Category: cha-cha

christian monsod calls out the president on a 2nd term and charter change

Former Commission on Elections chairman Christian Monsod, who had helped draft the 1987 Constitution, said Aquino should not think he is the only one who can institute reforms.

“We need systemic change. That’s more than the capability of one person, even if he’s a Superman. And he’s (Aquino) not a Superman,” Monsod told the ANC news channel.

Monsod said he was disappointed that Aquino was not like his mother who rejected suggestions to run for a second term although no law prevented her from doing so.

“The President didn’t sound like Cory. He sounded like Marcos in 1972 on questions of political issues beyond the scope of the Supreme Court… Then he sounded like [former President Fidel] Ramos in 1997 that he is the only one that can continue the reforms,” Monsod said.

Monsod said Aquino should trust the people to choose a leader who can continue reforms that they want.

Monsod said Aquino, in his last two years as President, should instead focus on implementing social reforms to sustain inclusive growth.

While six years may be too short for a good President, Monsod said six years is too long for a bad one and extending the constitutional limit will only worsen the country’s problems.

He added that lifting term limits could actually make the pork barrel problem worse.

“If the President is allowed reelection, it’s an incentive for him, a very strong temptation to use his discretionary funds to assure his reelection. At the same time, he wants to clip the judicial review powers of the Supreme Court, what will happen? He will have his way in misusing people’s money,” Monsod said.

Monsod said the Supreme Court’s decision against the DAP should not be used as an excuse to clip its powers.

Disagrement among the three branches of government are natural and part of the system of checks and balances, he added.

Cha-cha? 2nd Term? Cory Aquino has a message for Noynoy
Political upheavals, anti-democratic elites and the pseudo-revolutionary President

bangsamoro con chacha

it does seem like the anticipated bangsamoro deal with the MILF would have the same problematic provisions as the arroyo admin’s MOA-AD that was struck down by the supreme court back in 2008.

the only significant difference is that the mo-ad was presented as a finished product — requiring only a constitutional amendment to allow a kind of federalist substate and then congress saying yes to the whole deal — samantalang this bangsamoro framework is presented as a work in progress — nothing’s final, but here are the points that the government panel and the MILF panel have come to agree on — and from now on govt is engaging the public, esp the concerned mindanaoans, in a process of transition toward the desired bangsamoro substate-sort-of, how nice.  except that, apart for some tweaking here and there, the roadmap is clearly headed in the same direction as the failed moa-ad.

senator miriam has warned us, it would take two constitutional amendments to legalize the abolition of ARMM and the founding of bangsamoro, and i believe her more than i believe dean leonen who is saying that it would not need charter change, but who himself, In one of the early presscons, brought up the possibility of “people’s initiative” (RA 6735) as a way of amending the charter.  surely he knows that the people’s initiative, enshrined in the 1987 constitution, still lacks implementing rules and regulations.  but who knows, they might be sneaking that in right now while they distract us with cyberlibel atbp.?

there is no doubt that the charter change dance is in progress.  last tuesday, just two days after president aquino’s sunday announcement of a peace accord achieved, malou tiquia attended an afternoon forum on federalism in the house of representatives and tweeted about it.  i jumped in upon the mention of pimentel and abueva,  both ardent federalists.

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
On deck at HOR is Forum on Citizen’s Participation on Consti Reform. forum covers federalism. M one of reactors. #Federalism

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
Bangsamoro, Bangsabicol, Bangsavisaya, BangsaIlocos…n the forum starts on federalism…

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
Nene Pimentel presented a complete n very comprehensive plan on federalism. Pepe Abueva on deck.

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
“What is good for Moro ppl is good for all ppl”- Dr. Jose Abueva

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq parang we’ve heard that all before. sana someone presents too the negative side.

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago which is?

angela‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq ay, mahabang usapin, let me find links from last time’s debates

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago ur own views? What do u fear frm federalism

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq not going to change status quo. the powerful ones now will still be the powerful ones in a federal system.

