enlightening idea from mr.banayo

Why not Con-Con?


‘If we want a charter that would stand the test of time, we might as well do it right.’

Why not Con-Con?


There is little disagreement that the Constitution of 1987 needs to be revised. There is hardly anyone at this point, not even President Corazon C. Aquino under whose watch the present charter was forged, who would insist that it is a perfect legal and political framework.

But it is not as if the country would perish, or our people would revolt, if the charter is not changed as speedily as the traditional politicians would want to rush it. Neither is it true that charter change could be equated with material progress, that it is the key to national salvation, or all such bunk this government’s spokespersons keep mouthing. Sure we need to revisit and revise, but let us do it the proper way.

That proper way is through a Constitutional Convention of elected delegates representing the political districts of the country. Give these elected delegates no more than 18 months to draft a charter that would respond to the people’s needs in a fast changing world. Then let us go through a five-month information campaign all over the country prior to a plebiscite that would give popular imprimatur to that new constitution. Two years is all it should take.

Rather than waste time and abuse the public patience by beating the dead horse that is the fake initiative through a motion for a reconsideration of the Supreme Court’s decision, or going through legal contortions to justify a one-chamber constituent assembly, and going once more to the Court for interpretation of the legality of their controversial act, why don’t our congressmen instead file a bill that would provide basis and funding for the election of delegates to a convention simultaneous with the regularly scheduled mid-term elections in May 2007? The same legislation could appropriate an operating budget for the newly-elected Con-Con. Even within the six weeks of the remaining sessions of Congress for 2006, this legislation could be passed. I do not think the Senate will obstruct such legislation, as almost all of them maintain that the present Constitution needs to be revised.

With Con-Con, representatives of the people specifically mandated to write a new charter can freely debate not only the virtues of uni-cameralism versus bi-cameralism, or parliamentary versus presidential, or a two-party system versus one that is multi-party, even a unitary as against a federal system. We could revisit the economic restrictions in the present charter, and decide once and for all whether we want a non-restrictive open-market economy that is completely attuned to the global economy, or whether such an economic framework is best left to continuing legislation instead of the strait-jacket of constitutional diktat.

If we want a charter that would stand the test of time, we might as well do it right. Recall that the present Constitution was rushed by 48 men and women appointed by a newly-installed president presiding over a revolutionary government. The result is a document far from perfect, even in linguistic style. Cory Aquino campaigned for that charter which was overwhelmingly ratified despite its obvious flaws principally to restore democratic order and stabilize her government. We should have learned our lessons well enough: Haste cannot produce a document that will withstand the test of time. Worse, the indecent haste with which the present proponents of Cha-cha are rushing a mangled constitutional bible can only serve selfish ends and short-term political gratification.

Hold elections for a Con-Con in May of next year. Let the candidates clearly state their position on the major political, social and economic issues that would be embodied in the charter, the better for the people to determine if their stand would be congruent to their own. Then let the Constitutional Convention convene by July of 2007, to finish its draft no later than the end of 2008. By the middle of 2009, the country through popular vote shall have approved a new charter ready for full implementation after the current presidential term shall have ended.

And let’s not quibble about the few billions in expenses this would entail. The lower House has just approved an increase in the pork barrel of each congressman from 40 to 70 million pesos apiece, and each senator from 120 to 200 million pesos next year. That incremental pork amounts to some 8.7 billion pesos for one year, enough to fund the constitutional convention.

In the next article on Thursday, I shall bare my own personal stand on the system of government. It is a system that would require full debate in a convention rather than in a constituent assembly of traditional politicians unwilling to diminish their stranglehold on political power and economic privilege.


***


The coming commemoration of National Heroes Day, appropriately the birthday of Andres Bonifacio, will be extremely meaningful to the constituents of Mayor Joseph Victor Ejercito of San Juan. They will inaugurate a modest-sized but beautiful museum dedicated to the Katipunan and the historic battle for the capture of the Spanish Armory called El Deposito. That battle, although a defeat of the poorly armed Katipuneros against the might of the colonial rulers, was a testament to Filipino courage and the indomitable yearning for self-rule.

Friend Jullie Yap Daza and some 40 others were given a preview of the museum one evening, wherein spoke Adrian Cristobal, whose book constituted the base research for the museum’s tableaux of events. It was a surprise for us to realize that this is the first-ever museum in the country dedicated to the Katipunan, those intrepid forefathers of ours who began the glorious Revolution that culminated in our Declaration of Independence in Kawit on June 12, 1898. While the museum depicts a battle that ended in defeat, the Battle of Pinaglabanan was one of the finest moments in our march towards nationhood.

