Read Manolo Quezon‘s “Edsa in the post-restoration era” and find out, or be reminded, kung bakit nga ba nakabalik at nabigyan pa ng “second chance” sa politics and public service ang mga Marcos. It’s all about vindication, absolution, and restoration, preferably under a changed charter. But yes, the Charter Change debate has become predictably unpromising, even as that House of Reps P.I. TV ad dares blame EDSA for the nation’s woes. 

… The story of the battle over the Marcos money deposited in Switzerland runs parallel to that of the battle waged by the Marcoses to achieve political restoration and thus, political and social vindication: ideally, legal vindication or at least, an end to their prosecution, would logically follow. To my mind, this was, and remains, the sum total of the ambitions of the First Family.

What seems a cause of surprise and even friction within the President’s extended family is the moderation of this ambition: by this I mean, the political and social vindication that a Restoration by election provided; legal experts will have to figure out if an end to decades of legal cases will be another concrete manifestation of electoral absolution. An explicit revision of the national narrative is not yet included, beyond these implied achievements.

Even after trying to reduce things to a mere family feud hasn’t led to the abolition of Ninoy Aquino Day, the scrapping of the Edsa anniversary, the destruction of monuments, or the repealing of the law granting restitution to the victims of the dictatorship.

Now, the Edsa anniversary will become a time for the coming together of groups opposed to amending the Constitution, which tells us a thing or two about the democratic space that exists, the durability of factions and movements thought as entirely down and out, and the rickety, but surprisingly enduring, survivability of the political system no one seems to respect, admire, or even particularly, love, but which seems preferable to any effort by any subset of the political system, to change it. As I mentioned in this space last time, the whole Charter change debate has become predictable in its arguments and their inability to inspire, one way or another, an actual resolution of the problem everyone seems to sense, but no one has the confidence to risk trying to actually resolve: the inability of our political system to update itself or at the very least, modify.

Since it’s already much-abused, the often-cited quote of Karl Marx is useful here: “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.” He was responding to another restoration, in his time: that of the dynasty of Napoleon, when the French Emperor’s nephew, Louis Napoleon, was elected president of France only to make himself emperor when thwarted in his ambition to extend himself in office. Napoleon III’s reign ended in defeat and exile—but after 22 years in power, and having made the country in many ways, modern, rich, and with a larger empire. I’ve argued before, that the Marcos Restoration became, in many ways, a banality, being preceded, as it was, by two others—the Macapagal Restoration in 2001 and the Aquino Restoration of 2010. A similar thing has just taken place in Indonesia, where the former son-in-law of Suharto, a general for decades under a cloud of human rights suspicion, achieved a landslide by being transformed into a cuddly old grandfather with the backing of a popular predecessor.

It was certainly a shocker of sorts, that they dared invoke and blame EDSA and the 1987 Constitution for the nation’s ills. Randy may be right, that the Marcoses are not behind it, and it’s really a subversive move by certain unnamed funders to sabotage the charter change initiative, how nice, rich? and snaky, of them. And then again, what if it’s not addressed to us but to the social media masses who have long been tuned in to Marcosian propaganda canards characterizing EDSA as a communist affair? What if they believe it pala? I guess we will know soon enough. #chachacharot

The ‘Edsa-pwera’ ad
By Randy David

As yesterday’s Inquirer editorial (“When a Cha-cha ad backfires”) aptly put it, the paid ad that inundated primetime television early this week was “a poorly thought stunt that backfired if the intention was to gather public support for Charter change (Cha-cha).” That is if the intent was to mobilize broad support for constitutional change.

But, what if the real intent behind the ad was, in fact, to incite the broadest antipathy toward Charter change? Then, we may well say that the ad achieved its purpose. For indeed, the reaction to the advertisement was instant, passionate, and manifestly hostile to the whole idea of amending the 1987 Constitution at this time. Is it farfetched to imagine that this is exactly the public response that, for whatever reason, those who seek to preserve the current Constitution at any cost sought to generate?

On the contrary, what I find hard to believe is that a TV ad as sleek and as technically well-crafted as this could be so careless in its messaging. Perhaps, it wasn’t careless at all. By playing with the scornful word “Edsa-pwera,” a derivative of “etsa-puwera” (which means “excluded” in our language), the ad put the 1986 Edsa event at the front and center of its storyboard. The effect was to belittle not only the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution, a cherished moment of national redemption but also the untold injuries inflicted on the nation by the dictatorship that came before it. Why would any serious proponent of Charter change want to do that? Bongbong Marcos himself knew better than to demean Edsa in his carefully planned route to the presidency.

In so framing their message, the makers and sponsors of the advertisement effectively triggered a debate on the whys and wherefores of Edsa, rather than on the current realities that a valid push for Charter change seeks to address. It is a debate that those who were at Edsa would definitely not shirk.

Rather than promote them, as the ad claims, Edsa ended the monopolies that the Marcos dictatorship created, entrusted to his favored cronies, and fattened with behest loans. Edsa welcomed foreign investors even as it terminated the United States’ hold on the country’s largest military bases, which had served as the linchpin of American control of our political and economic life. The 1987 Constitution contains some of the most progressive provisions one can find in any country that is aspiring to modernity. It explicitly bans political dynasties, a provision that, however, could only be activated by legislative action. The Constitution itself cannot be faulted for Congress’ failure to enact a law corresponding to this constitutional declaration.

I doubt that President Marcos or his first cousin Speaker Martin Romualdez would wish to premise a productive discussion on Charter change on the supposed failures of Edsa. They are back in power; the last thing they need is to open old wounds and awaken dormant animosities. That advertisement does them a disservice; I don’t believe they’re behind it. [bold mine]

Indeed, Mr. Marcos has managed to endear himself even to Edsa veterans by differentiating and distancing himself from the policies and impulsive governance style of his autocratic predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. Why would he risk antagonizing them by blaming the post-Marcos Constitution for the country’s supposed stagnation?

Many of Edsa’s champions are hardly dogmatic in their views about the most suitable form of government for the country, whether this be presidential or parliamentary, unicameral or bicameral. I understand that the members of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Charter were themselves divided on many questions.

What is objectionable is when politicians propose to open the Constitution to amendments primarily for their own private agenda. The basic charter of any country should be no one’s personal tool. It must be treated as a collective covenant — the product of the positive law-making power that resides ultimately in the people of a given state.

It’s important to bear this in mind because one of the oft-cited items in the Cha-cha agenda is the proposed shift to a full parliamentary system, where the occupant of the most powerful position in government is chosen by members of parliament rather than by popular vote. This system enables individuals who may not win the popular vote at the national level to bid for the office of the prime minister. Whatever the justification for the shift may be, it should never be to merely accommodate the ambitions of anyone who is not electable nationally. By the same token, opposition to a parliamentary shift must not be motivated by a mere wish to ensure that a “strong” presumptive candidate is not denied the presidency in 2028.

The parliamentary system has its advantages (e.g., it closes the gap between legislation and execution) and disadvantages (not the least of which is the relative ease with which parliament can be dissolved and, with it, the government of the day.) The choice of the best form of government is not an exact science. In any given system, what spells the biggest difference in outcomes is the political maturity of citizens who choose their nation’s leaders.