The Right Timing and Mode of Charter Change:

Call a Constitutional Convention and elect its delegates in 2010

By Dr. Jose V. Abueva

President of Kalayaan College and Director of its
Institute of Federal-Parliamentary Democracy, and Chairman
of the 2005 Consultative Commission on Charter Change

Statement before the Committee on Constitutional Amendments,

House of Representatives, November 25, 2008

Since 1972 our country has suffered from the tragic failure of collective political
leadership and therefore of poor governance, despite some reforms and notable gains
brought about by some outstanding national leaders and by several outstanding local
government leaders. Consequently, more and more citizens are dissatisfied with our
kind of democracy and alienated from our political institutions: the presidency,
Congress, the judiciary, elections, political parties, the national bureaucracy, local
governments, and so on.

Our people deserve a far better system of government and governance than the
present one under the 1987 Constitution. It has not enabled us to solve our worsening
problems and to make timely responses to the challenges we face in an unstable and
rapidly changing world.

We should not delay further the needed amendments to the 1987 Constitution that
will help us gradually and steadily to transform our political system and improve
governance. With archaic and dysfunctional political institutions, even good leaders
cannot be truly effective in relation to our mounting needs and problems. We have
also learned that an evil president turned dictator can destroy our fragile democracy
and reverse development.

Proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution are long overdue. These include:

(1) replacing our dysfunctional presidential government and its built-in conflict
among the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, with a unified
parliamentary government and, along with it, reforming our electoral and political
party system;

(2) changing our highly centralized and ineffective unitary system to a federal
system that will promote local and regional development and bring government
closer to the people and more responsive and accountable to them; and

(3) removing the restrictive provisions on foreign investments: to hasten

economic development, raise more revenues, and provide more employment, and
better infrastructure and public services.

Every year members of Congress propose amendments to the Constitution. In the

presidential election in 2004 only President Arroyo proposed Charter change. She has
pursued it, on and off, and provoked continuing opposition.
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For various reasons, including their conflicting ambitions and vested interests,
members of the House and the Senate are wary of each other’s motives and proposed
amendments. They cannot agree on them and obtain the vote of ¾ of the members of
each of chamber.

In this political stalemate in 2006 some citizens’ groups and local government leaders
united behind a people’s initiative to propose Charter change. But the COMELEC
refused to support the petition for a people’s initiative of the Sigaw ng Bayan and the
Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) supported by more than the
required votes of at least 10 percent of all the registered voters, and of at least three
percent of the registered votes in every one of the congressional districts.

Moreover, the Panganiban Supreme Court upheld the Comelec’s inaction and
disapproved of the petition for a people’s initiative by a vote of 8 to 7. The political
opposition, the Catholic church, civil society groups, and the media were also against
Charter change at that time. There was widespread suspicion and fear that President
Arroyo would use it to prolong her stay in power beyond 2010.

In late 2006 the desperate move of the pro-Administration majority in the House of
Representatives failed to propose the change to a unicameral parliamentary
government without the Senate’s concurrence, and was widely condemned for its
unilateral action.

Despite their intrinsic merits and validity, Senator Pimentel’s present proposal in the
Senate to shift to federalism and the proposed change to a parliamentary government
in the House are not likely to succeed. Similar proposals of the 2005 Consultative
Commission on Charter change formed by President Arroyo gained favor and support
in its regional consultations but later provoked rejection because of the undemocratic
and self-serving proposal to suspend elections in 2007. The proposals also suffered
from the President’s low approval ratings.

Even if the House can muster the ¾ majority to propose its amendments, the divided
Senate is not likely to join the House. Formidable political and popular opposition to
Charter change remains as the House again insists on a unilateral approval of its
amendments sans the Senate’s concurrence, if only to get the Supreme Court’s
definitive ruling on the issue. So how can Congress propose the amendments to the
people in a national plebiscite before 2010?

So far none of the presidential aspirants in the coming 2010 national elections is
saying anything about changing the Constitution. Most of them also have vested
interests in the status quo. This, plus distrust of the President, is why the political
opposition, some business interests, and other partisans, including former President
Aquino and some authors of the 1987 Constitution, continue to oppose Charter
change.

In general the people and the media are against Charter change initiated by the House
or the Senate or both, because they believe the legislators are self-serving and will be
self-serving. Indeed, many people are also distrustful of our senators and
representatives and their institutions.
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In these paralyzing circumstances, there is one alternative worth trying. I respectfully

propose that our national and local political leaders, business, civil society, and the
media support the alternative that Congress call a constitutional convention whose
delegates shall be elected by the people in the general elections in May 2010.

The chairman of the committee on constitutional amendments in the House (Rep.

Victor Ortega) is publicly in favor of this manner of changing the Constitution. His
counterpart in the Senate (Sen. Richard Gordon) is reportedly in favor of a
constitutional convention as well. Various groups including religious organizations,
have said that they favor a constitutional convention. Concurrent election of delegates
in 2010 will also save the country the extra expense of a separate election.

To save time and money, Congress should provide the proposed constitutional
convention with funding to last up to only six or eight months to accomplish its work.
Many constitutional studies and proposals already exist. The 1987 Constitution does
not need to be rewritten entirely because it has many good provisions that deserve to
be retained.

Now as ever the supreme challenge to our political leaders and our people is to
summon the collective will and wisdom to reform our political institutions. To put the
common good and the public interest above their own. To work together for a better
future for all Filipinos.

We cannot wait for a change in our character as a people (as some bishops tell us), or
depend on changing our leaders through our usual elections, as many insist. First we
have to help ourselves with fundamental institutional reforms through Charter
change; then pray for God’s grace to help us pursue our vision.

President John F. Kennedy once said that those who refuse to make peaceful change
possible make a violent revolution inevitable. We are not wanting in those who
propose extra-constitutional change or revolution.