Analysis by Raïssa Robles
Let me first greet you all a Happy and Fulfilling New Year!
Despite the harassment that’s been happening, I’m feeling optimistic about this year.
You see, I sense that Filipinos are slowly waking up to what’s happening – the killings, the viciousness, the thick faced impunity, the crude and blatant sharing of spoils, the corruption, the unfulfilled promises – and they’re speaking out more against these.
Which is why President Rodrigo Duterte and his political allies will try to move quickly this year to consolidate gains and political power. They cannot wait for 2019, which is when mid-term elections are scheduled.
They do not know if the political winds will suddenly shift against their favor and usher in an opposition-dominated Senate, at the very least.
Which is why House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has already announced that amending the 1987 Constitution is at the top of Congress’ agenda. Congress will try to place any proposed constitutional change as an additional issue that voters will be made to decide on in the coming barangay elections, which were postponed to this year precisely for the purpose. That I’m pretty sure.
Placing this as a rider to the barangay polls will distract people’s attention from the government’s charter change agenda.
Once the proposed constitutional change is passed, there is no longer any guarantee that the 2019 mid-term elections will push through.Because even now, Duterte’s allies are batting for a “transition period”, which of course will be under Duterte.
A “transition period” from a presidential form of government to whatever other form is a twilight zone where anything can happen. The 1987 Constitution with all its democratic safeguards will no longer be operational while the new form of government is yet to be operational.
All the powers of government will be in the hands of one man – Duterte.
The Philippines has entered this twilight zone twice before: in 1972 when President Ferdinand Marcos caused a new Constitution to be drafted according to his specifications, and in 1986 when President Corazon Aquino did the same but specified that the new Constitution should put up a democratic form of government with checks and balances. [The only area where the Cojuangco family probably meddled was in the constitutional provision on agrarian reform.]
The Filipino people have been fooled once with a “transition period” when Marcos never really transitioned from presidential to his promised parliamentary form of government. What Marcos set up was a dictatorship disguised as a parliamentary form of government.
All indications point to the fact that Duterte – no matter how he denies it – would like to hold authoritarian powers that would enable him to, among others,
1) approve joint oil exploration with China in the West Philippine Sea, which violates the 1987 Constitution;
2) enable China to lease vast tracts of land for decades (which would be tantamount to owning them). Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo tried to do this but was stopped by public opinion;
3) quickly approve build-build-build infrastructure projects without public bidding, in violation of existing laws;
4) choose his political successor, which violates the 1987 Constitution;
5) transfer public money at will without the current restrictions of the 1987 Constitution;
6) quiet most vocal opposition to his plans which violates the 1987 Constitution;
7) act without accountability by having a quiescent legislature and a gagged or compromised mass media.
Over the holidays, I was looking through the first ever book I had written. It was on the late President Elpidio Quirino entitled, To Fight Without End: The story of a Misunderstood President. I had meant it to be a study on state corruption.
A section leaped out from a page.
Following the Second World War, many residents of the Philippine capital Manila became nearly paralyzed with the prevailing fear of being overrun by the Huks, a communist guerrilla movement that leaned toward the Soviet Union and consisted mainly of peasant farmers from Central Luzon, the country’s rice bowl.
Lorenzo Tañada, who was then a young senator, sought to allay the fears and instill courage and action in the population. He said, according to the Philippine Free Press issue of December 31, 1949:
“The people can be aroused to the defense of democracy. They can be indoctrinated and organized. The Communists can do it with regard to communism, why not with regard to democracy.
* * * *
“The feeling of helplessness today constitutes one of the greatest problems of those who would save democracy in the Philippines. The people must somehow be taught that if they do not struggle, if they do not resist the forces of evil, then that is the end of their liberties. The thing to do is for men of good will to get together, to organize…When the right moment presents itself, we maybe able to take advantage of it…”
Tañada walked his talk. He resigned from the ruling Liberal Party, formed a Citizen’s Party, ran as an Independent and won.
Nothing is too daunting for the those who persevere and act.
Happy New Year!
leona says
Con-Ass and not CON-CON.
Revising or proposing amendments
to the Constitution, is recommendatory.
The country needs a sedate and
candid consideration. It involves
a magnitude. A very important task.
