STREETWISE*
GMA’s Chacha: Recipe for Dictatorship
Because they have not
the fear of God in them, we must try to instill at least the fear of the
wrath of a people fed up with lies and of being screwed by their supposed
leaders in broad daylight. Let us fight to stop GMA’s chacha in its
tracks.
BY CAROL
PAGADUAN-ARAULLO
Business World
Posted by Bulatlat
Proponents of charter
change (chacha) have been quite busy lately with the two-pronged tactic of
a “people’s initiative” petition and the convening of the House of
Representatives as a “constituent assembly” without the concurrence of the
Senate. The antics of the government-sponsored pro-chacha group Sigaw ng
Bayan (people’s clamor) and Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s minions in the
House of Representatives are so blatantly illegal and equivalent to the
basketball violation “forcing through,” they could be easily dismissed as
both laughable and contemptible. But these Malacañang maneuvers are no
laughing matter.
The remaining quarter of 2006 is the last chance for cha-cha proponents to
introduce the wide-ranging changes they want before the May 2007 elections
overtake them and dictate the tempo of Philippine political life.
The “Cha-cha Express Train,” as Mrs. Arroyo so confidently named her
all-out effort to revise the Constitution, appeared to be in serious
trouble just before her July State of the Nation Address (SoNA) at the
opening of Congress for it had ran up against formidable opposition.
Aside from the unperturbed anti-GMA movement that looked on chacha as the
Arroyo regime’s preferred means to legitimize itself, there was the
categorical anti-chacha stand of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the
Philippines (CBCP) and the new anti-chacha alliance, One Voice, apparently
backed up by sections of big business, the elite Ateneo de Manila
University, the Society of Jesus community and a motley crowd of very
well-heeled people.
But now the Arroyo-De Venecia tandem, apparently emboldened by the abject
defeat of the second impeachment move in the Lower House and tantalized by
the prospect of a winner-take-all outcome if the chacha campaign succeeds,
is making its last-ditch effort to get what it wants.
It is taking advantage of the lack of a massive educational campaign that
discloses what is really at stake in GMA’s chacha and ergo the relative
quiescence of the public in the face of what constitutes a looming Palace
coup d’etat.
The Arroyo-De Venecia clique is also taking unfair advantage of having its
political enemies under constant fire, not just metaphorically, but in
actuality through all sorts of legal suits from libel to rebellion and
through physical elimination by way of summary killings, massacres,
abductions and torture.
Much has already been said about how the two-pronged chacha attack.
“People’s initiative” and “constituent assembly” are clearly an Arroyo-De
Venecia game plan and therefore all talk about chacha reflecting a
groundswell from the grassroots is a lot of hogwash.
Despite all the efforts of the GMA-De Venecia combine to create an
illusion of a pro-chacha bandwagon – 6.8 million signatures, a series of
full-page paid ads and a run of TV spots – there is no palpable
excitement, much less public clamor, for it; instead there are concrete
examples of fraud, manipulation and the cynical use of public funds for
the spurious signature gathering and expensive media ad campaign.
What is more important at this point is to draw attention to and thereby
expose for all to see that GMA’s chacha is fraught with danger from the
proposed extension and concentration of political power in the hands of
Mrs. Arroyo even as it is clothed in the rhetoric of political reform and
economic renewal.
Simply put, GMA’s Chacha will create an unelected unicameral interim
Parliament that is packed with her subalterns and loyalists from
the incumbent members of Congress, members of her cabinet and some others
she will have the free hand to appoint.
Party-list representatives, at least the progressive and independent ones
who are a whiff of fresh air in a Congress filled with opportunists, will
loose their constitutionally-guaranteed right to be in Parliament.
The 2007 elections are unlikely to be held, being left to the discretion
of the interim Parliament itself whose fat asses have the privilege of
having their terms of office extended from three to five years.
Thereafter, they can continue to run for office with the lifting of term
limits, and thus spare themselves the hassle of having their spouses,
offspring, siblings and assorted relatives engage in a rigodon of
who runs for Congress, governor, mayor, etc.
The incumbent president and vice president are assured of their stay in
office till 2010 despite a supposed shift from a presidential to a
parliamentary system. The incumbent president retains all executive powers
as president and merely delegates what she sees fit to the interim prime
minister. Moreover, it is the incumbent president who nominates the
interim prime minister who will then be elected by the members of the
interim Parliament.
To top it all, a second charter change will take place, through the
convening of the interim Parliament within 45 days from the ratification
of the proposed GMA constitutional “amendments,” to further propose
another round of “amendments to, or revisions of, this Constitution.”
This is a carte blanche for the all-powerful GMA-De Venecia clique
to mangle the basic law of the land as they see fit or as their vested
interests dictate.
There is no other course of action than for the people to reject GMA’s
chacha so that legal moves being utilized by its proponents to achieve
their malevolent objectives will not prosper; in particular, the “people’s
initiative” petition in the Supreme Court and the illegal convening of a
constituent assembly in the Lower House without benefit of a Senate vote.
Because they have not the fear of God in them, we must try to instill at
least the fear of the wrath of a people fed up with lies and of being
screwed by their supposed leaders in broad daylight. Let us fight to stop
GMA’s chacha in its tracks. Posted by Bulatlat
You may email feedback at
carol_araullo@yahoo.com.
*Published in Business World
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