Here and There
No bogey behind the Cha-Cha
By Gerry Garcia
WE’RE betting our last shirt on the need and extreme urgency for charter reform as expressed by Speaker Joe de Venecia, former newsman and veteran law-maker who, we can safely presume, is familiar with the ins and outs of civil governance in our present system of government, including the ills attendant to it, much more than anyone of the leaders of the Opposition and the Church.
We are one with Joe when he said that Charter reform is the “country’s last remaining hope to turn around the economy and transform the Philippines from a third-world to a second-world country in the next ten years.”
It’s not entirely irrelevant, by the way, to mention in this connection that the Speaker, who had been leading the movement for decades, was recently devastated by the unexpected loss of his and wife Gina youngest daughter in a fire that razed part of their residential house in — a tragedy that could be cause for the grieving father’s increased ardor for pushing further the reformation of a flawed system of government.
What the real Joe is seeking in the Charter change movement he is leading is a change in the character of the current system of presidential bicameral government.
Character change in our leaders, long sought but never attained, would come surely and naturally once the proposed shift to parliamentary unitary government is actually established. JDV has nothing against the church and civic leaders who are ranged vocally against cha-cha at the moment. After all this is a democratic country.
That’s why the Speaker, after thanking CBCP head Archbishop Angel Lagdameo and the other religious leaders for acknowledging withdrawal by the House of Representatives of the Constituent Assembly resolution . . . is now asking them to sit down with leaders of various political parties to draw up a common agenda for constitutional reform instead of stirring up street marches and prayer rallies.
In keeping up with the spirit of Christmas where wishes for peace and goodwill to mankind become the core, we are holding on to the hope that the proposed meeting together of politicians and the leaders of civic and religious groups will result in reconciliation of conflicting ideas that would subsequently bring out the unity needed to put the country on the road to political and economic reforms.
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We wish you readers of the PUNCH here and abroad a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/here-and-there/)
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