Charter Amendments Aim to Save Troubled Presidency – UP Law Professor
A
professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law said
that the proposed charter amendments are aimed at saving President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo from the current “crisis of leadership.”
BY
JHONG DELA CRUZ
Bulatlat
A professor at the University of the
Philippines (UP) College of Law said that the proposed charter amendments
are aimed at saving President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from the current
“crisis of leadership.”
Harry Roque doubts whether the
approval by the House of Representatives of a measure pertaining to
constitutional amendments could be considered a “triumph of the Filipino
people.”
“We should not push through with the
amendments under the conditions dictated by the Sigaw ng Bayan and Speaker
Jose de Venecia,” said Roque in an e-mail to Bulatlat. He explained
that this is “because of the complexity of the issues behind the
proposal,” which he said includes failure to inform the people about the
issues that surround the initiative.
Means
“The means by which to amend the
constitution should be clarified,” he said.
The present Constitution is open for
amendments under three modes: people’s initiative, constituent assembly
and constitutional convention.
Roque ruled out Sigaw ng Bayan’s
petition for charter change through a people’s initiative, citing the
Supreme Court’s ruling of the case Santiago v. Comelec.
A 1997 Supreme Court ruling favored the
petition of Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago blocking a people’s initiative.
The high court ruled that an enabling law was required for such purpose.
“The initiative of Sigaw, assuming the
signatures to be true, is out of the question because of Santiago v.
Comelec,” Roque said. “There is no enabling law.”
“Unless the mode of proposing changes
to the constitution are first complied with, the specific proposals set
forth by Sigaw are irrelevant and immaterial,” he added.
Sigaw ng Bayan claims to have gathered
6.3 million signatures, supposedly reaching the minimum required
percentage of the total number of Filipino voters. But the signatures’
validity is being questioned and challenged by opposing groups.
Meanwhile, on Sept. 5 the House
Committee on Constitutional Amendments passed a resolution providing for
Congress to form itself into a constituent assembly for the purpose of
amending the 1987 Constitution.
The measure also mentioned in detail
the proposed amendments to the Constitution, which included the shift in
the form of government from presidential to parliamentary, a provision
allowing 100 percent foreign ownership of industrial and residential
lands, extension of the terms of office of local officials, a provision
for an impeachment process by a two-thirds vote of the parliament, among
others.
House Resolution No. 1230, which
contained the amendments, was backed by administration representatives
Constantino Jaraula, chair of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments,
House Speaker Jose de Venecia and Majority Leader Prospero Nograles.
“A (Constituent) Assembly, because we
have a bicameral legislative department, requires 3/4 vote of both houses,
not just the 195 argued by the Speaker,” Roque said.
On the other hand, “a constitutional
convention (concon) is an option that the speaker has ruled out, although
it is the preferred mode of the senate,” he said.
Railroaded
A group opposing the charter revision,
the People’s Movement Against Arroyo’s Charter Change (People’s March),
also assailed the railroading of the resolution providing for a
constituent assembly.
National Artist for Literature
Bienvenido Lumbera, convenor of People’s March, likened the “tactic” to
the scheme played by pro-administration congressmen in killing the second
impeachment complaint in August.
HR 1230, if approved during a plenary
session, will allow the chamber to proceed with a constituent assembly
even without Senate participation. But this had earned the ire of the
Senate.
The higher chamber had said that the
procedure followed by the congressmen is “unconstitutional” and that it is
up to the Supreme Court to decide whether to allow the lower chamber to
proceed with a constituent assembly to amend the Constitution.
The Senate passed late in March a
resolution requiring the approval of both houses for charter revisions.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel,
Jr. warned the Lower House from pursuing its current track. He said the
Lower House “will be committing a grave mistake” in doing so without the
Senate’s participation.
In a statement, he said the administration
leaders in the Lower House is resorting to “legislative sorcery” in
claiming that they can undertake charter change by invoking Article 17,
Section 1 of the Constitution which provides that “Congress, upon a vote
of three-fourths of all its members,” may amend the Charter.
The senator vowed that the senate would
not be an accomplice to the “blatant attempt by De Venecia et al to
eviscerate the Constitution.”
Clear intention
But regardless of the mode of
proposing amendments or revisions of the constitution, Roque said there is
a need to inform the people of the issues that surround the proposal.
“We are not just amending an ordinary
law: we are amending a social contract which contains terms and conditions
agreed upon between those who govern and those who have agreed to be
governed,” he said.
Roque said that as it is, the proposed
charter amendments are aimed at saving the current president from the
crisis of leadership. “Let's talk about the issues when we are not
bamboozled into a decision just for the purpose of saving the president,”
he said.
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or
New Patriotic Alliance) secretary-general Renato Reyes, Jr. agreed, saying
“charter change is in fact another formula for a dictatorship this time
disguised as parliamentary rule.”
“The politically self-serving charter
change initiatives, whether through people’s initiative or con-ass, add
more fuel to the political crisis,” Reyes said in a statement. “Rushing
Cha-cha can have a more damning effect on the administration than the
killing of the impeachment.”
Questions
Roque said the provisions contained in
the House resolution to amend the Constitution virtually prevent the
elected chief from getting ousted.
At least a two-thirds vote of all the
members of the parliament is required to remove a prime minister, also
through an impeachment process under the proposed amendments. “[This]
makes it virtually impossible to impeach the prime minister,” he said.
A shift from the present presidential
system to a parliamentary form, in the first place, will be headed by a
prime minister as “chief operating officer of the government” and a
president as head of state.
“It’s De Venecia's way of becoming
[the] chief executive without having to win a presidential election. I
shudder at the thought of him and the likes of him becoming chief of the
country,” he said.
He questioned the extension of the
terms of elective local officials to five years from the present
three-year term as a “way of bribing elective officials into supporting
charter change.”
Also, vested in the prime minister
under such a government is the power to appoint the chairman and
commissioners of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for a term of seven
years without immediate reappointment.
This, Roque argued, would not clear
the cloud of doubt in the credibility of election officials because it is
the quality of appointment and not the term of office which is the current
issue, he said.
Meanwhile, allowing foreigners to own
vast expanse of industrial and residential lands in the country with no
restrictions, revising Section 12 of Article XII in the Constitution, is
“a way of further impoverishing Juan de la Cruz,” he said.
Bulatlat
BACK TO
TOP ■
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION ■
COMMENT
© 2006 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Media Center
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided
its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.