Erap - Cerebral Insights

Loopholes in the Constitution

Martial Law has been declared. Erap has been allowed to run for re-election. And in both accounts there have been serious questions as to who interpreted the constitution correctly.

In response to the Maguindanao massacre and the government’s difficulty in arresting everyone charged, GMA declared martial law in Maguindanao with the reason citing rebellion as the reason justifying the act. According to the law, (Article 7, Section 18) only invasion and rebellion are grounds for declaring Martial Law. Government officials admitted there was no actual rebellion – only a threat of one which was preventing them from implementing justice in the land. This raised questions within lawmakers as to what rebellion actually covers in the constitution.

For the upcoming presidential elections, former President Joseph Estrada, who wasn’t able to finish his term, decided to run once more for office. He has now filed his candidacy for the May 2010 Presidential Elections although there have been several groups who contested this. Every petition filed against his candidacy claims that he is violating a section of the Constitution (Article 7, Section 4) that prohibited any president from seeking reelection. However, his camp argues that he wasn’t able to finish his term and thus he is exempted from the given rule. This fired up debates on what the constitution really meant in that provision.

What I see in all these is that there are loopholes emerging from the country’s constitution. Either that or people just can’t understand what the law says. These two items that are being heavily contested are heavily influenced by the aftermath of the Martial Law declared by Marcos. The provision about declaring Martial Law covers the fact that no president should be able to lawfully justify declaring Martial Law for the sake of military rule like the one done by Marcos. The other contested provision about Erap running for reelection prevented any president from serving more than his allotted term in office thus preventing another overextended rule like that of Marcos. Both provisions that are being debated upon right now are attempts to prevent another Marcos from rising in the country.

Then again, I believe that there are certain things that should be improved upon the 1987 Constitution. The Constitution is almost 23 years old (same age as me) and in those 23 years there have been a lot of changes in the country – changes that would need some flexibility in the laws. I know a lot are wary about ChaCha and many oppose it but I think they should stop and consider the benefits of the act. I am not promoting radical changes in the Constitution but I want to see some amendments that would reflect the changing times and the changing needs of the country.

I hope our lawmakers would seriously look into the issue of fixing up loopholes in the law that gives the country such confusion like with what is happening now. I hope that instead of passing up pitiful laws like the renaming of streets, etc. they would look at the more important ones. I certainly hope our lawmakers would be able to anticipate social issues that would need more stringent laws instead of waiting for some crime to happen before coming up with the idea that a law could have prevented that from happening. Take the case of the Hayden Kho sex scandals wherein they discovered there was no exact law where he could be implicated or the recent Maguindanao massacre wherein if there was a law banning private armies, then such monstrosity could have been avoided.

The elections are fast approaching and with it the chance to once again elect some of the country’s lawmakers. I hope, as citizens who care for the democracy our forefathers fought with their blood, we would do our chance in voting wisely for lawmakers who would do what they have been elected to do – constitute laws that would be of service to the country and not amass personal wealth that would be of service only to them and a few others.

Choosing Country Over Self

Mar Roxas

Today, I admired Mar Roxas even more. When I first heard him speak during the Gerry Roxas Foundation 50th anniversary launching, I was already awed by the eloquence of how he delivered his speech. Furthermore I was awed by the sincerity oozing out from the person. I at once knew that he was a man of integrity.

After the event, and after having my photo taken with him – of which he was most kind to oblige to – I resolved to be more attuned to the current state of the country. Thus began my after lunch ritual of going to CRL (Church of the Risen Lord)’s office to have a cup of coffee while perusing the day’s headlines.

I can say that at that time I was updated with all the latest happenings in the country. And I owe that to the awareness created by Mar Roxas when I heard him give that privilege speech. Of course I did not only tuned myself to the country, I also tuned myself to the man. I researched about him and subscribed to his blogs (Twitter wasn’t yet invented that time or it was still relatively new, else I would have joined Twitter because of him).

Yet after he announced officially his intent to run for President in 2010, and when he started his infomercials, not to mention publicize his engagement to Korina, I began doubting his sincerity. Perhaps he was just like the rest – putting up shows for people to watch and know him. After all, he was inconsistent with the image he projects to the country and admittedly, the engagement announcements were tasteless.

At this point, disappointment crept in and I began to see the glare of the negative blogs about him. I stopped altogether caring about the person. Yet I knew deep down that I will still vote for him for President.

Now, he has withdrawn his candidacy. He has chosen country over self. And for that I admire him even more. His critics may argue that he was already losing, that his campaign was going to the drain and to withdraw is simply his attempt to redeem his plunking reputation but I beg to disagree. Yes, given the fact that his campaign was going nowhere and his ratings were dropping, to admit defeat is a manly and very courageous thing to do. Furthermore, to support someone who he believes will win (for whatever reasons, I can only speculate), is something that I believe took lots of guts and courage for him to do.

Considering that he has been very vocal about running for President, considering that he had received a lot of criticisms over his infomercials, considering that even his fiance has been accussed of simply wanting to be First Lady so she will marry Mar, I think it was really brave of the senator to step down and claim defeat.

He has set aside his personal ambition, his personal dream to serve the country in the highest position possible, to consider the country’s welfare. That for me is true public service. That for me is using your brains to see the nation prosper. That for me is sincerity at its best. Sincerity amidst a see of hypocrisy.

How I wish the other politicians will take heed. Don’t they see that the people are already becoming confused with the huge number of candidates we are asked to chose from? Can’t they unite under one banner – the banner of what they are fighting for. Mar recognized that he was on the same boat as Noynoy. If it was Noynoy who had more chances of winning, he was prepared to join Noynoy’s boat and fight the same cause. He wasn’t afraid to look stupid because he went against the norm of politics.

