An Analysis on The Presidential Aspirants' Stand on Cha-Cha

On October 6, in the Top News in GMA News.TV, the headline reads: 4 presidential aspirants open to Cha-Cha. What is charter change anyway? According to Wikipedia.org:

Charter Change, also known as "Cha-Cha" in the Philippines, refers to the political and other related processes involved in amending or revising the current 1987 Constitution of the Philippines. Under the current constitution there are three modes of which it could be amended: people's initiative (PI), constituent assembly and constitutional convention. All three would lead to a referendum wherein the proposed amendment/s or revision/s has to be approved by the majority of Filipinos in order to be adopted.

Like majority of Filipinos, I understood Cha-cha as a venue for our form of government to switch to Parliamentary form. Moreover, this change will also ensure the current people in government to extend their terms indefinitely. Now with the Presidential aspirants' comments about the said controversial issue, made me realize not to vote for some of them.

I am not satisfied with their reasons why is it that they do not agree with charter change. Answers like because it is not timely or if it would not undergo due process, blah blah blah. I can accept Aquino's reason which is to quote:

We must ensure that Charter change is needed before we make any concrete move.

In addition, we should also ask the heavier question which is, who will benefit from such change in our constitution?

Due to this, all of a sudden I recalled what I read in the compiled Issue Analysis by the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)'s 2006: Philippine Politics in Review. Yup, that was three years ago, and here we are, faced with the same zombie of our society!

In it's Issue Analysis No. 8: Cha-Cha Favors the Elite and the US, it tackled there the not so secret reasons why the administration that time was pushing for the same music groove as today. The keywords given emphasis on that analysis are: political dynasties and the capitalist and imperialists' reasons of the US.

Going to the first keyword political dynasty, how would the political dynasties in the Philippines benefit from this constitutional amendment? What will happen basically is that the provisions hindering any official or law-maker from extending their terms in office might be erased totally from the Constitution.

To quote:

The elimination of term limits would allow them [lawmakers] as well as their relatives to run for parliament as often as they like. With the elimination of term limits, there would be no fixed terms, their staying on in parliament being dependent solely on their party or coalition's numerical dominance.

To quote again Issue Analysis No. 8 and to give a concrete example:

As for Mrs. Arroyo, while she would have to step down once a parliament is in place, she could very well run for MP in her sphere's of influence in Pampanga and who knows, aspire once more for the post she's now clinging to like a barnacle, depending on what the specifics of the parliamentary system and the federation would be.

Where does the US's interests enter into the picture?




Beyond the reason that a Cha-Cha can solve the Arroyo crisis through this blinding "constitutional means," there is something that has so far escaped scrutiny. Those are the amendments to the Constitution and the Philippine policies the US wants, other than the shift to a parliamentary system and to a federation.

That was reiterated by Presidential aspirant Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. (Lakas-Kampi-CMD). To quote from GMA News.TV:

According to him [Teodoro], among the provisions that should be amended are those concerning autonomous regions and foreign ownership of lands and corporations. He said the Constitution should be amended because piece-meal legislation seeking to address certain issues are "not sustainable" in the long run.

The primary changes that involve provisions in the Constitution cited in the Issue Analysis No. 8 are the ff:

• policies that restrict foreign investments in key economic sectors
• foreign ownership of the mass media and public utilities
• policies that restrict foreign ownership of telecommunications to 40%
• 60% Filipino ownership is required for those firms that wish to contract with the Philippine government in the construction of water, telecommunications and transport systems as well as electric power distribution
• policies that enforce that only Filipinos may own rural banks
• for the fast growing insurance business, foreigners are limited to 51% equity in insurance companies
• there is also a policy that only Filipino-owned seacraft may engage in domestic shipping
• no foreign ownership of educational institutions, or of land and rice and corn processing plants is allowed
  

Fidel V. Ramos was the loudest and earliest proponent of Constitutional amendments to remove these restrictions. He allowed the unrestricted entry of foreign capital and removing all protection for local industries in his suga coated globalizing the Philippine economy. In his term as well the Mining Act of 1995 which converts the entire country into potential mining area - was passed.

By the way, the Philippine Mining Act was passed into law as RA 7942 in March 1995. This new mining code that was passed into law is the Senate version of the bill filed by then Senator Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, then Sen. Heherson Alvarez who became Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Francisco Tatad.

Again, we call for a strong opposition against Cha-Cha. Let us not be stripped once more of our sovereignty and rights. Let us continue to aspire for a country run by Filipinos for Filipinos in its truest sense. When can we feel the real freedom?

Ang Cha-Cha At Si Gloria!!! Ibasura!!!
Ibasura!!! Ang Cha-Cha at si Gloria!!!

JUNK CHA-CHA NOW!!!