No to GMA’S Cha-Cha

NO big surprise, really, this renewed effort to change the constitution.

But this time, it is extra appalling because it is grounded on yet another move – a Memorandum of Agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front regarding ancestral domain – by the Arroyo administration that has left even her own faithful allies in the House of Congress dumbfounded and feeling deceived.

So time and again, strong opposition must be reiterated against the present administration’s repeated attempts to tweak the constitution in a blatant move to keep President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as well as other national and local government officials for that matter, in power.

And thankfully, the voices of opposition to the plot have been quick and profuse: senators, congressmen, influential Catholic Church leaders, the business sector, the media and other civil society groups have all readily spoken their resistance against Charter change at this point.

Our own Rep. Jose de Venecia Jr., who himself led a Cha-cha move through a so-called people’s initiative signature campaign which was eventually dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2006, is now among those calling for a status quo in the constitution, saying the plan is ill-timed.

De Venecia, of course, has since fallen out of the President’s “grace” and his pronouncement could very well be interpreted as just a bitter strike back. But his stance corresponds with what most everyone is saying: “Yes to Cha-cha, but not now”. Let us wait until after the elections in 2010, after the people have exercised their democratic right to change the President after six years as laid out in our present Constitution.

Everybody agrees that our existing democratic system of government needs changing and there is a need to look into other options that are more suitable to our geographical, cultural and economic conditions. We need other options that could possibly push our country forward faster at a development scale that benefits the majority. But that can wait.

The decision to make constitutional changes, particularly on whether our country should finally shift to a federal form of government – which is earnestly intended to right the many wrongs in the present corrupted system of public administration – must rest on the people, a people that is, first of all, well informed about the political choices that is open to them.

All in good time, after the 2010 elections.

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