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Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Malilong: Election not referendum
By Frank Malilong Jr.
The Other Side
With the setback that people’s initiative suffered in the hands of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Malacañang is now looking more and more intently at a constituent assembly to effect its desired revision of the Constitution.
PIRMA II can, of course, go to the Supreme Court to seek a reversal of the Comelec decision but that would require the high court to revisit the doctrine it laid down in the landmark case of Santiago vs. Comelec nine years ago.
It was a divided Supreme Court that ruled against the adequacy of RA 6735 as the enabling law envisioned by the Constitution to give life to people’s initiative as a mode of amending the Charter and both of the only remaining members of that Court disagreed with the majority decision.
One of them, Justice Reynato Puno, said nobody in a democracy can claim infallibility. But even if the present Supreme Court eventually decides that it was wrong the first time around, the deliberations on the main petition and the anticipated motions for reconsideration would take so much time that by the time the case shall have been resolved with finality, elections would just be around the corner.
But isn’t the same scenario possible in a constituent assembly? Note that any proposal to amend or revise the Constitution must be made by a vote of at least three-fourths of all members of Congress. The Constitution does not say whether the two chambers of Congress will be voting jointly or separately.
That question may have to be resolved, again, only by the Supreme Court. And, again, considering the novelty of the issue, it may take long for the Court to reach a final decision so much so that by that time, the May elections shall have been close, if they haven’t been held yet.
May 2007 is only eight months away. If Malacañang really believes that the people strongly favor a constitutional revamp; if it is so confident about the number and genuineness of the signatures that its factotums gathered for PIRMA II, why not let the people decide, not in a referendum but in an election?
It’s so easy and so simple to do that. Mrs. Arroyo’s problem—and her greatest motivation for Charter change —is and has been the Senate. Twelve seats, half the composition of the Upper Chamber, will be up for grabs in May 2007. Why doesn’t the President assemble a ticket of collaborators and present them to the people as an alternative to the current set of obstructionists?
Imagine what a subservient Senate can do: they will not summon members of the executive department to their endless investigations; they will not deliver privilege speeches that defame the First Family; and most of all, they will allow themselves to be abolished.
Of course, an election can go either way. If the results favor the administration, well and good; if it doesn’t, there is hell to pay.
Is it possible that Malacañang is pulling all stops in its effort to amend or revise the Constitution because it is afraid of an election?
Hello, Garci?
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 5, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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