It is time for Charter Change to happen SHOOTING STRAIGHT
If there is anything that many people would want to happen it is Charter Change because the 1987 Constitution is already 30 years old and many changes have happened since that constitution was enacted. For instance, there were no cellphones when that constitution was made and so many other things have already changed. Unfortunately, the Aquino family stayed in power for a long time and then President Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III didn’t want the constitution that was named after his mother, Cory Aquino, changed. But indeed the time for change has come.
I’m glad that the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has launched a new campaign seeking an amendment to the 1987 Constitution. All the time, we thought that Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte had grown weary trying to push for Charter Change and was going to leave this issue to the next president. But accordingly, the national advocacy campaign for “equality provision” amendments under the banner of constitutional reform will be handled by Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya, spokesman for the DILG.
I gathered that the DILG is still pushing for federalism but it needed to find common ground with other member agencies before submitting recommendations to Pres. Duterte and Congress. This is something within reach with the present Duterte administration since most of the people in the legislative branch are allied to Pres. Duterte. I also learned that the DILG will embark on a countrywide forum to explain the proposed amendments to the public and obtain their support.
I also learned that one of the proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution is to include in the Charter a Supreme Court ruling that states the source of internal revenue allotment of local government units should be national taxes and not only those collected by the Bureau of Internal Revenue, thereby increasing funds for the countryside.
At this point, we should also consider giving a new term of office to all elected officials, who today are elected on a three-year term, an obvious hangover to the martial law years, while the president has a single six-year term. This can be brought into a four-year term extended to another four years like what we had in the 1935 Constitution.
So the big question is should we push for a parliamentary form of government? In my book, we should because today our politics is badly in limbo since we have a presidential system of government, but have a multi-party system that is common in a parliamentary form of governance. So really it is a matter of changing things for the better. If we keep our presidential form of government, then we should return to the two-party system with rules to prevent political butterflies. Then we can proceed with a federal form of government.
However, as I already pointed out in my past columns, we should go into a parliamentary form of government and remove the senators from our political landscape and instead allow all the governors in our federal states to double as senators, with a great advantage that the senators can represent the entire country. They would like be the House of Lords in London where they check laws enacted by the House of Commons before it is approved. So let’s get into Charter Change and let the DILG do what it needs to do!
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I read the news that Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes, during his State of the City Address on Oct. 7, 2019, announced that the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue (TEAM) will be upgraded into a department instead of being a division under the mayor’s office. This is exactly what Cebu City did to its traffic body.
But to improve traffic, more than his proposed 500 traffic enforcers, I proposed to him several years ago that he straighten the Conrado D. Seno road linking the AO del Rosario Avenue directly in front of the San Miguel Brewery along the Mandaue Highway. In this road, motorists are forced to turn left then turn right because of the presence of a gas station that blocks the road. I suggested this to Cortes who told me then that his councilors did not belong to his party. Now his councilors are with him, it is time to move forward with this project!
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