Frank talk can end Cha-cha tit-for-tat

It takes two to cha-cha. But in Charter Changing (Cha-Cha) the Senate and House of Reps are going their separate ways. Senate President Koko Pimentel and House Speaker Bebot Alvarez see a need to switch from the present unitary to federal-type government. President Rodrigo Duterte warns of worse fighting than witnessed in Marawi if the Bangsamoro Basic Law, which requires federal set-up, is not enacted. No time to lose.

Alvarez asked senators to a joint session to draft a federal Constitution. In such gathering, though, the voting too would be joint, he said. That’s the congressmen’s interpretation of Article 14, “Any amendment to or revision of this Constitution may be proposed by the Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its members.”

No way, senators declined. Such notion would trivialize them. The House has 296 seats, the Senate 24. Three-fourths of their combined 320 is 240. The House supermajority easily can muster that magic sum of 240; in fact it has 278 members. Senators would be outvoted at every turn.

Senators need not fret, congressmen said in hinting at a prize. A shift to federal type would take years; incumbent senators – and congressmen, of course – may scrap pesky elections in 2019; all their terms can be extended till 2022 or beyond.

That’s selfish interest, senators gasped. That’s all the congressmen want after all: expense-free stay in power.

Look who’s talking the congressmen sneered. The senators know that congressmen are contemplating corollary shifts from bicameral to unicameral legislature, and presidential to parliamentary form; thus abolishing the senate. “The senators should look at the nation’s interest, not theirs,” Alvarez shot back.

The senators pre-empted Alvarez and agreed to convene soon as a constituent assembly. They’d Cha-Cha on their own. The senators also warned each other: whosoever saunters over to the House to Cha-Cha there would be expelled.

In that case, congressmen would Cha-Cha alone too, and come up with the three-fourths vote. Not only that, they’d proceed with a plebiscite in which they’re comfortable to get the electorate’s majority to ratify a new Constitution. For good measure, they’d make local officials campaign and clap to their Cha-Cha, or else lose their internal revenue allotments. After all, all tax measures emanate from the House.

Not so fast, senators glared. It takes congressional budgeting to hold a plebiscite. If senators withhold any allocation, the House Cha-Cha jukebox would stop playing. What then?

“Kung gan’un, e di rebolusyon na lang!” Alvarez remarked in the Sapol radio show last Saturday.

What does that mean? Revolutionary government? Declaration of all government positions vacant? The President alone to remain, maybe reappoint some officials, and reform the Constitution? One-man rule with a handful of cronies?

Perhaps the senators and congressmen must come back to the dance floor and start over. Their discordant Cha-Cha is tearing up the Republic.

*      *      *

What’s wrong is wrong, the Securities and Exchange Commission insisted in the case of Rappler. It had cancelled the online news group’s incorporation on discovery of two American owners. That violates the Constitution, which limits media ownership only to Filipinos. (A sillier proviso limits advertising firms to only up to 30 percent foreign!) Rappler had claimed that the foreign investors are non-voting anyway. It doesn’t matter, the SEC said, it’s still wrong.

Rappler in turn decried two constitutional breaches. Supposedly the SEC deprived it of due process in disenfranchising it without affording it the chance to correct its lapse. Supposedly too freedom of the press is abridged, as the SEC followed presidential dictates. Rappler recounted that President Duterte, smarting from its constant criticisms, had hinted in his State of the Nation last July about exposing the news outfit’s foreign ownership. And it has happened in the SEC action. Duterte sighed that he had nothing to do with it; he has appointed only one of the SEC’s five commissioners to date, while the rest are from the past Aquino admin that Rappler had supported.

The Secretary of Justice butted in that he would study what raps to file against Rappler. Then the National Bureau of Investigation under him summoned Rappler’s chief executive and an ex-reporter to its headquarters on a complaint of cybercrime. It has to do with a Rappler report on May 2012 about a Chevrolet Suburban, plate number ZWK 111, of Filipino-Chinese businessman Wilfredo Keng. Then-Chief Justice Renato Corona had been impeached, and reportedly was using the luxury SUV to attend the Senate trial. Keng reportedly had a pending case with the Supreme Court at the time. He admitted owning the ZWK 111 plate but not the vehicle. And so the cyber-libel.

But wait a minute. Congress had passed the Cybercrime Prevention Law or R.A. 10175, on Sept. 12, 2012. Its Implementing Rules and Regulations were issued Oct. 15, 2013. No ex post facto law may be passed, the Bill of Rights guarantees. How can Rappler be accused of cybercrime in May 2012 under a law enacted in Sept. 2012 and effective Oct. 2013? What’s wrong is wrong.

*      *      *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

Gotcha archives on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarius-Bondoc/1376602159218459, or The STAR website http://www.philstar.com/author/Jarius%20Bondoc/GOTCHA