A deeper issue with moves to change the Charter

Since the term of former President Fidel Ramos until the current dispensation, the maneuvers to change the Charter, largely through Peoples Initiative, has been a consistent political fixture. This seemingly is becoming a political bad habit. Always, the battle cry of the prime movers hovers on improving the lives of Filipinos that can solely be done with the magic wand of Cha-Cha.
But this time, it’s worse. The political schemers now blame the 1987 Constitution for the pitiful plight of Juan de Cruz. On January 9, people who were glued to their TV sets watching the Feast of the Black Nazarene on primetime newscast, were barraged with repetitive airing of a paid advertisement about “EDSA-Pwera,” which obviously is a play on the word “etsa-pwera” (tossed side) that took the feigned narrative of social media trolls in discrediting the 1987 Constitution and demonizing the 1986 “people power” revolution.

And even the logic of these Cha-Cha plotters is skewed. For how in the world could amending the economic provisions of the Constitution become the silver bullet that will solve the economic and social ills of the country? Quite more frequently nowadays in the country, one has to be an entrenched member of a cult to buy this kind of oblique reasoning.

Last December 17, 2023, House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez was quoted as saying “In summary, our Constitution, as noble and well-intentioned as it is, has elements that are no longer adaptive to our needs.” Really? What adapts, therefore? And whose needs? As if to add insult to injury, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said in an interview with GMA News last January 23, 2024, “The 1987 Constitution was not written for a globalized world. We have to adjust so that we can increase the economic activity in the Philippines, we can attract more foreign investors.” One may easily perceive that such statement comes from one who has not considered or has little knowledge if at all of economic fundamentals.

But truth to tell, many multinational investors have not really found the Philippines very alluring due to, among others, inadequate infrastructure and high power costs, not to mention the red tape and the weak and compromised regulatory environment in both national and local government units. All these have certainly nothing to do with the Constitution.
Putting some good sense to the issue, retired Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr said recently during the hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes, “Our problems are not due to the restrictive economic provisions of the Constitution. They cannot be solved by removing these restrictive economic provisions and completely leaving Congress the future under the clause ‘unless otherwise provided by law’…. On the contrary, they would create more serious and disturbing problems and consequences…. I will not hesitate to say again that amendments to or revision of the Constitution at this time would be a lethal experiment, a fatal hit, a plunge to death.”

The abominable issue, however, is that all these initiatives to change the Constitution since the time of President Ramos until today are coming from most powerful politicians who rave to open the Constitution to revisions primarily to serve their personal political agenda. Imagine, amending the fundamental law of the land in order to serve the private interests of a setting political dynasty.

But the deeper and most disturbing issue is, people keep electing them to power, ad nauseam. Despite government statistics reporting many categories to poverty, majority of Filipinos are simply poor. When one is poor there are not really much choices but to opt for what immediately fills the stomach. While people are poor there can never free elections where people may elect freely the best, the efficient and the saint.