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq and the costs of setting up federal govt for every region will be huge. and okay for rich regions with money. what abt poor regions

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago that can be dealt with by revising present regional set up where rich n poor can form one fed state

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq sounds good on paper, but when did rich ever really share equitably with poor

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago valid point!

angela ‏@stuartsantiago
@maltiq Federalism: Issues, Risks and Disadvantages

Malou Tiquia ‏@maltiq
@stuartsantiago thanks! Will raise agam agam

if that’s happening in the house of reps, can the senate be far behind?  what was that wednesday dinner hosted by the president and attended by all but 3 senators really all about kaya.  so it wasn’t about an enrile ouster, obviously, or he wouldn’t have been invited, too.  still it’s hard to believe senator drilon when he says it was just a thank you dinner for their votes to oust corona all of 4 months ago.  we weren’t born yesterday.

senator enrile of course is already a part of the dance, stepping up to contradict senator miriam (who else would dare?) re constitutional amendments.  charter change won’t be needed, he says, while evincing great interest in this experiment in parliamentary govt.

this should remind us that not too long ago, post-corona, pre-brady, pre-memoir, when he was smelling so good and wise, enrile and speaker belmonte joined forces and tried to convince the president about amending the constitution and making national defense a higher priority than education and — the ruling elite’s holy grail – setting the economy free from protectionist provisions.

it’s too bad that the bangsamoro dream keeps getting hijacked to serve the chacha dream of the powers-that-be.  the bangsamoro people deserve autonomy, but only as much autonomy as every other local government unit deserves and isn’t getting either in luzon, the visayas, and other parts of mindanao.  poverty, along with landlessness and joblessness,  is a nationwide affliction, and it is the fault not of the moros and other rural and urban poor who make up, what, maybe 70 %, maybe 80? of the population, rather it is the fault of imperial manila, of a central government that is loathe to share its considerable powers and resources with local governments, despite the Local Government Code of 1991 that mandates decentralization, devolution, and autonomy, complete with implementing rules and regulations.

ARMM is a failure not simply because muslim leaders are corrupt and crooked (hindi lang naman sila), but because aside from “having negligible powers, it was also hostage to the power-brokers in Malacanang.”

Since it was created, the ARMM has been led by local politicians who had been “anointed” by whoever sits in the presidential palace. The first regional governor was the local stalwart of Pres. Aquino’s Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP). The second one was a Maranaw protégé of Pres. Fidel V. Ramos. During the third ARMM elections, the FPA with the MNLF has just been signed. MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari was persuaded by Pres. Ramos to run for ARMM governor. Misuari ran virtually unopposed in the 1998 ARMM elections. By that time, a new president had replaced Ramos – Joseph Estrada. Estrada’s term was cut short by another “People Power” mass action at EDSA in 2001 because of a popular perception of his alleged plunder and other crimes against the Filipino nation. The Vice President then, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took oath as the new president. Like her predecessors, Arroyo lost no time in directing who will become the new ARMM governor. Along with her power-brokers, she made possible the (in)famous break-up of the MNLF Central Committee, easing out Misuari as its chairman. A so-called “Council of 15” was organized, with Dr. Parouk Hussin as its leader. Eventually, Malacanang also anointed Hussin to be the new ARMM governor. In last year’s elections, a new face in regional politics surfaced as the winner in the contest for the ARMM governor’s post – Gov. Datu Zaldy “Puti” Ampatuan. Despite the declaration of the ARMM as a “free zone” in terms of the most likely to be elected regional governor, there are persistent views that the new ARMM governor is also Malacanang’s bet – he is the son of Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan, widely known as Pres. GMA’s favorite local political ally. http://iag.org.ph/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43&Itemid=44

would it be any different for a bangsamoro substate-sort-of?  there is no reason to believe so.  nothing has changed.  let us see this bangsamoro framework for what it is: just another attempt to justify, make it all right for congress to shift to constituent-assembly mode for the sake of the muslims kuno, and while they’re at it, have a go at the economic provisions, and who knows what else.

after what we’ve learned from the cybercime case about how laws are made, how objectionable amendments can be sneaked in, and how some, if not most, senators and reps can themselves be clueless as to what’s really going on, and after how we’ve seen them sit on, literally, the RH and FOI bills, never mind the interests of the majority, t’s obvious that it would be a big mistake to go on trusting our lawmakers to look out for our interests.  what they look out for, administration after administration, congress after congress, are the interests of the few, the ruling elite, of which they are a fundamental part.