Something beautiful has been wrought by Mayor JV Ejercito and his mother Guia Gomez, whose diorama of the battle captured in her resin dolls is an artistic masterpiece. Be sure to visit the Shrine when it opens its doors to the public after National Heroes Day, and be proud of our ancestors whose legacy of blood, tears and toil our generations after have squandered with unrepentant abuse.


***


Just after I wrote this article, word came out that DND Secretary Nonong Cruz resigned irrevocably. Just a few columns back, in an article entitled "RSBS", I wrote about Nonong’s declaration that he would not allow the military to be used any longer for partisan electoral activities. I however doubted at the time whether Cruz would resign if his Doña nevertheless dirtied the military institution once more in the coming elections.

Then he made public his advice against pursuit of the "hare-brained" people’s initiative in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to thrash the "gigantic fraud" the Doña and her minions tried to foist against the people and the Constitution.

At that point, I thought Nonong was ready to go. And indeed, the proper man that he has always comported himself, he just waited for his president to arrive from her foreign trip to say his goodbye.

When Nonong was appointed SND right after the 2007 elections, an announcement I had known two weeks or so before the actual fact, I wrote favorably of that appointment. The guy admirably performed his mission, and accomplished more than many other civilians named to that sensitive post, in reforming an establishment that has been debauched by politics and the over-weaning ambition and greed of its generals.

Congratulations, Nonong, and welcome back to the real world.





http://www.malaya.com.ph/nov07/edbanayo.htm


TUESDAY NOVEMBER 07, 2006 PHILIPPINES









http://www.malaya.com.ph/nov09/edbanayo.htm


THURSDAY NOVEMBER 09, 2006 PHILIPPINES



Simplifying government


‘The present system elects buffoons and dolts provided they are popular buffoons and wealthy dolts.’


Simplifying government


Aconvention of elected delegates representing the present legislative districts, a little more than 200 persons, could proceed towards writing a new Constitution beginning July 2007. Their final output could be presented to the nation on or before January 2009, for a total of 18 months of deliberations and debate. We could then implement a nationwide information drive so that a plebiscite could be held by the middle of 2009, with a reasonably informed citizenry making their decision through the ballot.

If we were to have a constitutional convention, I would propose a radically different but greatly simplified system of government. I believe in the presidential system, where the people elect their chief executive. That we have been electing lemons is not the fault of the presidential system; it is the fault of the absence of genuine political parties.

A political party is supposed to stand for a set of beliefs embodied in the party platform. But the more significant utility value of a party lies in its ability to choose its candidates for public office well. Whether through a system of primaries or a political convention, it is important for the party to choose its best and brightest, and present these men and women for public approbation in regularly scheduled elections. Recall that even when we had the pre-martial law parties, Nacionalista and Liberal, the respective party conventions chose their national candidates well enough. Which is why we had highly eminent presidents until we were plunged into the darkness of martial rule, and only when we discarded the two-party system with the 1987 Constitution did the choice of national candidates become a function of popularity surveys. Worse, the plethora of parties, some instantly formed as vehicles for personal ambition, produced several candidates which prevented a real majority president to be elected, save only for Estrada when he trounced Joe de Venecia and six others in 1998.

Thus, I go for a presidential form with a strong two-party system. In the first elections after a new Constitution, assuming that we cannot immediately transit into two parties, then the parties or coalitions obtaining the two highest number of votes for the presidency shall thereinafter constitute the two major parties. They shall have the right to post party inspectors in the polling precincts and canvass centers, paid for by the national government. The status quo ante as provided for by the 1935 Constitution has served us well, judging from the quality of pre-martial law leaders in both the executive and legislative branches. Parties have their mechanisms for winnowing the qualified, because candidates submit to the judgment of their political peers before they face the electorate. The present system elects buffoons and dolts provided they are popular buffoons and wealthy dolts. The 1935 Constitution gave us Quezon and Osmeña, Laurel and Roxas, Quirino and Magsaysay, Garcia, Paredes, Recto, Primicias, Diokno Tanada, Aquino, even Macapagal and Marcos. The 1987 Constitution, with its mixed and confusing multitude of parties in a presidential system has given us … well, never mind.

