ADMITTEDLY, the country’s 33-year-old fundamental law, which was written in “haste” months after the so-called “1986 People Power Revolution,” has defects that must be corrected.
But the $64 question remains: Is it timely considering the fact that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continues to claim the lives of so many people across the globe?
Proponents of the controversial Charter-Change (Cha-Cha) initiative, including a top official of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), said “it’s both timely and wise.”
DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya even cited Congress for its decision to resume deliberations on proposals to amend the “restrictive provisions” of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
In supporting the snowballing move to revisit the fundamental law of the land, he said the Constitution must be responsive to the needs of the country and help alleviate the plight of the people.
Malaya said the two-chamber Congress – the Senate and the House of Representatives – has done its job to battle the pandemic, including the allocation of funds to address the problem.
He said it’s now time for Congress to work on long-term reforms, assuring however, that DILG would not abandon its duty to work for local government and constitutional reform (CORE).
Malaya is concurrently DILG spokesman and executive director of the Inter-Agency Task Force on CORE.
Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, on the other hand, described as “folly” moves to open the Cha-Cha floodgates.
Lacson, chair of the Senate national defense and security panel, even warned that amending the Charter for a specific objective could have consequences that not even the proponents had intended.
And the public wants to believe that any move to amend the Constitution hinges on the greater consideration that changes should benefit the Filipino people not the incumbent government officials.
