Mercado;s Column

Viewpoint : A cage full of bananas

Juan Mercado
Inquirer News Service

THE BRITISH don't have a written constitution. They never did. But their unwritten charter extends throughout their realm, shrunken in today's post-empire era.

Like Russians, we Filipinos painstakingly scribble out our constitutions, which are often honored more in the breach than in the observance. Our transient "leaders" badger us to rewrite them to suit their equally transient plans.

People power shredded Ferdinand Marcos' Constitution that ensured his perpetual stay in power. Protests erupted in 1997 when President Fidel V. Ramos and 87 congressmen -- whose terms of office were petering out -- pushed for House Resolution 40 and Senate Bill 18. Both mandated Congress -- as a constituent assembly, not citizens in a convention -- to blue-pencil the Charter.

"That'd be like setting monkeys loose in a cage full of bananas," exploded critics.

"We can win the battle in the House," Speaker Jose de Venecia told President Ramos then. "But we'd lose the war outside."

Will they win this time?

As President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's regime stalled from the wiretapped tape scandal, Ramos dangled a "parachute": within a year, recast the Constitution to underpin a federal parliamentary democracy. Charter change could be her legacy.

"We have strained the present political system to its final limit," the President stressed in her State of the Nation Address. "It's time to start the great debate on Charter change" -- with Congress as rewrite desk.

Congressmen were ecstatic. But senators froze at the prospect of being obliterated in a unicameral system. Local executives were tantalized by liberation from "Imperial Manila" under a federal system. These triggered today's charter rewriting pandemic.

Charter change is far more important than the President's fate, citizens like Antonio Hidalgo and Jenny Llaguno told an informal gathering of Filipinos who served in the United Nations. But the move is exploited to divert attention from electoral fraud and other charges.

"Everyone's political energy is focused on bringing down or defending President Arroyo," Institute for Popular Democracy executive director Joel Rocamora wrote. "There's no way constitutional reform will go anywhere under current conditions."

Indeed, no one is fooled. For all the rhetoric, this is about simians and bananas. Most would-be charter editors cling to position, perks and pork. "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said.

"Are there constitutional provisions that need to be changed now?" a Social Weather Stations survey asked in May. Seven out of 10 replied "No." "Grassroots interest in Charter change continued to be low." Three out of 10 favor some amendments, the SWS reports.

Yet, more people feel that "something's got to give." A system that thrives on persistent near-anarchy and locks the majority into penury can only end in upheaval. The conflict treadmill hasn't stanched the migration hemorrhage of the country's best and brightest.

"There is a time for every purpose under heaven," Ecclesiastes writes. "There is a time to tear down and a time to build" -- or even rewrite constitutions. Is that time now?

A system change could end "Imperial Manila's" grip on resources and talents, say Prof. Jose Abueva, former Ambassador Jose Romero and their group. These could be funneled into a semi-starved countryside. Their ideas are distilled in a new book, "Charter Change for Good Governance: Towards a Federal Republic of the Philippines, with a Parliamentary Government."

Former Prime Minister Cesar Virata thinks a shift could end the gridlock between the executive and the legislature. As early as the 1970 convention, the late former Sen. Raul Manglapus plugged for a parliamentary system.

"Does the possibility of a switch justify the hopes that are being attached to it?" asks the veteran journalist Harvey Stockwin in "Reflections From Asia" aired over Radio-TV Hong Kong.

There are no quick fixes, warn citizens like Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales. Unless mind-sets change, the same Neanderthals would entrench further injustices using the new system.

People rejected the scorched-earth policy offered by the discredited Joseph Estrada and communist allies in a "transitory government." Instead, a consensus is emerging that impeachment proceed, while the debate on Charter change starts.

But this accord is also a refusal to be stampeded. There's a clear-eyed realization that constitutions enshrine a nation's ideals and the values a people cherish, their permanent hopes for tomorrow. To rewrite a charter wisely, "reason free of passion" is needed.

Today's banana cage of political primates won't provide that milieu. Legislators have devalued congressional hearings into stands for massive perjury by stool pigeons and seamy bagmen. Who would entrust recasting a constitution to moral ciphers?

We'd welcome Charter change drafted by delegates elected to a convention. That will be possible only if both the administration and opposition handle today's impeachment process far better than the aborted Estrada trial.

If impeachment is unfair, there'll be extortionate institutional costs. The chance for constitutional review and reform could be stripped away by turmoil.

There's enough kindling for that-from today's near-paralysis of governance, $64-a-barrel of oil, the country's degraded credit ratings, depleted natural resources, terror threats to hidden hunger. That's too high a cost for unleashing monkeys in a cage stuffed with bananas.