Legislative coup plot will
defer polls, extend terms


THE PHILIPPINES is about to be hit by a coup. The plotters are not military people but dirty politicians, supposedly the leaders of the nation. Malacañang won't be the victim, it is a willing conspirator. The victims will be the Filipino people.

The plotters are members of Congress, with a cabal in the House of Representatives as the core group. The purpose of the coup: to grab power. Congress will push a constituent assembly to amend the Constitution and change the system of government to parliamentary. The mastermind wants so much to be the chief executive but knows he can never win in a presidential election, so he wants to shift to a parliamentary system where he can win as a member of parliament (the equivalent of today's congressman) and then bribe his way to the premiership.


The Senate, which is supposedly more mature, responsible, more sensitive to public opinion and less greedy, and many of whose members are on record as against a constituent assembly, is about to cave in. And President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who has repeatedly said she is against amending the Constitution, is now a willing conspirator.

How did the House cabal convince them to change their minds?

According to the plot, their terms will be extended by at least three years. All elected public officials, from the President down to the "barangay" (village or neighborhood district) level, will have a free ride. There will be no elections next year; the incumbents will continue to hold on to their positions, while the Constitution is being amended by the constituent assembly.

Thus, the right of the people to choose their leaders would be taken away from them. Instead, a group of about 250 congressmen will usurp that right and elect the chief executive from among themselves for many fistfuls of pesos. Vote buying will be institutionalized. From 50 pesos for each voter, vote buying will balloon to 50 million pesos per Member of Parliament. Citizens can no longer choose the person they want to run the government; a handful of elite MPs will grab that power. It will be a legislative coup d'etat.

The rumor of a "No-El" (no elections) plot was no idle speculation, after all. It is now about to be put into effect.

Malacañang has given orders to pro-administration senators to agree to a constituent assembly. Even supposedly opposition senators led by Senator Edgardo Angara are rooting for it now. Only Senator Joker Arroyo (bless his soul) is speaking against it. And is Senator Loren Legarda also softening?

Ms Macapagal won't have to break her promise not to run for reelection and still be reelected in effect. Senators whose terms are expiring next year will get a bonus of another three years. Congressmen will get the lion's share of benefits. Besides the extra three years, they, as the new MPs in a parliamentary system, will be both the legislative and executive branches of government. The chief executive will be elected from among them. Cabinet members will also be chosen from their ranks. As both legislators who enact the budget and executives who spend it, it will be as if the MPs had a gold mine: the taxpayers. There will be no more checks and balances. The balance will be tilted in favor of the MPs and the checks will flow to them.

Aside from that, there will be a bonanza for each MP during the campaign and election of the prime minister. Fortunes and power can be won or lost on the basis of a few votes, so you can imagine the value of each MP's vote, each of which can run into many millions of pesos. We are complaining against wanton corruption and bribery in the government now. Wait until we have a parliamentary system, when the whole government is held in the clutches of the party in power. Remember the Avelino quote: "What are we in power for?"

We complain about political butterflies in the present setup. Wait until we change to a parliamentary system. The political butterflies will look like honeybees swarming to a beehive, the party in power, which is where all the honey will be.

So strong is this desire to grab power that the House cabal faked a House resolution calling for a constituent assembly, faked a poll survey saying that the people are now in favor of it, and will fake an excuse to postpone next year's elections to bribe the President and the senators with a three-year term extension in exchange for withdrawing opposition to a constituent assembly.

Why is the House cabal so hot on a constituent assembly when the Constitution can also be amended by a constitutional convention? Because knowing the greed and general lack of integrity and moral scruples of the present members of Congress, they know that they can control them and get what they want. All that would be needed is the equivalent of 30 pieces of silver. They are afraid they wouldn't be able to control a constitutional convention, uncertain that their candidates would get elected. The convention may not agree to a parliamentary system. But that is the main purpose of the Charter amendments. That is the only way the mastermind can become chief executive.

The ironic (and funny?) part is that even if the plot succeeds and we shift to a parliamentary system, the mastermind may not end up being prime minister after all. That coveted position may be grabbed by his province-mate, Fidel V. Ramos, the most peripatetic president and ex-president the Philippines has ever had.

The change of government will remove the ban on the admittedly ambitious Ramos to run for reelection. He can run for MP in Pangasinan province and then have himself elected prime minister. Now, that would be poetic justice.



