Dear Manila,
I write this still stunned. The power, the speed and the tenacity by which Philippine House Resolution 1109 transforming Congress into a Constituent Assembly was adopted, it was simply mind over matter. Your valiant and dedicated Congressmen fought sleep and sanity and reason. The Eighth Republic as you slept, Manila, was conceived and dedicated and they dream for it to endure. This even as other more important legislation were set aside like the Reproductive Health Bill and measure on Comprehensive Agrarian Reform.
While you slept, the media whose promise has always been to inform the Filipino people, failed you miserably save for coverage from ABS-CBN’s News Channel and a handful of others. It failed to be your eyes and ears at a moment you most needed it. It preferred to put sex tapes and gossip above the national interest. Perhaps they thought you wouldn’t be interested or wouldn’t care. Ratings after all are important.
Even as Mainstream Media stood idly by despite repeated calls from many of those online to COVER IT, our primary vector was Twitter. It has become a messaging service that kept the fires going. And our noise and our grievance and our indignation could only be expressed here on Cyberspace. @caffeinesparks was our eyes and ears at the Batasan. She watched and tweeted as Congress legalized insanity. Soon enough streams started coming online. There was even a point, sparks was about to be evicted from her place at the gallery.
HR1109 is by no means the End. It could be the beginning of the end. When you wake up, slow and inept the defense for the Seventh Republic may be but I hope the people will challenge the House’s stupidity in every forum. For all its worth: I urge every Filipino from every walk of life, from across the globe to rise to its defense! And our united opposition against this measure must not give any quarter. It must show every bit of tenacity that the Asses have displayed!
Don’t get me wrong. Charter Change, per se isn’t wrong. I believe there are many other ways to right this ship of state long before we have to evoke the option of playing with our Constitution. And as Corruption fuels this country, do you trust the men and women running it to change the very foundation of the Republic? To have every opportunity to pervert and twist this nation to their very image?
There are even pro-Charter Change like @faithlessphil who tweeted:
Here is the thing: I’m FOR a constitutional revision. Our joke of a senate is enough reason for change. But Jesus, not this way.
In more ways than one, definitely not this way.
The crime and cancer of corruption is everywhere, preying on the spirit of this nation. And as we witnessed a few weeks ago durning the Great Book Blockade of 2009, you, Manila, is hardly interested in fighting it.
Perhaps that’s the writing on the wall and many of us who insist otherwise, prefer to ignore it because we think it is wrong.
Like the Britain of Alan Moore’s book, V for Vendetta, Manila, you’ve surrendered responsibility for this country, preferring the relative entertainment of schadenfreude. You’ve decided to institutionalize idiocity, gossip and farce.
I tweeted this as the events of #conass unfolded:
#philippines is an example of how a republic can slowly die. w/o fanfare save for few tweets to chronicle the beginning of its end. #conass
This link to a twitter stream is the real-time indignation and opinion of real Filipinos. If you tweet, be sure to append on any part of your twitter post the hashtag #conass and your voice will be added to that stream. And oh, you don’t need a twitter account to read it. [FilipinoVoices is also streaming this copy, which you could find to the right of every page of this blog].
The railroaded ConAss was like Pearl Harbor, greeted by little defense. It wasn’t like Pearl Harbor because there was no shock nor awe that America felt at the time. There was the tweet, and plurk, and stream and post of a few because those were the only vector by which we could express our regret, our sadness and our fear that democracy might be dead and we willingly let it die.
If the Seventh Republic should die, one can only hope that the Eighth, no matter how it was conceived or born will not let its predecessor die in vain.
@cocoy
UPDATE/EDIT. This is an archive of #conass twitter stream, up until 0530 Manila time via @printyourtweets (PrintYourTweets.com):
#conass twitter stream archive
UPDATE-2 sorry, forgot to mention that it was @mlq3 who first shouted out online that this thievery was happening.
UPDATE-3 i’m including @mlq3′s archive of tweets since most of his tweets were not registered with #conass
Mlq3 Archive Conass
UPDATE-4 you should also check out The Four-Eyed Journal and Momblogger’s take on the whole ConAss issue.
(Photo credit: Tobias Engay, MRS-PRIB / 03 June 2009 10:37:47 AM via congress.gov.ph)
Popularity: 2% [?]
coy,
Those lapdogs at the once august chamber will reap the fruits of their naked betrayal of public trust much like their patrol who stuffed their pockets with stolen taxpapers and scam derived dirty money ahead of the railroading of Reso 1109.