So there – presidential, two-party system. Next comes bloc voting. Never should we cross party lines in electing our executives. A president must be elected along with his party’s nominated vice-president. A governor, a city mayor, a municipal mayor, likewise with their running mates. This augurs well for concord in governance and continuity in the event of an accident of fate. The present set-up gives us nothing but discord and discontinuity.

Terms of office should be six years. Longer terms mean enough time for real planning and effective program implementation. And less elections would slay the culture of excessive politics that has been the bane of good governance.

Now here comes the portion that is likely to elicit a lot of reactions, mostly negative, from those who would lose their jobs. I have no yen for a bicameral legislature, except that I rue the quality of dynasts and trapos that we call our Lower House. Unfortunately, precisely because of the lack of genuine political parties who choose the best and brightest to present to the nation, we have a Senate that is hardly any better. When political parties have graduated out of their present barkadahan syndrome, or worse, syndicated convergences for profitable corruption, then we can have real legislators. Thus do we underscore the need for a real and strong party system.

If the Con-Con opts for a bicameral legislature, then I would strongly urge them to discard nationwide voting so that we could elect senators by regions. Not only would this foster constituent responsibilities, it would also help prevent election to lofty positions purely on the basis of celebrity status or extreme wealth. Note that before martial law, the parties made certain that their ticket of 8 senators in each election represented distinct linguistic regions, unlike these days when half of every ticket comes from Metro Manila, their main credential being their "winnability". There has been no Waray in the Senate since Decoroso Rosales, and that’s only because I read history. Santanina Rasul was the last Muslim we had in the Senate, and that was more than ten years ago.

As in the American system, the elected vice-president of the Republic should be the presiding officer of the Senate. If the Con-Con opts for a unicameral legislature, then the vice-president should automatically be the Speaker of the Batasan. After all, he was elected by the entire nation. This makes for a Speaker who need not wheel and deal to get elected.

We should abolish the election of provincial board members. Instead, the elected mayors of the province should constitute the provincial legislative body. They are after all the CEO’s of their towns. Where there are so many municipalities, such as Pangasinan and Cebu with more than 40, the elected mayors may take turns of two years each to sit in the provincial legislature. They need meet in the capital but twice a week anyway, perhaps less if you assess the legislative needs of the province.

The bedrock of our government should be the barangay. This is the system we inherited from our ancestors. The cabeza of old, now called the barangay chairman, is the front line, field officer of government. He is the man most conversant with the problems of his jurisdiction, as against district-elected councilors mostly hand-picked by mayoralty or congressional candidates. Why not abolish the municipal or city councils and in their stead, make the elected barangay chiefs take turns of three or two years each at constituting the municipal or city legislature? In time, voters would also take their barangay affairs seriously, and elect only the best among them.

We ought to rationalize, through legislation, the number of our barangays. For example, Manila with a 1.6 million population as of the last census has 897 barangays, while Quezon City, with 2.2 million people, has only 142. In cities as large as this, or like Davao City with 180 barangays, Butuan City with 86, Cagayan de Oro with 80, Zamboanga with 98, Pasay City with 201, Batangas City with 105 barangays, the chairmen will elect their city councilmen from among themselves, each taking turns of two-year terms. In smaller municipalities, barangay chairmen could sit as town councilors for all of six years, such as La Trinidad in Benguet with 16, or Garcillano’s Baungon in Bukidnon. Cities or towns with 30 or so barangays, such as Vigan in Ilocos Sur, Urdaneta in Pangasinan, Naga in Camarines Sur, or Mambusao in Capiz, could have their barangay chiefs taking 3-year terms. Get the picture?

There will be elections every three years – one for the barangay officials, and another for all the other national and local officials. Voters will write only a few names on their ballot: the president (whose vice-president automatically gets credited with the same), the governor, the mayor (and their respective team-mates), the congressman, and a few regional senators (if at all). There will be less elected officials, making for simplified government and tens of billions in annual savings. Simplified voting too. That would make it more difficult for the Garcillanos and their ilk to dagdag-bawas. And if we computerize, all the voter does is to push a few buttons.

Our present system makes a business out of politics, specially with the internal revenue allotments (IRA) giving local government units enough resources that make being a mayor or councilor a lucrative profession or even a gold mine. Let’s begin to return the word "service" to politics, instead of the business venture that it has become.

There will be less politicians, less braggarts who strut around with the prefix "honorable" to their less than honorable names. Isn’t that a consummation devoutly to be desired?