-Neal Cruz

Con-Ass: The greed and the arrogance of power

HERE'S THE SCORE by Teodoro C. Benigno
The Philippine Star 05/07/2003


"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive," spake Emerson, if I remember right. Well, we have a black spider’s web being woven right before our eyes which goes by the abbreviated and obscene-sounding monicker of Con-Ass (Constituent Assembly). Sen. Joker Arroyo no less underscored this obscenity when he said the March 19 passage by the House of Resolution No. 16 seeking to convene Congress into a Constituent Assembly was woefully short of the required majority. By way of hyperbole, Joker said those present at midnight in the House to approve the resolution "were about as many as the fingers of your hands."

Joker should know. When he was in the House, he was often present at those "nocturnal passages" when nobody raised the question of a quorum. A few droopy congressmen said "aye" and bills weighing heavy on the nation’s destiny were passed with criminal and scandalous abandon by less than a sleepy platoon of the House’s more than 200 total membership.

But even more obscene was Senate President Franklin Drilon’s declaration that House Speaker Jose de Venecia threatened him with a coup if he does not go along with Con-Ass. Riposted the Senate president: "I am ready to face such kind of threat and I am already used to it. We will stick to our earlier position that the effective mode to amend the Constitution is through a constitutional convention." From Frank, that’s fighting language.

Tsk, tsk. So it has come to that. Blackmail, if not brass knuckles, worthy of the best of Bugsy Siegel, Joseph Bonano and Alphonse Capone.

We are assured by two Con-Ass worthies, Convenors Marietta Primicias-Goco and Alberto Pedrosa, that contrary to our fears, there will be elections in 2004. And to boot, no term extensions for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and elected public officials till 2007. This is carabao manure! Sen. Edgardo Angara, chair of the Senate committee on constitutional amendments, tells us the Senate could deliberate on the House Con-Ass resolution before June 5 and "move toward approval" when sessions resume in July. See the swindle?

Listen to this: Senator Angara states a national plebiscite could be held January or February, assuming Con-Ass is convened in July or August. Get it? NOEL. Raul Roco, Ping Lacson, Danding Cojuangco can go hang.

Dammitohell, everything has been pre-fried. There will be elections indeed in 2004. But these elections will be for a unicameral legislature. Already, the current campaign for the 2004 presidential elections is headed for the scrap heap. Already, when the plebiscite is held December or January, guns, goons and gold will be mobilized as never before to make sure Con-Ass gets a yes vote from the electorate. No wonder, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is playing patty-cake with Con-Ass, which gives her a three-year grace period to stay in Malacañang.

No wonder, the entire House membership is after the scalp of Joker Arroyo for exploding the myth that House Resolution No. 16 enjoyed a huge majority approval vote (about 130 for, only 13 against). The truth was, according to Joker, the yes votes for Con-Ass were hardly enough to form two basketball teams.

If you do not call all that greed, the arrogance of power, a rip-off of colossal proportions, I do not know what is. Con-Ass is no different from the US armada that invaded Iraq on false excuses and premises. The Con-Ass condotierre led by Speaker Jose de Venecia is about to conquer and occupy Congress on the pretext that Charter Change – this time and no other time – will liberate 80 million Filipinos. What rubbish!

And so – avast! – make way for the saviors of the Republic.

But why now? Why not hold Con-Ass next year? Or better still, why not hold elections for a Constitutional Convention in tandem with next year’s presidential elections, the switch to unicameral or parliamentary or a federation system to take place in 2010? The nation can certainly wait.

The answer is obvious. Pillage and Plunder Inc., which is Con-Ass, would do away with next year’s presidential polls which they justifiably fear will be won handily by Raul Roco who is not in their pocket. A second reason is that they have to hold on to power at all costs, because power means money, pelf, prestige, prominence, the perpetual pact with Mephisto, the continuing money-lender’s desecration of the temple.

And, if Their Honors please, don’t sell us the hogwash that parliamentary form of government is infinitely better than the presidential system. The jury is still out on that. Listen.

The two most powerful, most economically successful countries in the world today are the United States and China. America’s presidential system is the envy of all the world. It has brought about unparalleled economic prosperity, military ascendancy, a political system where law and order largely prevail, where racial minorities of every category are integrated into their culture, where health and education services are among the best in the world, if not the best. I say these despite all the nasty criticisms I have been hurling at the Republicans and George W. Bush. China is at the other end of the political pendulum. Democracy remains a complete stranger. What prevails is an authoritarian system. There are no elections to a national parliament. No political parties. The ruling apparatus is held by what formerly was the communist party which under Deng Xiaopeng launched a massive reform program 30 years ago. Today, China is bristling with uncommon capitalist energy, is poised to replace America as an economic superpower in 20 years. Its Confucian values are a compelling model.