In our political system, it is so easy to break off and create another party if one is not chosen as standard bearer of his respective party even if the causes and reforms are all the same. No wonder, our country has a lot of candidates, under different party names, but basically fighting for the same causes. No wonder Erap is seriously considering running if the Opposition will not come up with one solid candidate. In fairness to Erap, I like how he thinks this time.

We still have time. It is but 8 months away till elections. I wish that the politicians will use that time to decide once and for all who they are serving – themselves or the country.

Pac Yu for President

If not Erap, then vote for Pac Yu.

When I first read that a certain Pac Yu will be running in the 2010 elections, I thought someone was throwing a really bad joke. But then it was no joke that Pac Yu, in real life Gabe Mercado, will be contending for the Philippine Presidency. Of course, he hopes no one will really vote for him, but then he swears he will be present in all Presidential debates and the sorts, not just to throw satirical comedy to the proceedings but to also poke thought-provoking questions to the serious presidential aspirants. Pac Yu is the bet of Pagbabago! a group of people who strongly oppose the administrative government and who even hopes to still oust GMA before the 2010 elections.

Pagbabago

What?! Oust GMA? With less than a year in office, they still want to oust the current president? And then what? Have Noli De Castro ascend into power? Isn’t that incredulous? You want to oust the standard bearer of the administration, who is GMA, only to be replaced by the administration’s presidential bet, who is Noli. Isn’t that absurd? I sometimes wonder if Pinoys really have the capacity to learn from the mistakes of the past. Hasn’t the impeachment of Erap taught us anything? Will we forever resort to ousting leaders who we claim were voted by the ideals of democracy?

Vice-President Noli De Castro

Vox populi, vox Dei. Yet a minority will always push that vox populi is not vox Dei and as such is not authoritative. There would always be people who would claim that the election results were cheated and the current president is unfit to be in office. But when you ask them who they would want to replace the current president, and if the one who is qualified to replace him or her is worthy, they would suddenly clam up and then in an effort to redeem themselves would speak of all other reforms that you’re not really sure would be feasible or not. No wonder I gave up listening to UP forums with OUST GMA themes.

Oust GMA Rallies

I have always believed that the solution will be a total reform of the government – one that would also force the citizens to reform their views and thoughts of politics. Right now politics has been akin to showbizness – it is a circus of artists and greedy individuals pretending to be public servants. The few who are sincere in their oath of public duty are drowned in this farce we call a democratic government.

Unless the government type changes, unless the manner and type of leadership changes, then we can expect our elections to be simply charades invented for the entertainment of the jaded Pinoy and where comical characters like Pac Yu are always welcome to make their bid and appearance. Nothing is really accomplished and we simply have to go through the motions of it all – a façade for a deteriorating government.

Erap for President

What? Again? Not this time around!

This was my reaction when I learned that Erap is seriously considering running for presidency in the 2010 elections. He even has the nerve to refer to the study made by several political experts that he wouldn’t be breaching any constitutional law by running for presidency in the year 2010.

His arguments for him being qualified to run are in fact valid since according to Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III the constitutional provision against reelection of a president applies only to a sitting or incumbent president – and since Erap is neither, then he has all the green signals to run in 2010. After all, he hasn’t finished his last presidency term and he seems to have unfinished plans for the country, right?

Yet this would only materialize if the opposition wouldn’t unite under one candidate. Erap stresses over the fact that the votes of the Filipino people would be divided over the various presidential hopefuls of the opposition. They are no other than Ping Lacson, Manny Villar, Mar Roxas, Loren Legarda, Chiz Escudero and Jejomar Binay. He is worried that the same 2004 scenario, wherein FPJ and Lacson, two oppositional candidates who fought over the presidential slot were both “cheated” of their respective votes. He maintains that cheating against the opposition would be easy if they will field a lot of presidentiable candidates in the upcoming elections.

Well, we still have July or August to find out for certain if Erap will indeed run for presidency.

***Source: The Philippine Star News Page4 May 24, 2009***

Erap’s headache over the numerous presidential aspirants of the oppositon brings to mind my opinions and views on the party system of the Philippines. The election scene of the country is obviously party-oriented and not reform oriented. I am no greaat fan of the US but I must admit that I admire their approach to democracy and elections – that is in the sense that they only have 2 parties – Democratic and Republican, the major difference being in the reforms and beliefs of the said parties. And when a voter votes, he or she considers not the politician per se but the party he is in and the reform or advocacy of that party he is part of.

In the Philippines, there is no control as to the number of parties participating in the elections. Every election year, we hear of parties being made with some fading into oblivion in the next election year. This has happened so many times that we have ceased to really concern ourselves with the party and instead managed to look at the candidate himself thus making our election process personality-based instead of reform-based. If we closely looked at the nature of these political parties, we would see that most of them have basically similar reforms albeit worded differently.

So why then are there numerous presidentiables who would simply establish their own parties if their previous party had the unfortunate slip in decision to make them the presidential bet? Does it not make us think that they are now merely running for their own personal gain and not for the reforms that they claim to be their motivations for serving the public?

I know that our country is unique and I do not have any intention of it being patterned entirely upon US election scenarios, much as I admire those scenarios. It’s just that I hope our public servants would stop and think for a while and would really be sincere in what they want to accomplish for the country. I believe it would serve the voters more if we would be able to wisely decide who to vote for, not on the merits of the candidates personality, but on the merits of the reform his party advocates.

Another thing, it is easier to vote or select when one only has two options than when one is given a multitude of choices, right?