NO to chacha.   call me paranoid.

instead of chacha, revoke automatic appropriation for debt service!

my first reaction upon hearing of senate president enrile’s and house speaker belmonte’s joint call for charter change soon after the impeachment and ouster of the chief justice, of which they were prime movers, was to wonder, ano ito, quid-pro-quo?  the president owes them for corona and this is what they want, okay, hope for, in exchange?  it’s a relief, of course, that the prez was quick to reply that chacha is not a priority of his administration, kahit na i don’t agree with the it-aint-broke-so-why-fix-it rhetoric.

this time the arguments for deleting, changing, whatever, the nationalist, protective economic provisions are old and new.  old is the one about attracting foreign investments that our economy direly needs daw.  new is the one about giving the military a bigger budget than education, the better to build an armed force capable of driving away the chinese from west philippine sea territory.

re foreign investments, as usual some agree, some disagree: economist calixto chikiamco and senator joker arroyo agree; economist solita “winnie” monsod and columnist conrado de quiros disagree.  re an improved military budget, however, i have yet to hear anyone agreeing.  the palace via lacierda says there are already efforts to upgrade the capability of the military for a minimum defense position.  senator trillanes prefers the more prudent alternative of a peacefully resolving our differences with china and reviving our relationship as economic partners.  and senator miriam thinks charter change to boost military strength is “just wrong”:

“We just don’t have enough resources to be a world or even a regional military force… What we need is a more effective Coast Guard, not the Navy itself,” she said.

She added that she finds nothing wrong in the Constitutional provision requiring the government to allocate most of its annual budget to education.

“The hierarchy of priorities should begin with the mind. If we are clever, we can outclass the Chinese,” she said.

philstar columnist ana marie pamintuan also objects to a bigger budget for defense than for education.

The Constitution stipulates that the state “shall assign the highest budgetary priority to education…” Enrile thinks this should be subject to change depending on the nation’s needs.

Debt payments in fact have always eaten up the largest chunk of the annual national appropriation. Maybe Budget Secretary Butch Abad can devise a similar creative way of going around the constitutional provision to finance the achievement of the administration’s goal of minimum defense capability.

… As it is, education (and health, for that matter) are still pitifully lacking in funding. So if defense spending will be increased, it will have to be taken from other budgetary items.

indeed.  it’s not as if education’s budget is anywhere close to enough.  the dismal lack of classrooms and textbooks and toilets and running water for our public schools is public knowledge.  so is the low low pay of our teachers — no wonder they opt to work as domestic help abroad as a matter of survival.  so is the poor quality of public education hereabouts — k-12 won’t make a significant difference, promise!  not without money for teacher and curriculum upgrades.

so really, it’s a major major puzzlement how the senate president can even think of making bawas from that pitifully inadequate budget just to make dagdag to the defense budget.  yes, china is a problem.  yes, we need billions, even just for minimum defense, much more for the wishlist of jetfighters, mini-submarines, well-armed frigates, corvette-size combat vessels and minesweepers.  but changing the charter to take money away from education to fund any of that is simply daft, when we could, should, as pamintuan suggests, be looking instead at annual debt payments that eat up the biggest chunk of the budget.

pamintuan, however, is mistaken in thinking that the automatic appropriation for debt service is provided for in the constitution.  read the freedom from debt coalition (FDC)”s Briefer on the Automatic Debt Servicing Provision