It was not the parliamentary system of government that hoisted Europe to superpower status in the 19th century. Although Europe was the parliament’s birthplace with all sorts of political parties proliferating.

It was the Industrial Revolution, and earlier the Renaissance and the Reformation. The Industrial Revolution forged the sinews and muscles of phenomenal economic progress through vastly increased industrial and manufacturing productivity. This and the Protestant ethic of hard, relentless work, the never-ending quest for knowledge. The Renaissance brought about Europe’s great centers of learning like the universities of Leyden and the Sorbonne. As early as that period, both compulsory and advanced education opened the gully for a flood of more scientists, more engineers, more doctors and physicians, more economists, more philosophers, more builders, more entrepreneurs. The anvil and the hammer of knowledge threw out the enormous sparks that would configure the 20th century.

The parliamentary system was not all that great.

After World War II, Britain, home to parliamentary politics, became the "Sick Man of Europe". Its mixed economy was the result of Clement Attlee’s cradle-to-the grave socialism. Only the creative capitalistic touch of the Mad Monk Keith Joseph and his protégé Margaret Thatcher restored the nation’s economic and cultural juices. France, also home to parliament, and once a military giant under Napoleon Bonaparte, almost came apart under the Third Republic after WWII. It took the imperious Charles de Gaulle to rule by decree and referendum – with parliament set aside – to bring France back again to its "destiny" of charting the future of Europe.

The scholar has to pause and realize Europe’s parliamentary system of clashing ideologies gave birth to the evil political seeds that eventually exploded into the two world wars and bloodied the continent and the world as they were never bloodied before. Besides for a parliamentary system to work, we have to have genuine political parties with specific political doctrines and economic programs. We have none. We have balimbings everywhere, camp followers, mercenaries, toadies.

Our nation is in peril, whipped about by so many winds, beset by so many ills and afflictions – on its hunkers, on its knees. This is not the time to tinker and tamper with the Constitution. Con-Ass must retreat before it’s too late, before the ground under our feet opens. Before we all sink.

We have so many priorities, screaming for attention. The Philippine government loses more than P200 billion annually and this includes a thieving, insatiable Congress awash in pork barrel, the so-called congressional initiatives, extravagant allowances, equally extravagant junkets, cushy business deals and arrangements, franchise hokey-pokey, even perhaps drug money. If a congressman pockets about 4-12 million pesos monthly in pork barrel, or possibly more, then I say he is corrupt. And with Con-Ass, he will make much more money.

Con-Ass convenors Marietta Primicias-Goco and Amb. Alberto Pedrosa accuse me of painting "doomsday scenarios" instead of "dreaming of gleaming cities where our people can live in economic prosperity and peace".

Am I? Look around you, Sir, Madame. Do you see anything but a doomsday scenario? The Philippines, as per Transparency International, is the 11th most corrupt country in the world. The Philippines, as per the international media, is the "kidnap capital" of Asia. The Philippines, as per the defunct Asiaweek, is the "basket case of Asia". The same Asiaweek some years ago reported the Philippines has the "highest murder rate" in Asia. The Philippines, according to the International Herald Tribune, is the Asian country to avoid when it comes to foreign investments.

Not this time, mynheers. The greed, the arrogance must go before it destroys the Republic, and rips everything to the mercy of the howling winds.

INDICATIONS that elections will push through as contemplated in our fundamental law:

(as reported July 9)

-- Lakas (the ruling party) candidates for 2004 out by July 21, according to Ramos.

-- Malacanang confirms arrival of poll counting machines.

-- training of representatives in the various diplomatic posts for OFW registration set for next week.

Retirees from politics who supposedly have found bliss (in miraculous wells) ARE now hugging the limelight albeit behind or upfront like Enrile, Maceda et al.

Who is running-- the acknowledged ally or the touted presidentiable.

--
HOW can you brand the coco levy case as harassment. The case had been pending for the last 17 years and the defendants were given ample opportunity to defend their case. The Supreme Court has already made a similar ruling on the case.