charter change or cha-cha proponents claim that cha-cha will achieve
sweeping reform of the prevailing, crisis-prone political and
socio-economic system.
It will purportedly do this by shifting the form of government from
presidential to parliamentary. At the same time, it will complete the
“structural reform” of the economy by taking out of the constitution all
remaining protectionist measures as well as preferential treatment
accorded to Philippine nationals. Not coincidentally, this is in line
with the World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund-World
Bank doctrine of neoliberal “globalization.”
In truth, cha-cha is meant to divert public attention from the “Hello
Garci” electoral fraud scandal, the jueteng mafia involving members of the
First Family, the fertilizer scam and many more such stinking cases of
wholesale graft and corruption.
The so-called “people’s initiative,” that reeks of a Malacañang-directed
dirty tricks operation, is meant to create an illusion of massive support
for the Arroyo cha-cha. It is intended to counter stiff Senate opposition
to a proposal from the Lower House, packed with Mrs. Arroyo’s loyalists,
for the convening of a constituent assembly composed of incumbent
legislators to revise the Constitution.
Cha-cha is being railroaded by the Arroyo administration and its
congressional allies primarily because if they are able to push through
with it, Mrs. Arroyo’s presidency is preserved legally and legitimized
politically up to, and some say, even beyond, 2010.
What is billed as an unstoppable express train by Mrs. Arroyo is fast
becoming unmasked as a rather old and dilapidated Philippine National
Railways-type train that is weighed down by heavy political baggage and
running dangerously low on the fuel of credibility .
There are clumsy attempts to create a bandwagon effect by mobilizing the
pro-GMA local government officials to manufacture millions of bogus
voters’ signatures; by creating media hype through paid hacks and public
relations operators; and by utilizing a discredited Commission on
Elections (Comelec) to supposedly verify the signatures gathered despite
an earlier Supreme Court ruling that had stopped the Comelec from doing
so.
In fact, the cha-cha ploy is being exposed quite handily by media, members
of the opposition, the mass movement and even ordinary citizens as a
political hoax, thus adding further to the long list of GMA sins against
the people and, thereby, fueling more disgust, more rebelliousness, more
resistance and struggle.
It will ironically provide one more nail in the Arroyo regime’s coffin.
On the other hand, whatever the success of the Cha-cha ploy in prolonging
the political life of the GMA regime will inevitably result in further
exposing the rot of the entire ruling system and arouse the exploited and
oppressed broad masses of the people to finally overthrow it.
BusinessWorld / Posted by Bulatlat
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