Monday, December 11, 2006 Ellorin: For the love of Gloria By BenCyrus G. Ellorin Fastlanes
ONE of the most important principles of democracy is the principle of check and balance. It is enshrined in our Constitution through the following:
- Freedom of expression, redress of grievances and petition government;
- Accountability of public officials; public service is public trust;
- The right to suffrage;
- Separation of power: executive, legislative and judiciary as co-equal branches of government. Wherein the 1) legislative (Senate and House of Representatives) makes the policies (laws), approves the budget, oversight function over government entities, among others; 2) executive implements the law, has veto power over Congress, the
President is impeachable; and 3) judiciary is the arbiter, interprets the law, and has the power of judicial review.
What this charter change wants to run roughshod is basically this check and balance feature of our democracy.
If we allow the wrecking of this feature then we allow our freedom and civil liberties to slip away.
There is utter lack of transparency in the process of charter change.
The people are left in the dark what they want changed in our Constitution. The people all the more have not been consulted on the process.
And in order to make sure the mad running dogs of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will succeed in doing what their master is doing, they changed the rules of the game mid-way by amending the rules of the House of Representatives.
It was like Morales asking the referee to tie the left-hand of Manny Pacquiao in their last fight so that he will surely win.
The only semblance of consultation were the processes of the farcical Consultative Commission and the Advocacy Commission which really did not ask the people about what they thought of our constitution but were lecture sessions of people advocating for charter change.
The people's initiative as we all know have been struck down by the Supreme Court.
From the available documents on charter change we can cull these changes:
1) Shift from bicameral to unicameral, meaning the Senate will be abolished. This has far reaching implications. Why abolish the Senate?
The obvious reason is that it had proven to be a thorn on the throat of the fake occupant of Malacañang for standing independent as a democratic institution. It has its limitations but it had been a true beacon of our democracy;
2) Parliamentary -- meaning the executive and legislative are merged. In parliamentary systems the oversight function or the check and balance function between the executive and the legislative is through the question hour, usually in the morning session and the afternoon session for legislative work.
Question hour is akin to the legislative inquiries in aid of legislation. Something the fake GMA administration is so allergic because it wants to hide under the rag of corruption and how she got there (Hello Garci).
From available documents like the Concom version, they have limited the question hour to once a month;
3) Remove the power of judicial review, meaning the Supreme Court can no longer act on actions by government and its instrumentality that are tantamount to abuse of discretion, amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction (e.g. Certiorari).
4) Transitory Provision -- Provides for the constitutionally defined term of office of GMA and for her to concurrently sit as Prime Minister and President until her term expires on June 30, 2010.
This Transitory Provision makes her totally unaccountable to the people. She may steal, kill, lie and cheat every day, every week and every minute of the day and commit all sorts of culpable violation of the Constitution without fear of impeachment.
Even if the Minority (opposition) in the Parliament now wins the Majority, Gloria remains the President and Prime Minister.
What this all sums up to is perpetuation of GMA in office. All for the obsession to power by one person, our democracy is now dangerously placed in the cliff of certain demise by that so-called Cha-cha train.
And the way her mad dogs in Congress are acting now, we may wake up some day that her ruthless cabal of trigger happy thieves literally running their way to the bank.
This is why the people should now show to them that we are not all gullible.
And we'd better not really dance the Cha-cha, better for us to listen to the Pussy Cat Dolls hit song "Don't Cha" rather than allow ourselves to be living in a society so unchecked, unbalanced and ruled by uncouth (garapal) people.
The writer is a community organizer and environment campaigner based in Cagayan de Oro. Comments can be sent to bency.ellorin@ gmail.com
