Many Charter provisions have no enabling laws

Why amend the Constitution now when it still has 82 economic provisions that still have no enabling laws?

This was asked by former Comelec Commissioner Antonio Gorospe, a member of the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), at a news forum in Quezon City. He said most of the economic provisions of the Constitution have the condition “As may be provided by law.” However, 82 of these provisions still have no enabling laws. Can’t the changes that Congress wants be achieved through enabling laws, he asked.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte are leading the bandwagon to amend the Constitution, a move that President Aquino and the public do not want.

“It is not a priority,” the President said. The public is afraid that once the Constitution is opened to amendments, members of Congress will make changes that would benefit themselves. They would abolish the term limits. They would abolish the provision against political dynasties, another provision that still has no enabling law. That is why political dynasties are increasing.

With their increasing cadre of supporters and grassroots leaders, candidates of political dynasties have the advantage over rivals who do not belong to any political dynasty. Provinces and congressional districts become virtual fiefdoms of political dynasts.

Enrile and Belmonte say only the economic provisions would be amended. But the public feels that once the Constitution is open to amendments, there is no stopping the introduction of other amendments. In fact, many suspect that the claim that only the economic provisions would be changed is only a ploy to open the Constitution to other amendments.

“And what economic provisions need to be changed when a great majority of them are still not in effect, they having no enabling laws yet?” Gorospe asked.

“What needs to be done is to strengthen the Anti-Dummy Law,” he added. “The law is obeyed by corporations only when they file their corporation papers,” he said. “After that the government does not monitor their activities, so these corporations can do what they want in violation of the Anti-Dummy Law.” The law must be strengthened to prevent this, he stressed.

Former Rep. Mariano Tajon, who was also at the forum, favors Charter change, “at whatever cost.” He estimated that Cha-cha, by Constitutional Convention (Con-con) or Constituent Assembly (Con-ass), would cost the taxpayers at least P8 billion. “What is that?” he asked. “That is nothing compared to the benefits that we would get. Who would mind?”

“The taxpayers would,” somebody in the audience shouted.

Imagine what P8 billion can do to help the people? Imagine what P8 billion can do to initiate projects to help create more jobs. When the people have jobs, they will have the money to buy the products that factories produce. With more buyers, the factories can produce more, and the economy will improve.

Besides, we all agree that the economy has improved, somebody commented. That is under the present Constitution. So the Constitution works. So why change it?

Besides, Congress has many pending bills to attend to. A Con-ass to amend the Charter would take up much of its time and efforts, to the detriment of the pending bills. The impeachment trial already took up much of the time and energies of the legislators, now a Cha-cha would take up more. Besides, the people do not trust the present batch of legislators.

So why not a Con-con where delegates would be elected? But the same politicians and their relatives would run for election as Con-con delegates. It is as if having the current legislators as the Con-con delegates.

It is true that other independent candidates can run for the Con-con. But the candidates of the political dynasties would always defeat them. So the situation would be the same: as if the Con-con would be a Con-ass.

Besides, in a Con-con the whole Constitution would be open to change. The Con-con can even draft a new constitution. And you never know what crazy provisions the Con-con delegates would put into the new constitution.

If the Charter really has to be amended, I have repeatedly suggested in earlier columns that we amend it the way the United States has done it—one amendment at a time, enacted by Congress. The US constitution has been unchanged since it was written by its founding fathers. (We have already changed ours four times, each succeeding an imperfect one and needing further changes.) The US Charter has only been amended, one at a time. That is why there is Amendment 1, Amendment 2, etc. in the US Charter. They were enacted by Congress at no extra cost.

Besides saving precious taxpayers’ money, the US method gives the people enough time and opportunity to study and discuss each amendment thoroughly before voting for or against it in a plebiscite. In our Con-con or Con-ass method, so many provisions have to be voted upon. And the people are presented with a package deal. They either approve or reject the whole package. The bad provisions are approved together with the good. And you can be sure that our politicians will smuggle self-serving provisions that the people don’t want (such as no term limits) among provisions that people want. So that if the people want the good provisions so much, they would have to ratify the bad provisions with them.

This would not happen with one-at-a-time amendments. The people would be able to discuss and debate that one amendment thoroughly and minutely before voting on it.

Besides, it would save the people precious tax money. It can be presented to the people for ratification during the regular elections. So there would be no need for additional appropriation for the plebiscite.