This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VI, No. 11, April 23-29, 2006
STREETWISE BY
CAROL PAGADUAN-ARAULLO © 2006 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
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.
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