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2018 is key to Duterte’s grab for authoritarian powers

January 1, 2018

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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!

Tagged With: constitutional change, House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, President Elpidio Quirino, President Rodrigo Duterte, Senator Lorenzo Tañada

Comments

  1. leona says

    January 15, 2018 at 10:30 AM

    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

      January 15, 2018 at 10:34 AM

      Source of quotes

      https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080512124452AAoC94P

  2. leona says

    January 10, 2018 at 1:31 PM

    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!

  3. drill down says

    January 3, 2018 at 7:12 AM

    the individual who has done most in the world to advance organized criminal activity and corruption?

    • arc says

      January 3, 2018 at 7:39 AM

      is he the one voted by journalists at man of the year 2017?

  4. Andrea says

    January 2, 2018 at 1:55 PM

    Happy New Year! Please continue exposing the truth… I always pray for your safety.. God Bless US all peace loving people.

    • raissa says

      January 3, 2018 at 3:15 PM

      Thank you, Andrea.

      We appreciate it very much.

« Older Comments
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist Then they came fof the Trade Unionists, and I did not out speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me— And there was no one left to speak for me. —Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)

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