Category: gma

gloria makes ligaw the senate: separate voting!

august 1, 2018 — the heat is on.  malinaw na charter change ang agenda ni gloria.  and she is not wasting the house’s time on endless debates over joint vs separate voting by the two chambers.

Arroyo expressed openness to separate voting of the two chambers on the proposed amendment to the 1987 Constitution, in an ambush interview following a tree-planting ceremony at the North Luzon Expressway in Pampanga.

“[It’s] better to move forward and achieve something than be stubborn and achieve nothing,” said Arroyo.

Arroyo also recalled that the issue of joint or separate voting was the same issue that hindered the move to amend the 1987 Constitution during her presidency.

“I ended my presidency with the same stalemate—voting separately and voting together. Years later, it’s the same stalemate,” she explained.

tama naman siya.  move forward.  separate voting talaga dapat.  so.  is there a chance that the senate would respond with a matamis na oo?

for a while i thought the senate might make pakipot, but only a little, because anyone who has been keeping track of past charter change attempts via con-ass knows how seriously senators have always wanted to amend the economic provisions, not just in gloria’s time but also in pNoy’s:

In September 2011, Sen. Franklin Drilon said both Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte had concurred with his proposal to have both chambers vote separately on bills involving Charter change, which would only touch on economic provisions.   

the senate tried again five years later, on january 18 2016.

The Senate today passed on third and final reading a bill which will open up financing companies, investment houses, lending companies and adjustment companies to foreign ownership, to help increase the flow of investments and jobs into the country.

no doubt, therefore, that neither gloria nor the senate is happy with ex-cj puno’s draft proposal that retains the 40% cap on foreign ownership of corporations, public utilities, and land, even if it would allow a 30% cap on media and advertising.  no-cap across the board is the holy grail for politicians in the service of big business / the oligarchs, and this is their chance, gloria might say.  ka-ching!  ka-ching!

but, but, but, every time they’ve tried to do a con-ass in pursuit of the dream, civil society raises a howl.  read do not delete (economic provisions) from dec 2008.  though, yes, these are different times, and gloria and the lower house might think it can happen, finally, under duterte, who, i have a feeling would go along with anything, basta federalism pa rin.

the good news is, busted  si gloria.  read Pangilinan: Arroyo nod to separate voting welcome, but no guarantee.  august 2 –

Speaking on “The Source” on CNN Philippines, Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan said that Arroyo’s assurance that the House would go for separate voting in case Congress constitutes itself into a constituent assembly is a welcome development.

“However, what is to stop anyone from going to the Supreme Court and say, ‘No, it’s not separately. The letter of the law says, it’s voting jointly.’ Of course, the Senate disagrees, so what happens there?” Pangilinan said during the interview.

The Liberal Party president said that this issue would become more worrisome considering the voting record of the Supreme Court, which in May issued a landmark decision allowing the removal of a chief justice through a quo warranto or ouster petition.

… He said that Arroyo could say one thing while her allies or other groups could do another especially since cracks in the ruling coalition burst in the open following a recent leadership showdown in the House which led to the former president’s election as speaker.

besides, some senators have grievances galore against gloria arroyo.

Sen. Grace Poe has stated her displeasure over the assumption of Arroyo as House speaker because of her involvement in various controversies during her term as president.

Poe’s father, the late actor Fernando Poe Jr., ran for president against Arroyo in the 2004 elections, which was seen by many as tainted by fraud.

Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito said the rise to power of Arroyo in the House does not look good for the Duterte administration, particularly with regard to its campaign against corruption.

Ejercito’s father, former president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, was ousted in 2001 and as a result, then vice president Arroyo took over.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the other day that if the ascension of Arroyo to the speakership is a prelude to becoming prime minister later on, the people behind this should think twice.

looks like gloria can’t have her way with this senate, salamat naman, even if for the wrong reasons.  i’d love to hear a senator or two or three justify the economic protectionism enshrined in all our constitutions since quezon’s time.  even marcos did not have the heart to delete these provisions, knowing full well that it would not bode well for nation.

so.  abangan ang next moves ni ate glo, who has promises to keep.

samantala, the duterte camp remains optimistic.  ding generoso, trixie cruz-angeles, and marie banaag are prepping mocha uson for the info campaign, and my favorite ex-senator rene saguisag wonders:

Can Mocha Uson help swing the work of the consultants who played a role not spelled out in the Constitution? That’s rich. How much is there for her, as a snake oil saleswoman, in pushing for what was done by a monolithic committee with only one woman and no known Duterte critic as members? Foolish questions might have been checked at the door. (?) How would she sell four Supreme Courts in Art. IX of the consultants’ draft, just for one contentious issue?

