Cha-cha turbulence

I wrote two weeks ago: This may be the best chance our country has to amend the 1987 Constitution. For weeks, it appeared the road to make significant changes to the highest law of the land seemed to be clear, with the Comelec budget ready and the House supermajority prepared to mobilize their constituents to achieve the required 3 percent vote per legislative district. The required vote of 12 percent of the total number of registered voters for a People’s Initiative seemed to be on its way. Expectedly, however, the Cha-cha train hit its biggest stumbling block — the Philippine Senate.

Speaker Martin Romualdez had been pushing all the necessary buttons, but it would take a mountainous jump to hurdle the might of the 24 senators who joined as one to oppose the nationwide move to amend the Constitution.

Now it would take more than a blessing from the higher-ups, particularly the President himself, to help convince the Senate. This could run the risk of depleting the political capital necessary for the 2025 elections. With this challenge, Charter change took a step back and may be delayed until after the elections. However, for huge changes, it may be necessary to take a step back to take two. Further, the lead-up and the eventual results of the 2025 elections will play a big role on whether Charter change will happen or not, considering that this exercise is highly political in nature.

It takes two to tango for Charter change, and the dancers are the Senate and the House. If these two houses of Congress fail to agree and refuse to dance the “cha cha,” then this initiative will surely fail.

In a television interview, former speaker Pantaleon Alvarez highlighted the differences between this administration’s move to amend the Constitution from the previous one. During the Duterte administration, a Constitutional Committee for Charter Change was formed made up of constitutionalists and professors from different sectors. This committee came up with a draft Constitution that was submitted to Congress for deliberation. Unfortunately, this initiative failed since the main agenda for Charter change — a shift from a democratic government to a federalist government — was too much to handle for the people.

Truly, federalism is a different concept, too different and foreign from our culture and history as a country. Federalism may work in countries like the United States, where the states were not united and were brought together under a single federal government. But in the Philippines, where the country is already united, later to be separated into federalist states, the concept was rejected once discussions centered on which provinces would form part of the specified federalist states of the Philippines.

Now, with the Romualdez initiative, the heralded goal is the revision of economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution. However, there must be clarity on what will be amended and the benefits that will be gained by the Filipino people. The administration may have succeeded in enacting the laws to make the Maharlika Fund, the country’s first sovereign wealth fund, possible. Amending the Constitution will be a harder and more difficult feat.

We have a lot of time left to make this happen and positive change to our substantive laws should always be a welcome development. The US Constitution, for instance, was amended 27 times. What is important is that these proposals must be transparent and made known to the public, and more importantly, our politicians must stay true to their word.

For comments, email him at darren.dejesus@gmail.com.