With the winds of uncertainty blowing everywhere, here are my random thoughts on a scheme and scene not few now know as the Con Ass (Constituent Assembly) and what the unfolding scenario would really be, to wit:
1. History, can only reveal in the future, what really happened that night on 2nd of June 2009, in the year of our Lord.
2. There are about 170 holders of ticket no. 1109 and the jackpot prize will be shared among them equally at P20 million each.
3. Con Ass pushed the panic button that the always-late-reaction team of the CBCP warns against the declaration of martial law if people decide to launch violent EDSA Power.
4. Only God knows if Senate will indeed shoot down 1109 as soon as it knocks at the door step.
5. The whole debate on whether HR 1109 must have been approved by a simple majority of the House membership rather than 3/4 of its members is made moot and academic.
6. Whether HR 1109 will have to be voted jointly or separately would be a work in intellectual abstraction, forensics all it that.
7. If both Senate and HOR (House of Representatives) vote jointly, any mathematician will tell us it would be an – exercise in futility.
8. If both chambers vote separately, instead, Senate’s vocal critics might be correct in saying, Con-Ass is dead on arrival.
9. If no options are forged, Supreme Court plays arbiter in a ‘justiciable controversy’ submitted for its cognizance and again only God knows what the decision would be.
10. One constitutional expert (happens to be a classmate of mine) has already said that 1109 is like a slippery slope.
11. The same expert also said there is danger in opening the door since once opened, hell will break loose. What covenants are we talking about anyway?
12. People’s Initiative has failed, Constitutional Convention remains virgin, Con Ass is the beast of the hour.
13. Funny if strange how no one really knows if Congress is a unicameral or a bicameral – it will yet be debated.
14. Funnier if more strange how we know what math should be applied in the moral computation and yet choose ½ rather than ¾, jointly rather than separately, this textbook than this 1935, 1973, et cetera.
15. Wanted: framers of the 1935, 1973, and 1987 constitutions of the Republic of the Philippines – where thou art now?
16. In a game of fairness, the worldview that Con Ass should be by a vote of ¾ of HOR and Senate voting separately – enjoys the highest precedence.
17. Has the notion that the ‘voice of the representatives is the voice of their constituency’ turned into a myth?
18. The expert has raised thought-provoking questions in his column. So which way to go – heresy, wasteland of conjecture, or ‘mental archeology’?
19. Offhand, the expert’s notion of the House of Representatives having been constitutionally allocated as having a purpose, to my mind, is debatable, seeing as we do the whole deviation to a tyranny of numbers under guise of majority rule.
20. Can we really expect our own House of Representatives to be much like the House of Commons and the House of Lords in United Kingdom? Offhand, I would think that one shames the other.
21. If indeed, the text of the Constitution would be controlling, what means this intellectual disarray? Perhaps, more than the text likewise the context, with more reason in an ‘intellectual culture’ given to the notion of ‘political perpetuity’
22. It summons circumspection whether bicameralism in the sense that the expert puts it can be applied on the matter of having to convene a Con Ass as to amend or revise the Constitution. It stands to reason that crucial matters be dealt crucially.
23. When to change the Constitution is a never-ending jigsaw puzzle but maybe, one revisits the events that led to the 1935, to the 1973, to the 1973, and to the futuristic 2009 as soon as it rears its ugly head.
24. The devil is in the details. Bless this country!
Popularity: 1% [?]
Primer, if Term Limits and Plunder sections of the Constitution are set aside, what are the top changes that people want to make? What is driving the urgency? Landownership by foreigners, I have read about (seems important, but not enough to commit government to chaos). What are the other big ones?
Joe
“It summons circumspection whether bicameralism in the sense that the expert puts it can be applied on the matter of having to convene a Con Ass as to amend or revise the Constitution. It stands to reason that crucial matters be dealt crucially.”
Ano raw? That’s why Ticket No. 1109 will be brought to the SCoRP to be vetted by the good magistrates. They are the competent authority to do the circumspection on the cruciality of the crucial matters. :)
As far as I could tell, the players are still playing by the rules. :)
13. Funny if strange how no one really knows if Congress is a unicameral or a bicameral – it will yet be debated.
I can’t believe this still has to be debated! You’re just being sarcastic aren’t you? I would like to believe that you are.
15. Wanted: framers of the 1935, 1973, and 1987 constitutions of the Republic of the Philippines – where thou art now?
Blaming the framers of the Constitution would be of no help. Besides, Fr Joaquin Bernas, SJ has never disappeared from the CHA-cha debates. His columns have always been a beacon of light on many Constitutional issues. Heck, he’s even making rounds from universities to public foras talking about Con-Ass, CHA-cha and HR 1109 ever since Ramos was still president.
Do you believe what this Clown is writing? He is a Media Dog of
Bayani Fernando and Gloria Arroyo. I will not even waste my time
reading his Blog Site Articles.
Hey, Prime the Clown. You can write until you eyes pop out. We
simply dont believe you. You are just wasting your time.
Sorry, I named him Primer the Clown. To “subjectivise” him of his
own medicine.
Joe, I do think that what has driven the urgency is because of ‘parochial self-interest’ as has been aptly enunciated by the partly list representative of A-TEACHER, Mr. Sarmiento.
In fact, according to him, we do save the country by changing the organic law. Indeed, I subscribe to that notion that what is needed is really a kind of political will that has strong moral foundation. Problem is, under GMA, these requirements are ‘strongly perceived’ as grossly lacking.
oops.. sorry – “we don’t save” is the right words. My apologies.
jhay,
In your comment of #13, indeed I hold that it is sarcastic but that at the same time, it has emerged as real ‘bone of contention’ between and amongst constitutional experts.
In your comment of #15, I am not sure if you have been aware of yet another point of view issued out by a former classmate, Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, Dean of the San Beda Graduate School of Law to the effect that if one has to compare the 3 constitutions, the “text” has already been revised such that from the point of view of the text alone, the problem set by 1109 does not seem ‘insurmountable’ according to Rannie (Fr. Aquino, I must call him by his first name).
So, where such point of view may conflict with that of Fr. Bernas is part of the whole debate. In fact, Rannie calls that a work in “mental archeology”.
I hope I made some points clear.
Well the text of the present Constitution speaks of a bicameral Congress. So what’s the real ‘bone of contention’ there?
The conass movers precisely is of another ‘school of thought’.
SC is there to play arbiter, besides.