Reviving the People’s Initiative (a.k.a. No-El)

Just when we thought the country can finally move on after the Supreme Court decided against the People’s Initiative, and after the people resoundingly rejected the conspiracy in the House of Representatives to convene a Constituent Assembly minus the Senate, now comes the motley group of local executives raring to rear the ugly head of the No-Election Movement via the People’s Initiative route.

      Given what the country has witnessed over the past three months, one cannot but conclude that any effort to raise the charter change bogey is aimed at stopping the 2007 national and local elections, and nothing else. The public outcry last month decidedly told the Arroyo government that there is no urgency for a charter change before the 2007 elections, and this was acknowledged by President Gloria Arroyo, the main architect, and Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., the executor, no less.

      But perhaps, the public should no longer be surprised by this new attempt to stop the 2007 elections, not after President Arroyo turned back on her own declaration that charter change had divided the country. The quick change in her tone – from a humbled leader to another level of effrontery, declaring to all and sundry after the perceived low turn-out in the Church-led prayer rally, that charter change will remain a priority in her government – should tell us that the war against arrogant power and greed is not over until it is over.

      In case the conspirators for the revival of the People’s Initiative have not seen the writing on the wall, the people will certainly not stand idly by to watch them trample the people’s right to choose their leaders as guaranteed by our Constitution.

           A No-El is completely unacceptable. Next time, there will be no prayer rally to denounce them at the Luneta Park but a truly enraged people will descend upon them, so angry that they never imagined such a violent political fate could befall them.

      The next time paid “volunteers” are seen going through the motion of soliciting signatures in our barangays, we must begin to manifest our displeasure over their attempt to stop the 2007 elections by promptly tearing their prepared manuscripts before they can con others into signing.  

      We join Pangasinenses in the prayer that Speaker de Venecia will himself stop this nonsense once and for all, and lead another opportunity to amend the charter through a constituent assembly or a constitutional convention AFTER the elections.

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