Are the people just to receive this
task under a Con-assembly and not
a constitutional convention? The
powers says very expensive and time
consuming. Really?
The present Constitution of the USA
was by a convention. At the
time USA was a young and new nation.
Not yet as rich as now nor powerful.
Yet, that country formed a ‘convention.’
May JAY says on this:
“Admit, for so is the fact, that this
plan is only recommendatory,
not imposed, yet let it be
remembered that it is neither
recommended to blind approbation,
nor to bling reprobation; but
to that sedate and candid consideration
which the magnitude and importance of
the subject demand, and which it
certainly ought to receive.”
Why is our Congress, the Lower House
in a hurry to revise the Constitution?
What is the real reason? Personal reasons?
Personal gains? What?
MR. JAY said: ‘That, in the course of
the time they passed together in inquiring
and discussing the true interests of
their country.’
If our Congress does not pass this
proposed revision, Pres. Duterte has
a EO for a council but not yet filled up
for such great task. Time must be
considered for inquiring and discussing
the interests of the country.
To those wielding political power take
heed to this poem:
So farewell to the little good you bear me.
Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur’d,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride
At length broke under me, and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!
I feel my heart new open’d. O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favours!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;’
It was about: Cardinal Wolsey, the most interesting character in this play, is considerably ambitious. By becoming the chief advisor to the king, he has furthered his plots to amass wealth and secure the Papacy—the ultimate form he imagines his “greatness” will take. After a series of successes in foiling his enemies, however, Wolsey is exposed. Here, he bitterly calls after his antagonists, who have come to taunt him, and then falls meditatively into a fine soliloquy.
By “greatness,” then, Wolsey means “power.” His bitter farewell to political esteem and influence is pretty ironic, considering that he is the cardinal. In his current state of mind, he sees the reversal of his fortunes as the workings of a malicious “killing frost” (a phrase he coins)—an evil force of nature rather than the doings of divine Providence.
Greatness…an evil force of nature
rather than the doings of divine
Providence. A malicious “killing frost.”
leona says
Source of quotes
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080512124452AAoC94P
leona says
The 1987 Constitution has 27 SECTIONS
known at the TRANSITORY PROVISIONS
under Article XVIII.
Will a RIDER have transitory provisions
longer or shorter than 27 Sections in a bill for
postponing the Barangay Elections?
It will probably require legality for
such a critical or crucial rider. Will
such a rider be submitted for a
plebescite to the people also?
How will such a ‘transition period’ be
any different from ‘transitory provisions’
for purposes of changing into a
federal system of government?
Or will this rider just GRAB what’s
whatever anyone can think of under
the sunlight and dark nights?
SEC. 1 Art. XVIII Transitory Provisions
provides:
“SECTION 1. The first elections of Members of the Congress under this Constitution shall be held on the second Monday of May, 1987.
The first local elections shall be held on a date to be determined by the President, which may be simultaneous with the election of the Members of the Congress. It shall include the election of all Members of the city or municipal councils in the Metropolitan Manila area.”
The RIDER will probably say:
“SEC. 1. Barangay Elections for 2019 shall not
take place. Instead, there will be a
transition period to change into a
federal system of government. This
period of transition shall have no
definite end until otherwise ended
by the head of the transition power.”
What will be SECTION 2 next?
SECTION 3 and so on?
SECTION 27 of the Transitory Provision
of the 1987 Const., says:
“SEC. 27. This Constitution shall take effect
immediately upon its ratification by a
majority of the votes in a plesbiscite held
for the purpose and shall supersede all
previous Constitutions.”
The rider’s last SECTION may be
saying:
“This transition period shall take effect
immediately upon its [ignorant] ratification
by [an invisible] voting of the votes cast
in a [grabbed] overcite held for the purpose
and shall remain so until a another overcite
is submitted for voting of a federal
Constitution to super-grab and supersede
the 1987 Constitution.”
‘Rat-tat-tified: Unknown until then.
[Source: Congress under the 1987
Constitution]
he he he … Arc unhelp them!
drill down says
the individual who has done most in the world to advance organized criminal activity and corruption?
arc says
is he the one voted by journalists at man of the year 2017?
Andrea says
Happy New Year! Please continue exposing the truth… I always pray for your safety.. God Bless US all peace loving people.
raissa says
Thank you, Andrea.
We appreciate it very much.