They will be damned.
The only way to damn them is to RECALL ‘em mofos.
i don’t quite get why people are complaining.
is it because its a railroaded process? thats it?– violation of process?
i mean, can’t we argue the other way — the opposition was delaying the vote?
It’s because it sets a stage for GMA’s Dictatorship.
Let’s face it. Today is the first day of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Dictatorship.
That’s what it is. That’s what’s scary.
Let’s raise our glass and toast to the beginning the 1000 years of Arroyo Dynasty. All hail the Queen! All hail the Queen.
We are doomed.
Theyre trying to railroad the process, unicamerally deciding for the entire Congress. Im aghast at the audacity of the House in trying to bind Congress to whatever they decide. It doesnt work that way. They KNOW it doesnt work that way. But they went ahead with it anyway. And I suspect it’s because they think we’re stupid and that just makes me so…
This is a blatant illegal act; a waste of time and money. In a sane society this won’t pass any legal challenge to it, but we live in an enchanted kingdom. Although it’s illegality is obvious, by even attempting it, it seems the frogs know something we dont.
Let’s start a RECALL campaign.
Each blogger in every town can support an initiative to RECALL and REPLACE their USELESS REPRESENTATIVE.
Bloggers with legal background can scrutinize the petition for form and substance.
The RECALL petition can be circulated all over the blogosphere, forwarded via email, and sent to email addresses of the MSM – radio, print, TV
Bloggers who are registered voters can organize teams/clusters that can divide each city into territorial block. Each team will be responsible for circulating the RECALL petition.
Submit the signatures to the COMELEC.
.. any more ideas???? :lol:
OK.
so let me understand this…
Cha-cha may be OK in principle; only if its not under GMA, because if its under GMA it will be used to extend her term as president.
yes?
That’s what keeps popping in various blogthreads, right?
Quite case-specific, ‘cuz they do say Yes, but not now. Yes, but not while GMA can benefit.
Yes. You have to be here to fully appreciate the wisdom in that stand, Gabby. If you were here and exposed to all the shenanigans, youll know that any charter change efforts theyre trying to railroad are self-serving. If this goes to referendum — which it won’t if our society is still sane — they still have the Comelec. So that’s where the indignation is coming from. It’s a long process, but they just went through step one.
Well, Cha cha is okay, as long as incumbents that ratified it don’t benefit directly.
GabbyD:
given our recent history, people would rather err on the side of caution.
imho, there is a general agreement that the constitution needs amendments.
however, the process of amending it needs much room to be desired – and the current manueverings by congress are politically unpalatable as people demand more representation in amending the constitution.
i am inclined to believe is that congress would have done the country a great service, by:
a) identifying the specific sections of the constitution that need to be amended
b) why the specific section(s) need to be amended
c) what the amended section will read
alternatively, a referendum on a specific amendment can be bundled with the ballot choices. after voting for candidates, voters can answer whether they agree to “Amendment Proposition #XYZ”.
Jesu Kristo, Eh prudukto ni Garci ang presidente.
even people who are for charter change are appalled!
if the congressmen are toying with the process.
it’s time to give them a taste of their own medicine –
RECALL the mofos
Jon,
Completing the layout, the alternate scenario to removal of the constitutional term limits or change of government form via Cha-Cha is when public uproar erupts over the Con-Ass con game there can emerge a casus belli for the declaration of emergency rule.
I pray I am wrong.
I like this con-ASS thingie. It diverts hunger of Filipino people to ocho-ocho-con-Ass-bong-tarat-tarat-tarat ……
RECALL.. REPLACE.. RESIGN
this time, the uproar of the mob must be channeled and organized to become a constitutional battering ram – RECALL the ASSes
Your idea of recalling our useless representatives from office is attractive. But at this point in time, with the elections just months away, it’s no longer plausible.
The COMELEC is preoccupied with the automated cheating, err, elections, plus their budget for recalls are still inadequate.
Lastly, some of those useless congressmen are no longer eligible for re-election because of the present term limits.
Then again, at the rate things are going their way, we need something more than a recall process.
An actual RECALL may not be possible, however, the purposes of the RECALL campaign are:
1) To connect the issue to the wider systemic flaws
2) To elevate the spontaneous random disgust into organized political discourse
3) To build the capability for nationwide coordinated actions – build networks, build contacts, build lines of communication, establish alliances
4) To nurture a participatory culture
5) To promote and gain acceptance of the idea that there is a need to redefine the criteria for selecting elective officials.