It was during the Martial Law in the Philippines that automatic appropriation for debt service was first codified, in Section 31(B) of Presidential Decree 1177 (Budget Reform Decree of 1977). In consonance with her “honor-all-debts” policy, Aquino signed into law the Administrative code of 1987, copying en toto Section 31(B) of PD1177 into Section 26(B) of the code. Section 31(B) of PD1177 also serves as its legal basis.

read this explanatory note to House Bill 1962 authored by kabataan partylist rep mong palatino proposing the repeal of the automatic appropriation for debt service:

Because the government willingly binds itself to a law enacted not through the legislature, but by the decree of a dictator during the dark days of Martial Law to automatically spend more than a third of its annual budget on debt service, its spending on social services, from education to health care has always been grossly insufficient …

so there.  THAT deserves to be repealed, amended, undone.  THAT should be the priority of congress, not charter change.  i’m not saying let’s not pay our debts, i’m saying let’s pay in amounts we can afford.  what the senate and the house of reps should be wanting to change is not the constitution but this odious marcos decree that cory copied in full, unconditionally, without reservation, and which the fernan supreme court upheld :(

here’s senator angara, who also wants the policy changed:

Angara, vice chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that debt servicing eats up a significant portion of the national budget, depriving the poor of their right to social services. He said that at least 40 percent of the country’s budget goes to servicing of interest payments and principal amortization of debts.

During the interpellation for Senate Bill No. 2857, “An Act Institutionalizing the Participation of Civil Society Organizations (CSOS) in the Preparation and Authorization Process of the Annual National Budget, Providing Effective Mechanisms Therefore, and for Other Purposes”, Angara stressed that the policy on automatic appropriations on debt service further encourages reckless borrowing and spending as it guarantees payment without legislative intervention and without going through a thorough screening.

“The power to realign the budget and savings and the automatic debt appropriations make for a deadly combination as it allows the manipulation of the National Budget. As long as these loopholes exist, the temptation will always be present. We must therefore revisit and propose amendments to the budget laws to ensure fiscal discipline,” he proposed.

so, really, when i read this in the news today:

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said he did not have in mind doing away completely with the 60-40 ratio favoring Filipino investors over foreigners.

“Just that we need to give ourselves the flexibility by authorizing Congress to change the ratio when there is a need for it. But (the idea is) always to protect the interest of the Filipino people in controlling the economy,” Enrile explained in a radio interview over dzBB radio Sunday.

… my reaction was, OMG, invoking the interest of the filipino people in controlling the economy!  does he think we’re morons?  if the interest of the people were truly the guiding principle of congress, matagal na dapat na-undo ‘yang automatic appropriation for debt service na ‘yan.

read walden bello’s In the shadow of debt: the sad but true tale behind a quarter century of stagnation that i blogged about in may 2008, when gloria’s congress was pushing for con-ass.  i was against chacha then as i am against chacha now.

hindi charter change ang dapat nating pinag-uusapan.  not at all.  ang dapat nating pinag-uusapan ay ang pagbabago ng debt policy natin.  we spend on the average half of the budget on bayad-utang and bayad-interes para lang makautang uli.  ano ba yan.  enough na please of the model debtor strategy that has only made a basket case of our economy.

and in the comment section, TonGuE-tWisTeD wondered,

Do these big lenders give the president of a country incentives or commissions for paying early? Gloria says we need to take advantage of the strong peso by retiring most of our debts earlier. Fishy, no?

and president aquino has been doing exactly the same thing, sabay pahiram ng one billion dollars sa IMF, sabay gloat that we are no longer a debtor country but a creditor na daw.  LOL!  read Govt debt hits P5.147 trillion and weep.