We now see that the Palace has reportedly allocated close to P100 million for a yes campaign, in addition to what has been spent so far when it created an office. Normally creating one which requires a huge budget can originate only exclusively in the Bigger House; the Better House (Senate) may concur with amendments. The power of the purse belongs to Congress; the way Digong allocates and spends money right and left we now see in him the equivalent of Macoy, a super-executive, a super-court, a super-legislature and a one-man continuing constitutional convention.

gloria in the house: worst case scenario

i think i get it, finally, why rep danilo suarez refuses to give up the minority leadership even if he is part of the majority that ingloriously voted speaker gloria arroyo into position, AND even if there is a real minority group — a coalition of LP and makabayan bloc reps who did NOT vote for arroyo.

“The House Rules clearly state that those who voted for the winning Speaker will constitute the majority bloc. Aside from voting for Speaker Arroyo, the Suarez group did sign the manifesto of support for Speaker Arroyo and even campaigned for her. For the Suarez group to remain a minority bloc is beyond reasonable,” Quimbo said.

beyond reasonable, beyond acceptable, but it would seem that gloria and her megamajority do not want to have to deal with a real minority.  i strongly suspect that it’s because they are still on charter change mode, but without resorting to no-el, which is what did alvarez in.  and now they are testing the waters with this suarez kapit-tuko-sa-posisyon.  if they got away with breaking the rules and improvising to unseat alvarez, maybe they can get away with this, too, in these very fluid times under duterte?

i wouldn’t put it past GMA and her cohorts to have promised sara duterte that without a pesky dissenting minority, they can do a cha-cha via con-ass in time for an info campaign in the run-up to may 2019 AND still pass the 2019 budget (or not, re-enact 2018 na lang) at kung ano-ano pa kuno, before she steps down (or not) in 2019.

GMA, by the way, is a veteran at failed chacha attempts.  maybe she thinks that the 5th (?)  time’s a charm?  read What went before: Past charter change attempts.   

worst case scenario, given duterte’s marching orders:  the lower house convenes (in secret, if necessary) as a constitutional assembly, passes (in the dead of night, possibly) its version of a federal constitution that favors incumbents, and presents it to the nation as a fait accompli, requiring only the people’s approval in a plebiscite kasabay ng may 2019 midterm elections.

never mind that 2 out of 3 filipinos do not know enough about the constitution, much less about the proposed replacement, to make an informed decision on the matter.  maybe the duterte and arroyo camps even consider this a plus in their favor — since there’s no time for a massive multi-media multi-lingual information campaign, much less time for serious debates nationwide, they will simply appeal to / for the people’s trust.  i can already hear mocha uson urging her 5 million followers: let’s trust tatay digong on this, maniwala tayo, manalig tayo, he knows what’s best, vote YES!  argh.

i hope i’m wrong.  my imagination on overdrive.  but if i’m right, and the senate is unable to stop it, ‘twould be time to hit the streets, the people and the senators, together.

save the BBL

i get it naman.  of course, the president wants the BBL passed and in place by the time he steps down so he can take full credit for it, even bag that rumoured-to-be-coveted peace prize.  after all, this is a legacy kind of thing that he’s been pushing for since august 2011.

looking back now to that august day when he surprised one and all with that historic first meeting with the MILF’s murad in tokyo to talk peace (effectively drowning out some of the noise over the first anniversary of the luneta bloodbath), i wondered when he started planning it in earnest.  surely it was already a gleam in his eye six months earlier, in February, when he asked congress to postpone the august 2011 ARMM elections to may 2013.  lalo na if he had already received the draft peace agreement that the MILF is said to have been presented to the aquino administration that same february.  he must have known it was coming, at the very least.

fast forward to october 15  2012, a monday, when the framework agreement on the bangsamoro was signed.  oct 12 i blogged that the chacha dance was in progress.