6) To demonstrate the relevance of grassroots-based approaches in political advocacies
@ BongV:
Ah, good points. However, our recent experience with Recall processes is that things could easily be stopped dead on its tracks with a resolution by the COMELEC suspending the proceedings based on the grounds I’ve mentioned before. It all happened during with the recall process for Gov Ed Panlilio of Pampanga.
If the aim is to get grass-roots opposition and disgust to be organized, then why not just do it directly? Convene groups, coalitions, everyone who opposes this unilateral move of the House.
If the aim is to get grass-roots opposition and disgust to be organized, then why not just do it directly? Convene groups, coalitions, everyone who opposes this unilateral move of the House.
That would have been the preferred route. But what’s the coalition gonna do? Oppose it by having mass or having rallies? I don’t think that’s gonna work at this point – makakapal ang balat ng mga baboy sa congress. We have to be more creative than that – and hit the swine where it hurts most – their job.
Wasn’t the recall process in Pampanga motivated by LGU officials who were losing their “under the table” from quarrying fees?
RECALL and REPLACE on the other hand connotes
Gabby all this also really points to extreme mistrust given the track record of GMA and her cohorts.
i’m with you ding! first, you just cant trust these people and second, i think CHACHA should be our last option. I think this country has lots of things it can do before it should consider editing the charter.
That’s it. I don’t trust our present administration to amend the 1987 constitution.
For crying out loud Noemi. You sound like may chance pang maasahan si Gloria. Forget Garci?
There were no deliberations in the committee level, according to Rep. Golez. ZERO. NADA. KAPUT.
And last night’s ‘debate’ in the plenary was a farce. Those opposed were just given time to air what all of us think.
Only 66 districts(or about 1/3) submitted “consultation” reports. Given that they really had “consultations.”
Opposition reps were all saying not all sectors were consulted. Surveys show majority of Filipinos do not favor charter change.
And yet our Congressmen did it. And in such a nasty, nasty fashion.
I echo what Rep. Colmenares said what kind of constitution will this congress fashion if there were no deliberations in the committee level and in the plenary.?
Kaya nga obvious di ba?
If we consider our comments here as empirical units of history, it is not far removed that some of the things we say here have no historical counterpart.
Let us stick to the knitting – go over the documents – then say our piece.
Let’s continue the discussions…condemn this ConAss! Condemn thOse ConAsses!
And most of all…let’s move! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!
Jon Limjap is right! Today is Gloria Arroyo’s move to DICTATORSHIP!
Let’s move OUR ASSES before it’s too late!
Why form a national group against an issue when clearly if your views truly represent the majority you can just picket at your representative’s office to oppose the aye vote for HR 1109. But no, we always choose a reactive stance and only confront an issue once it is besieging our doors.
Ang maganda siguro dito sa Pilipinas ay parating mag plebiscite for each and every law or policy we encounter. Mukhang di talaga tayo hiyang sa representative-type of government. We have a poor(not financial) electorate. hahay
i am not anti con-ass and the more i am not for con-ass, but don’t you all think this is just a waste of time? these bloggings and eyeballs, rallies etc. di pa rin nila tayo marinig, at kung naririnig man tayo ng mga tao dyan sa House, still they don’t give a “D”. Because kahit na dumarami na ang sumisigaw sa kalye para ibasura ang con-ass, still there are politicians who obviously will walk side by side with us shouting anti-con-ass slogans, nagbabalat-kayo lamang for their own benefits. Di man lang sila marunong mahiya. Nakakawalang gana kung iisipin, nakakaawa kung titingnan ang mga Pilipino, laging naniniwala sa mga dalang pangako ng mga pulitiko, na alam naman nating mapapako lamang iyon, at patuloy pa rin tayong magbulag-bulagan, umaasa sa mga pangako nilang PAGBABAGO. Dahil ang pagbabago ay dapat magsimula sa ating sarili. Magpapa-uto pa rin ba tayo sa mga taong niluklok natin sa gobyerno? Pilipino ay madaling makalimot at madaling magpatawad.
Juancho Lim,
1) people always say they want change— but no one is willing to start the change. it isn’t that people are apathetic. it isn’t that they’re not grumbling in front of the television saying, “grabe na talaga sila”. It just that the quality of choices is /so/ pathetic.
2) hope springs eternal.
Con artists Association ibig sabihin.