 

mining & the NPA, chacha & the environment

‘Victory to the noble in heart!’
By Elmer Ordonez

A VIDEO of mining operations and the havoc wrought in the mountains of Surigao is making the rounds of social media and the Internet. It was produced by GMA network as a segment of Reporters Notebook. Unable to watch it on TV, I was glad a friend e-mailed to me the video which shows wide swaths of once forest cover now baring reddish soil as results of open-pit mining—truly destructive of the pristine environment fast vanishing from our land. In Surigao large wooded areas have been gouged with machine hoes and payloaders to harvest mineral ore which are borne by trucks to the sea wharf for loading in cargo ships.

The video came together with a Star report about the New People’s Army (NPA) raid on the mining firms’ camp where dump trucks and heavy equipment were torched, three security guards killed, and two hostages taken.

A reader wrote, “After watching the video, I realized that the rebels’ belligerence is called for and completely justified. Victory to the noble in heart!” The reader, an award-winning fictionist, is not a partisan for the rebel movement, but she must have been so outraged by the miners’ assault on our diminishing forest cover and the pollution it has caused that she could not help but express herself thus. “Victory. . .” may well be for all those fighting for clean air, clean water, environmental protection — the green “armies of the night.”

Another reader involved in anti-large scale mining advocacy in Surigao del Sur wrote that Manobos live in the area. “It is difficult and dangerous to do mass work there because local executives of towns are pro-mining; they get huge amounts and benefits from the mining companies,” she said.

Official reaction to the NPA raid is typical. The president condemned the raid and expressed concern that this would discourage foreign investments. The government’s chief negotiator in the peace talks called the NPA raiders “more of bandits than rebels.” The police chief in the same Kapihan forum cried NPA “extortion.”

On the other hand, PNoy’s adviser on environment is on video saying (prior to the raid) that the mining firms have violated the Mining Act of 1995; his DENR secretary maintains that the government pursues development not at the expense of the people.

Actually the government was remiss in enforcing the laws on mining and environment while the NPA chose to punish the erring mining firms in keeping with the policy enunciated by Luis Jalandoni, chief negotiator of the National Democratic Front in the peace talks. In a statement (October 5), Jalandoni criticized the president’s reaction to the NPA raid as thinking “only . . .of favoring foreign investments, even if extremely exploitative.” He points out that “1) the extraction of nonrenewable resources such as mineral ores for export at dirt cheap prices kills the Philippine prospects for industrialization, 2) the indigenous people are subjected to dispossession of land, mass dislocation and ruination of their lives and culture, and 3) the unbridled mining poisons the environment and damages agriculture and other forms of livelihood.”

Jalandoni reminds the government about the petition filed by the Tribal Coalition of Mindanao et al. with the Supreme Court on May 30, 2011 against the targeted mines that have already poisoned the rivers and creeks and the coastal waters of Claver, Surigao del Norte.

The petition for a writ of Kalikasan (calling for a temporary environmental protection order against the mining corporations) cites a UP study finding nickel levels in the river/water systems in the area as high as 190 mg/l while the maximum level of nickel in drinking water should only be 0.02 mg/l (according to the Department of Health and the Bureau of Food and Drugs).

For years now civil society, environmental groups and church groups like the Ecumenical Bishops Forum and the Catholic bishops have expressed alarm over the destruction of our natural resources to extract mineral deposits as in Marinduque, Negros, Benguet, Zamboanga del Norte, and Surigao. The purported financial returns for the government from the Surigao mining are shown in the video to be a pittance (P 13.7 million in taxes) compared to the P144.4 billion in profit going to the mining companies for 2010.

Now both houses of Congress are agreed in principle to change the economic provisions in the charter apparently to favor foreign investments, in keeping with the lawmakers’ neoliberal tendencies. On the other hand, the progressive party-list groups and members in the House are pushing for a People’s Mining Bill to regulate the operations of mining firms and address ecological concerns for people’s welfare.

It is time for the government to reorient its economic policies for the benefit of the people, particularly the poor and indigenous peoples, and not to endlessly feed corporate greed. It is time to take seriously environmental concerns since the country is experiencing disastrous results (like floods) of past neglect and acquiescence to foreign control.

Victory, indeed, to the noble in heart!