 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.

the very next day, the president hosted a dinner attended by all but 3 senators.

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.

even then, senator miriam was warning that it would take two constitutional amendments to legalize the abolition of ARMM and the founding of bangsamoro.  however, lead negotiator dean leonen belied that, it would not need chacha, he said, even if he had also mentioned in an earlier presscon the possibility of “people’s initiative” as a way of amending the charter.

2012

just the same, 2012’s end saw the president firmly in control – congress was cooperative, sereno had replaced corona in the supreme court, chacha was, at the very least, in the air, just in case the constitution got in the way.  and work on the four annexes to the framework agreement on the bangsamoro – power-sharing, wealth-sharing, normalization, and transitional arrangements and modalities – was decidedly underway.

 2013

2013 however was a bitch, especially the second half.  the inquirer broke the napoles-PDAF scandal in mid-july,  jinggoy exposed the corona-DAP payouts in september.  the people were marching, with and without the Left.  the supreme court ruled PDAF unconstitutional.  and let’s not forget the zamboanga siege.  the prez must have taken comfort in the peace talks even if took all of 2013 to almost finish  crafting the 4 annexes.

in his july 22 SONA, the president urged congress to pass the BBL before the end of 2014 so the bangsamoro transition authority (BTA) could take over and prepare for the may 2016 election of the bangsamoro’s first set of officials.

2014

as it turned out, 2014 was super-masalimuot, even ma-drama, for the BBL.  all annexes done by january 2014, the comprehensive agreement on the bangsamoro (CAB) was finally signed on march 27.   the palace got its copy of the final draft law on april 22, but instead of forwarding it forthwith to congress, as the MILF expected the president would do, the palace spent almost another two months reviewing it, and revising it, to make sure it was in the best possible shape for smooth sailing in congress.

june 21 the MILF received the revised draft law.  a few days later, without going into specifics, murad expressed grave concern that the proposed revisions by the palace “heavily diluted” and practically rejected the BBL draft agreed upon by the MILF and government panels.

Murad in an interview with MindaNews said he told the President that they were “very disgusted” by the proposed revisions to the BTC draft because “almost everything was … reformulated” and “it was not only the provisions introduced in the BTC that were changed but even those provisions in the agreement itself were diluted.”

by SONA time in july, nothing was settled.

… the President on Monday merely asked for “pang-unawa” (understanding) while the draft is being scrutinized per provision so that what would be submitted to Congress would be a draft bill that is “makatuwiran, makatarungan, at katanggap-tanggap sa lahat(fair, just and acceptable to all).

the president was also criticized for “two oversights”:

Among those inside the House of Representatives while the President was delivering his SONA were Mohagher Iqbal, MILF peace panel and chair of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC), the body tasked to draft the BBL and some members of the BTC.

The President, however, failed to acknowledge their presence.

While his advisers may consider that a minor oversight, a major oversight was the fact that the President could have made the SONA meaningful for the Moro constituents by greeting them “Eid Mubarak” in celebration of Eid’l Fitr, the end of the month-long Ramadan which coincidentally fell on the day he delivered his SONA.

a final round of talks happened august 1 to 10 in davao city but both panels refused to budge, failing to craft a “mutually acceptable” draft BBL.

In the morning of August 10, the panels continued their meeting at the Kalaw Room of the Waterfront Insular Hotel with neither party knowing if there would be a press conference at all. Although both sides would reportedly issue a press statement, what to say in that statement was still a problem in the morning.

and who should come to the rescue but executive secretary paquito ochoa.

From a morning of “no direction” on August 10, it became an afternoon of action when Ochoa arrived at noon and practically took over the helm of the negotiations on behalf of government, meeting separately with the panel chairs.

MindaNews learned there was not a single panel to panel meeting although the GPH peace panel led by chair Miriam Coronel-Ferrer was in the same venue.

