The better way to go

It is good that Duterte has decided to appoint 25 members instead of an election or a constituent assembly. Both would block the reforms he was elected for.

He must open the doors far and wide to match the support that came from different classes and professions. It was the crowd that wanted change and they came in droves reaching a climax in his May 7 miting de avance.

In a meeting with STAR, candidate Mar Roxas made fun of constitution making as nothing but as a piece of paper. He obviously does not understand what a Constitution is for but so do many who think a Constitution is for ‘experts.’

It may be so with the final draft but not with the draft-making which must have the contributions from the crowd. We already know what the crowd seeks in principle – change in the political structure and ultimately Filipino society.

Indeed as the Duterte government unfolds it is becoming more and more like a battle between politicians vs. the people. One rumor I heard is that when the President wanted former Chief Justice Reynato Puno to head the commission it was immediately shot down by the PDP-Laban political party. Please let us be clear about this. It is not the PDP Laban which made Duterte President but Duterte who picked up the PDP-Laban from obscurity by using the party.

Puno is both an expert and his heart is with the masses. In many talks with him he suggested that the creation of jobs and the well-being of the masses must be in the bill of rights.

Duterte has signed Executive Order 10, creating a committee to review the 1987 Constitution by 25 different experts which is still to be completed. We need more than a review.

I would suggest something similar to what Iceland did when it changed its Constitution – it referred to the crowd. It must invite inputs from a wide set of both experts and non-experts that would change Filipino society into its transition from presidential unitary to parliamentary federal. This phase should not be left to Congress with its vested interests.

The creation of jobs and better lives for the masses must be aligned with the switch to federalism and the lifting of the constitutional 60-40 rule on foreign ownership of local businesses.

The Iceland experiment offers a workable model for a large level of civic participation. The model will have weaknesses but if we retain the current framework we will have a draft constitution that does not meet the expectations of the masses. The Icelandic model with a reform process that relied almost exclusively on civil society during the drafting phase can, in fact, be done.

Social media allows lawmakers the opportunity to crowd-source content from the citizenry in a way that was not possible ten years ago. The Icelandic model also shows how an appeal to civil society can strengthen the democratic legitimacy of a Constitution.

Lastly, the Iceland experiment shows that the impetus for constitutional change can, and usually does, come directly from the people. “Called the “Kitchenware Revolution” it channeled citizens’ frustration and anger into change, jumpstarting a constitutional reform process that had been stuck in political deadlock for over 60 years. That job has already been done by the Duterte crowds in the Philippines.

We voted for Duterte for his platform of change and he won by the millions. He captured the masses because of their desire for change. We may differ with each other on other issues or how we will do it but we must agree on change. We must be single-minded about it.

I remember in an advocacy meeting with farmers one of them came forward to say “Gawin na ninyo ang dapat gawin. Hindi nagpapalit ang aming buhay kung ito ang ating sistema. Umaasa kami sa inyong mas marunong.” Simple.

The change we want is how to include the masses or marginal sectors in government. I don’t want to use the term class struggle but it is.

This is the classic result of the abuse of power and wealth by one class. That is why we need a new system of government that will change the relations between government and the people and elite with the masses.

We also need to tap competent people as it was done in Singapore. As Lee Kuan Yew said, if he could say in one word why Singapore succeeded, he said “meritocracy.” Competent officials will not thrive in a presidential unitary system of government which is all about graft, money and an organization fueled by money. Worse as we have now found out with the De Lima case, money also comes from drugs. Unless stopped it will be the drug lords who will decide elections with government officials beholden to drug lords.

The election of Duterte is only the start. We must be reminded it is only the beginning of a long fight ahead.

We must all help to achieve what we set out to do in voting for Duterte. He has said many times that he needs all our help.

“Of all the most important systemic and fundamental constitutional reforms that must be implemented in order to improve the Philippines, federalism is the reform that has the most solid support among most ordinary Filipinos. Particularly in the Visayas-Mindanao and even in the Solid North, Bicol, and Muslim Mindanao regions, federalism is widely appreciated and understood even by ordinary plebeians and proletarians to be of utmost urgency in order to fix the Philippines.

It is not true that “federalism will empower warlords and political dynasties,” says the Correct Movement.

Former Philippine Speaker Jose de Venecia cited this as a problem of the world with only 80 of world’s richest men owning 60 percent of world’s wealth. The former Philippine speaker was an active supporter of the shift to parliamentary federal government in the Philippines.

He believes that we can draw the best elements of capitalism and socialism. “In the Philippines, the income and social gap is so great that like Disraeli’s Britain in the 1840s, the rich and the poor among us have become virtually ‘two nations’”.

In 2011, the richest Philippine families accounted for 76 percent of our country’s gross national income. The two richest families alone together held six percent of our entire economy.”