I cannot understand why Malacañang and its ?barkers? in the House of Representatives are hell-bent to amend the Constitution. What is wrong in our country is not in the Constitution and, therefore, cannot be rectified by Charter change.

Assuming economic reform is the target of the Charter change proponents, the governing law for our economy has never been the Constitution. From 1935 to 1946, it was the Payne-Aldrich Act of 1909 that prescribed free trade between the United States and the Philippines, its colony. In 1946, the Payne-Aldrich Act was replaced by the Bell Trade Act and the Parity Amendment,which, on top of free trade, imposed equality between Filipinos and Americans in the exploitation of Philippine natural resources and in the operation of public utilities in the Philippines. In 1956, the Bell Trade Act was supplanted by the Laurel-Langley Agreement which, up to 1974, extended the scope of parity to the entire economy.

In 1962, under President Diosdado Macapagal, the import substitution strategy of development, which saw the emergence of hundreds of factories here in the 1950s, was junked in favor of a regime of decontrol and devaluation. From 1962 upward to this very day, the debt conditions prescribed by the World Bank-International Monetary Fund upon debtor nations have always been the supreme law governing our economy. Basically these debt conditions, as globally enforced by the WB-IMF for the benefit of transnational corporations, are liberalization, deregulation, privatization and level-playing field. In short, ours is a free market economy?one in which sovereignty resides in the market, not in the people.

Therefore, the culprit for the massive unemployment, poverty, hunger and injustice oppressing Filipinos today is not the Constitution. The culprit is the WB-IMF prescription. Under a regime of liberalization, deregulation, privatization and level-playing field, a Third World country like the Philippines has no chance to develop and advance into the First World. It is like putting Manny Pacquiao in the ring against Mohammad Ali, George Foreman or Sonny Liston. In our part of the world, only China, Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia have achieved a qualitative transformation. Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia made it by combining a deep sense of nationhood with authoritarian rule. In China, today?s fourth largest economy in the world, the Communist Party is using the WB-IMF prescription?in short, greed-driven capitalism?as the engine of rapid economic growth.

There are, therefore, three alternative paths out of the hell the Philippines is in now: The Singapore-Malaysia-South Korea way, the Chinese way, or the way defined by Article XII of the Constitution, which is focused on the national economy and patrimony.

Otherwise, the motley opposition is correct: Charter change is nothing but a device to keep Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on top of the tiger which is poised to devour her the moment she falls off.

AMADO GAT INCIONG, Unit 301, Union Square Condominium, 145 15th Avenue, Cubao, Quezon City