Three meetings were held between Ochoa and Iqbal – in Malagos on Wednesday afternoon, Marco Polo on Thursday afternoon and shortly before noon Friday.
Ochoa was accompanied to the meetings by Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Alfredo Benjamin Sabater Caguioa.

finally on august 15, a joint statement announced the conclusion of discussions on the various issues involving april’s draft BBL  not that ochoa and iqbal were done talking. carolyn arguillas reported:

Iqbal and Ochoa met again in Manila starting August 19 with the consolidated draft submitted to President Aquino through Ochoa at 8 p.m. on August 20. Several more meetings were held after the President’s review last week and the last remaining issue is expected to be resolved this week.

on september 4, there was a last (?) meeting between the president and MILF chair murad, and  a week later, on september 10, the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law was submitted to Congress.

Aquino said in in Filipino that he fully believes that the proposed law is “in accordance with our Constitution and with the principles of our Framework Agreement, and that it reflects our shared efforts towards growth that leaves no one behind.”

september 14, cagayan de oro rep rufus rodriguez was optimistic that the draft basic bangsamoro law would be passed by december 17 so that the plebiscite could be held in february or march 2015.  but in november, the committee was still conducting public hearings and consultations, and he was looking at feb 2015 for passage, delaying too the plebisicite.

2015

january 25 when i first heard of what went down in mamasapano, my reaction was, oh no, who’s sabotaging the peace process???  not that i was sold on the BBL.  on twitter i was asking how peace with the MILF only could mean peace in mindanao.  but post-mamasapano, after reading mindanews‘ running reports of the peace talks by carolyn arguillas, and opinions from left, right, and center of mainstream and social media, i find myself squarely on the side of peace.  war is not the answer.

read bong o.wenceslao’s BBL won’t benefit MILF alone

…  the BBL is not about the MILF. It is wrong to assume that the BBL’s provisions are intended to benefit a particular group. The BBL is for the Bangsamoro people, or those who want to be part of a Bangsamoro entity. In a way, it is a gift of the Philippine state to the Moro people.

Mohagher Iqbal, the head of the MILF panel to the peace talks, mentioned this during the Senate hearing on the Mamasapano clash. Once the Bangsamoro entity is established, the MILF will transform itself into a political party. In a way, it will have the inside track in the elections that will follow, but other Muslim groups can form their own political parties to steal the initiative from the MILF.

When asked what MILF will do if it loses in the elections, Iqbal said, “e, di talo.” But that does not mean MILF would be able to take up arms again because by then its armed force will already be disbanded.

right now the fate of the BBL seems to hinge on how the MILF will handle any demands for the surrender of the killers of SAF 44.  but government was at fault, too, for not coordinating with the MILF, and the AFP, even if for valid reasons.  like edilberto c. de jesus says in Roles reinforced, roles reversed:

The question that should have been probed before launching Exodus: Was Marwan’s elimination worth the risk of derailing the BBL process and the prospects for peace in Mindanao?

If the resumption of war turns out to be the cost of Exodus, Marwan, with assistance from our politicians, would have achieved his biggest triumph.

read too tony la vina’s Pathways forward after Mamasapano where he defends miriam ferrer and ging deles and the peace process, and rightly so.

I will concede one thing. Externally, not just in the words but also in their body language, the two panels – the government and the MILF – seemed to have meshed together into a single unit. This can be explained by the joint ownership they have of the process and the trust they have built with each. But unfortunately it does not show how difficult and contentious it has been to get to where we are. For those of us who have followed how the details of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) and the draft BBL got put into place, we know that the two panels fought over many concepts, phrases, and words, and settled only with compromises after considerable time. But all of that is lost with the public who sees the image of the two panels now locked into each other in what seems to be an unhealthy embrace.

Moreover, because there has been wide acceptance of the peace process for a long stretch, there has been no need and thus no practice by the government on how to defend it on multiple fronts. It is absolutely not true that the Aquino and OPAPP have not been transparent on the peace process. They have briefed Congress many times, certainly local officials and the Mindanao business and peace advocacy communities. The congressional hearings on the BBL have also been very inclusive.

The truth is that, until Mamasapano, objections were muted and for most of these last five years, it has been mainly the government and the MILF talking to each other, with peace supporters cheering them on.

