Wanted: A national transformation council
The Philippine Daily Inquirer headline last Monday was “DAP: 900 SAROs for Solons.” I don’t know if this means that some 900 SAROs under the control of our congressmen and women gave these to Janet Lim Napoles in exchange for a certain percentage of the money that they pocketed for themselves. This is one living proof that despite Malacañang’s defense of “good faith” the money still ended up into the personal bank accounts of those who controlled those SAROs and of course to Janet Lim Napoles.
My good friend, Dr. Rene Bullecer of Human Life International, sent me this text; “New Legal Terms & Meanings under the PNoy Regime. “Good Faith…means caught in the act. “Doctrine of Operative Fact” means if you have spent stolen money, you don’t have to return it. “Illegal Acts” acts committed by the opposition. “Bribery” PDAF/DAP generated expense. “Theft” use of public funds by the opposition. “Presumption of Innocence” A theory that exempts PNoy administration from prosecution”. How funny!
In a recent Pulse Asia survey, the “trending” is that Binay would be the next president and that Sen. Grace Poe is preferred over DILG Sec. Manuel “Mar” Roxas as the anointed one of Pres. Benigno Aquino III. What does this tell us? That despite the enormity of the nation’s problems, the political elite that has ruled this nation since we removed the conjugal Marcos dictatorship from Malacañang, most Filipinos are merely looking forward to the next elections instead of working a way to change our system of governance so we can prevent the future rape of our nation by the same political elite that has ruled us for 28 years.
What we need today is a new revolution… not the same kind that we saw in EDSA because that did not lead to the transformation of our nation. The EDSA revolt, though peaceful, only strengthened the grip of the political elite that replaced the Marcos dictatorship. Look at us today; the political elite has been caught with its hands in the nation’s coffers.
Aside from the Priority Development Assistance Program being declared as “unconstitutional,” this was followed by the same Supreme Court declaring Pres. Benigno Aquino III’s Disbursement Acceleration Program also as unconstitutional. The Aquino followers insist that PNoy did not steal anything and that the president insists on his “good faith” in order to escape impeachment or even a prison sentence.
But disturbing reports have already been released to the media as pointed out by Florida Sibayan, chairperson of the Farmworkers Alliance that the Department of Agrarian Reform recently admitted that DAP funds were used to compensate the Cojuangco-Aquino family. This accusation hits right on Pres. PNoy’s feet that the funds he released through DAP has gotten into his family’s personal account. This, in my book, is not only impeachable but criminal and smacks of sheer hypocrisy and total dishonesty!
Look at what is happening today. While there’s been numerous impeachment complaints thrown at Pres. PNoy Aquino, he still controls Congress and we can all expect that his loyal and yellow minions would never impeach him even if the evidence is crystal clear. This is the political elite protecting its leader and the current system of governance that it wants to preserve. So where are we headed with this problem? Nowhere; we’re lost! Filipinos obviously do not want to rock the boat and are merely looking forward to another presidential election. But we know too well that without any real reforms, a new President may just forgive Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, and Sen. Bong Revilla and anyone else involved in the pork scam. Then what? Happy days are here again for the political elite and the poor Filipinos continue to live in sub-human existence? I think not!
In my book, we must come up with a novel way to change our constitution to prevent the continuance in power of the political elite. Yes, I fully agree with my fellow Star columnist Carmen “Chit” Pedrosa that we should now form the National Transformation Council whose job is to take over the functions of governance until a new constitution is put in place and true democracy is restored in this country. She calls it “crowd sourcing” whereby well-meaning Filipinos would sit together to form a new constitution, which would then be ratified.
Yes this is a very revolutionary method that we are supporting, but the only way out of this mess that we are in. Of course, we expect that the political elite would never accept a transformation council, but this is the only way we can fix whatever is wrong with the Philippines. For as long as the political elite is in full control of the government, we shall never progress and join our ASEAN neighbors in economic prosperity and real development.
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