Resolving constitutional ambiguity via people’s initiative

I support the ongoing People's Initiative campaign to amend the 1987 Constitution as a private citizen and a registered voter. In fact, I am actively encouraging my townmates in the City of San Pedro, Laguna to sign the petition.

The petition seeks to amend Article XVII Section 1 par. (1) of the 1987 Constitution by delegating the power to propose amendments or revisions to Congress as one body, voting jointly. 

There have been a lot of debates by legal luminaries on whether our bicameral Congress, in proposing to amend or revise the Constitution, should vote jointly or separately. This ambiguity is an oversight of the framers of the 1987 Constitution because the provision sought to be amended now is silent. The Senate has exploited this ambiguity to frustrate attempts by the House to propose amendments to the Constitution, resulting in a static document that has not evolved alongside our country's needs. If successful, the People's Initiative campaign will end this ambiguity and open the door to constitutional reforms.

This ambiguity itself is an example of the 1987 Constitution not being a perfect document. It has a lot of flaws. In fact, it was deliberated on for only four months by the 48-member Constitutional Commission appointed by then-President Cory Aquino.

A review of the 1987 Constitution is long overdue as it has not evolved in 36 years. This is an abnormal situation, considering international scholars found that national constitutions remained unamended on average for 19 years. This is so because societies and their needs evolve, making it impossible for a single document to remain perfectly relevant forever. In fact, the US Constitution was amended three years after its ratification in 1788. It has undergone 27 amendments since then.

As I mentioned in my earlier article, the restrictive economic provisions are among the 1987 Constitution's many flaws. Notably, the current limitations on foreign ownership have hindered the country's ability to fully capitalize on the benefits of globalization, international trade, and even world-class education. For example, the Philippines lags behind other ASEAN countries in terms of foreign direct investments, and foreign investors have expressed reluctance to invest due to the Constitution's strict restrictions on foreign ownership.

A 2021 report by the World Bank indicated that relaxing foreign ownership restrictions could improve the country's attractiveness to FDIs and facilitate technology transfer and knowledge sharing, ultimately leading to increased job opportunities and higher economic growth. In addition, a study by the Asian Development Bank found that allowing foreign ownership in certain industries could enhance competition and innovation, driving productivity and efficiency gains in the long run.

We must accept that the 1987 Constitution has not translated into the desired enhancement of our economy. It has led us down a path of dependency, relying on outdated historical assumptions rather than current economic and technological conditions.

                                                                                                              Audit, probe of NGCP

Once again, I have been proven right in my official declarations against NGCP during my time as president and CEO of the National Transmission Corporation. No less than President Marcos Jr. ordered the review and resetting of NGCP rates following the recent blackouts in Panay. The Joint Congressional Energy Commission must convene and review the actions/inactions of the previous ERC under Agnes Devanadera on the delays of the regulatory reset of NGCP, among other things.

The recent Panay blackouts unraveled the deception of NGCP through its mouthpiece, Cynthia Alabanza, that it is the "enabler of power stability" in the country. As I've said a million times, power stability and energy security are the least of the concerns of NGCP. It claims to be a 60-40 Filipino corporation, yet the Chairman of the Board is a Chinese national reporting to one of China's biggest state-owned enterprises. The grid system operation infrastructure in all 140-plus substations is a single-source proprietary system belonging to the NARI Group of China.

We are so affected by incursions of the Chinese in the West Philippine Sea, yet our national transmission system, the most critical infrastructure in the National Security Manual, we surrendered to Chinese control.