… My unsolicited advice now to both panels is to learn the lesson from that unfortunate period. The cat is out of the bag. Spoilers of the peace process are now on the loose. But there are many good, reasonable and patriotic, and pro-peace people, and mean well, who are also critics of the BBL. That’s how I would approach the revising of the BBL: not all its critics are enemies of peace; the current version can be improved by engaging even those who are against it and especially those who have cited its legal flaws.

yes.  senator miriam and everyone else who says we must scrap the BBL, start over, are out of their minds.  starting over only means eventually coming to this point again instead of facing this that we face now.

the palace has to do its part.  drop the now-or-never stance.

Malacañang believes the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) will not be approved in the next administration.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda made this clear yesterday as he rejected calls for the crafting of an alternative to the BBL that can be left for the next administration to tackle.

“We don’t see ourselves looking at the BBL being passed by the next administration. It’s either BBL or no BBL,” Lacierda declared.

it was in march 2010, still in the time of gloria, when the MILF finally dropped its bid for secession/independence — the outcome of resumed peace talks between the arroyo government and the MILF post-MOA-AD.  the aquino administration can do better, endorse the BBL to the next administration, kaysa madaliin ngayon – kaya ba? – para rin magkaroon ng panahon for a proper transition phase.

certainly the president would need a cooperative congress.  maybe it’s time to call in the trouble-shooting executive secretary ochoa to do the honors, wreak his kind of magic once more, for nation.

gloria & the archbishop vs. RH

i’m sorry gloria arroyo choked on that lemon, i mean, melon, not too long after she went back to congress to rally her troops against the RH bill.  sorry because it means she’s not likely to make it to the edsa shrine on saturday to join manila archbishop luis antonio tagle’s anti-RH rally.  it would have been quite a sight to see, gma joining hands with the church, or is it, the church joining hands with gma, vs. the ardent RH advocacy of 7 out of 10 pinoys.

actually, ok rin that gma has taken that unequivocal stand against RH, whether it’s because she doesn’t want to lose the supposed, tho perhaps mythical, catholic vote (if not for herself, then for her sons) that the church can allegedly, again possibly mythically, muster against recalcitrants, or whether it’s because she truly believes that artificial contraception is bad and she herself never indulged back in her fecund pre-menopause days.  whatever, i like it that she’s made this mistake of sucking up to the church rather than sucking up to us.  at the very least it has forced the president to be clearer about his support for whatever the majority of filipinos want. 

what if gloria had taken a pro-RH stand instead?  panalo na sigurado, kahit sa house of reps lang.  end of debate.  vote na, now na.  not that it would have endeared her to most of us in a heartbeat, but hey, it would have been great spin material in that future when she wants to flee again to save her neck and she would need all the sympathy and goodwill she can get.

as for the new archbishop of manila, well, he’s proving right what analysts predicted when he assumed the post:

Analysts on Church affairs said Tagle would be a potent weapon against proposals to legalize divorce in the Philippines and improve access to contraception through his close links with the Catholic middle class and civil society groups.

potent weapon, hmmm.  but going down that edsa-rally road isn’t very smart of him.  lalo na’t the church has not been engaged in any run-up action that we know of re the RH bill other than labelling it pro-abortion (which is a lie) AND making gapang the congressmen, and maybe the senators, and, who knows, maybe offering all kinds of goodies — the church is verrrry rich, let’s keep in mind — in exchange for the legislators’ NO votes when the time comes.

what if, instead, archbishop tagle had spearheaded, finally, a vigorous information campaign on natural family planning, one addressed to both women AND men, on when and how to make pigil their panggigigil (them celibates should know).  at least nasimulan na ang sex education.  again, great spin material, win or lose, and the bishops can even seriously pitch the joys, nay, the heavenly rewards, of abstinence and celibacy.

but the die is cast.  tomorrow’s rally should be interesting to see.  will the church make hakot students of catholic schools, nuns and priests, legions of mary, the catholic women’s league, couples for christ, the opus dei?  will gloria send elena da horn to represent her? will the senate send in da eat bulaga clown to sing “magkaisa”?

sana umulan.