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The 1987 Constitution is not only imperfect in that it has too many contradictory provisions and carries so much obsolete economic orthodoxies. It has also proven to be nearly impossible to amend.

The Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo administrations all tried, one way or the other, to introduce amendments to the Charter. They all failed.

True to form, the Noynoy Aquino administration did not even attempt constitutional renovation. For the former president, his mother’s Constitution is perfect.

Today, there is a broad-based effort to try and reframe the Charter. It is led by President Duterte no less and supported by the leadership of the two chambers of Congress.

A movement demanding a shift to federalism has sprouted. Seminars are being organized all over. Volunteers for the campaign are eagerly signing up.

Studies are being prepared. The emerging consensus, articulated by House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, is to have President Duterte issue an executive order calling for a panel of experts to be convened. The two chambers of Congress will then deliberate the document produced by the panel. Should it pass both chambers, the new Constitution will be submitted to the people in a plebiscite.

Former President Ramos, we will recall, went the way of a popular initiative to outmaneuver the congressional blockade put up by the conservatives. The tedious process caused the entire effort to stall.

Former President Estrada, for his part, convened a panel of experts limited to amending the economic provisions of the 1987 Charter. That panel did submit its recommendations. But Estrada’s own term in office was aborted.

Former President Arroyo convened in 2005 a Consultative Commission for Charter Change. That commission completed a draft for an entirely new basic law. That draft was submitted to Congress for its consideration. The politics of the time, however, prevented any more progress beyond that.

President Duterte did promise a shift to a federal form of government during the campaign. Initially, he wanted an elected Constitutional Convention to do the job. Last week, he was apparently won over to Speaker Alvarez’s idea of convening a panel to draft the basic document.

It revising the Charter, time is of the essence.

Considering previous attempts, it is important that the process begins in earnest early in a presidential term. This will enable the new president to use his political capital to push the effort and allow the complex process to be completed before the end of a presidential term. Otherwise, everything is lost.

The Alvarez proposal has the advantage not only because it s quicker but also because it is cheaper. If we elect a full-scale constitutional convention, the cost of conducting the election alone will run up to P7 billion.

Not everyone is happy with the more feasible option. But if it is not done, this effort will collapse under the sheer tediousness of it all.

Coal

Unless we return to the use of bunker fuel, which is a hundred times dirtier and ten times more expensive, we will have to reconcile with the use of coal to fire up our power plants.

Last week, Energy Secretary Al Cusi asked Environment Secretary Gina Lopez to be “more open” to the use of coal to fire up our biggest power generation plants. These plants account for our base load capacity and helped bring down the cost structure of our energy.

Given our level of economic development and the cost of renewable energy technologies, we will have to reconcile with  the use of coal the next few decades unless we perfect the use of potential replacements like cold fusion. There is simply no other way.

Renewable energies are fashionable but too costly. They are also unreliable as base load capacity. Our economic growth already paid dearly for decades of very high power costs since Cory Aquino decided to mothball the Bataan nuclear plant. Our industry hollowed out and we lost jobs to our neighbors.

This is the consideration behind President Duterte’s disinterest in the recently signed Paris Accords on climate change. The accords might delay the effects of global warming but it will also trap us in a high-cost energy regime.

We learned from the blackouts of the late eighties that insufficient power is costlier than any other source. Since then, we learned that some environmental costs have to be borne to keep our economy running.

Our energy costs remain among the highest in the world. That is the reason we have too few jobs in industry and morphed into a service economy.

Hydroelectricity is clean, but we do not have large rivers to build dams on. We saw from the Mindanao experience, heavy reliance on hydroelectric generation brings brownouts during droughts.

Solar energy is clean, but it is also most unreliable and very expensive. So is wind generation. We are currently ranked high in thermal energy production, thanks to our volcanic abundance. But this is a limited source with finite supply.

There are new technologies that will allow us to use this source more efficiently.  The key is adept regulation and the assurance that a competitive market is at work to allow our consumers the best price.

There is a powerful lobby to abandon cheaper energy sources to benefit economic growth in favor of newfangled renewable energy (RE) sources. This lobby pushed for the passage of Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) that forces consumers to subsidize RE start-ups.

So far, it has only succeeded in keeping our power costs high.