The Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) 6, which floated the idea of holding a constitutional convention (Con-con) to forward economic amendments to the 1987 Constitution, is now pending in the Senate. In a Con-con, 300 delegates, which will be a mix of elected and appointed individuals, will be assembled to write changes to the Constitution. 

RBH 6’s enabling law, House Bill (HB) 7352, was approved by the House of Representatives last March 13, and is also pending in the upper chamber. The Senate’s approval now stands as the final hurdle before proposals for Charter change (Cha-cha) reach Marcos’ desk.

Up for revision in 2023’s Cha-cha venture are Articles 12, 14, and 16, which concern the national patrimony, science and culture, and the Constitution’s general provisions, respectively. Essentially, this Cha-cha aims to insert a convenient clause, “unless otherwise provided by law,” at the end of so-called restrictive economic provisions in the Constitution. 

This will entitle lawmakers to dictate which public utility assets may be fully owned by foreign investors, and decide how much equity foreigners are permitted to exert over these assets. Currently, foreign entities are allowed a maximum of only 40 percent ownership over the country’s business stakes. 

Legislators have packaged Cha-cha as the silver bullet to the economy’s ills. They have been so unequivocal in their push for Cha-cha that RBH 6 sailed through Congress within just a week after its second reading. 

This, amid a clear public vacuum in constitutional knowledge. On Tuesday, Pulse Asia reported that 79 percent of Filipinos bear little to no knowledge about the 1987 Constitution.

Yet, the chairperson of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments, Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, joined by like-minded lawmakers, insists on the existence of a strong clamor for Cha-cha.

Amendments to the Constitution have been a mainstay of every administration’s agenda. As the customary back-and-forths on federalism and removal of term limits become supplanted by seemingly benign economic reforms, the 2023 iteration of Cha-cha has adopted a more anodyne appearance.

In actuality, however, Cha-cha is poised to lay the economy spread-eagle for foreign corporations to feast on. This reality is obscured by a host of myths that lawmakers have proliferated to cushion public uproar against Cha-cha.

Easing economic restraints will give foreign corporations more rein in controlling the market and, by extension, save the economy.

Think-tank IBON Foundation, in its position paper opposing Cha-cha, wrote that robust industrial policymaking is a precondition before foreign direct investments (FDIs) can benefit the country’s development. 

Today, industrialization is bogged down by inadequate infrastructure and exorbitant costs of doing business. Past measures that have been launched to remedy these, like the Ease of Doing Business Act, were enforced poorly and had minimal effect. The country's lack of strong domestic industries strips it of its ability to negotiate favorable terms with foreign players. Thus, FDIs can only benefit the Philippines in terms of sporadic, short-term gains. 

This can be seen historically, as in the USD4.5-billion Malampaya Gas-to-Power deal, which employed thousands, but monopolized the country’s natural gas industry and left local gas firms with scant government subsidy.

The country has served as a hotspot for financially untenable foreign contracts, like the USD14.4-billion Kaliwa Dam deal, the provisions of which unduly favors its Chinese financiers. Meanwhile, Intel and Hanjin’s billion-dollar investments dominated the electronics and shipbuilding markets respectively, while leaving employees with paltry wages.

Rather than giving the local sector the resources to stand on its own, Cha-cha instead aims to eradicate its place in the economy. The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas opposes Cha-cha because it stands to open 14.2 million hectares of farmers’ land to total foreign ownership. The Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas warns that Cha-cha will open the West Philippine Sea to further intrusion by Chinese fishing vessels.

The Makati Business Club and the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, themselves supporters of economic liberalization, noted that the P14 billion needed to assemble the Con-con should be “better spent on pro-people programs.” Yet, Marcos’ allies have not relented in their glorification of Cha-cha: a giveaway that Marcos and his Cabinet have only their interests and those of foreign powers in mind.

The time is right for a rethinking of the Constitution’s overall makeup because it no longer suits the context that Filipinos navigate.

The current Constitution was drafted in 1986 to purge the vestiges of Marcos influence from the supreme law of the land. Yet, Christian Monsod, one of the framers of the Constitution, contends that the “promise of a new social order” of the Constitution has yet to be realized. 

In its position paper, the UPD Department of Political Science argued that the country hosts a variety of other issues that warrant more attention than reworking the Constitution. They pointed to record-high inflation, myriad infrastructure challenges, and a post-pandemic economy in rack and ruin. A survey on the labor force conducted last January showed that employment in the country went down by 1.8 million from December 2022 to January 2023.

There is also the absurd projected cost of the Con-con, which ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro said could instead be used for direct financial aid for lower-income households. Such an amount, when considered against the meager P1,000 cash assistance that vulnerable sectors are offered, is an almost farcical assault on Article 7, Section 1 of the Constitution, which cites “equitable distribution of opportunities, income, and wealth” as one of the economy’s central aims.

Skeptics have also slammed Cha-cha’s hasty passage owing to one foundational truth: that longevity is at the crux of every constitution. Constitutions are forged out of the lessons a nation has gleaned throughout its entire lifespan. Yet, lawmakers continue to parade the myth that Cha-cha is the panacea to all the country’s problems.

This only puts to question why lawmakers are rushing to revise it even though many of its integral parts remain unfulfilled. Pivotal provisions in the Constitution such as the promotion of social justice, the prohibition of political turncoatism, and freedom of information have yet to be translated into laws.

The gravest manifestation of this sluggishness in legislating can be seen in the fact that Congress has not passed an anti-dynasty law, even though Article 2, section 26 of the Constitution says that “the State shall ... prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.”

Provisions like these are all part of the 1987 Constitution’s promise of a new social order. However, the reluctance of legislators to implement these laws hints that this pledge has no place for the marginalized–whom the Constitution was crafted to serve in the first place.

Say that Cha-cha is passed after deliberation by the Senate. What exactly do we stand to lose?

No interrogation of Cha-cha is complete without first unmasking the motives behind it. One can only fully gauge Cha-cha’s potential consequences by considering its glaring lack of checks and balances.

Pro-Cha-cha lawmakers have taken the liberty to go beyond economic changes and introduce term limit extensions, tandem-voting, and enlarging the presidential line of succession simply because they can. After all, neither RBH 6 nor HB 7352 spells out the limitations of just how many changes lawmakers can propose.

Just last March 23, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile posited the lifting of the nuclear ban in the Constitution, calling it “the most unwanted provision of the Charter,” despite the Philippines’ signage of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017.

Moreover, no safeguards are in place to control who exactly gets to run for membership in the Con-con. This makes the possibility of a Con-con populated by the henchmen of political families not a far-fetched reality. Monsod said because “political dynasties control Congress, electing the delegates by district will only result in a mirror image of the composition of the Congress.”

Arguably the greatest peril of Cha-cha, however, lies in the then-dormant discussions on term limits that lawmakers have exhumed–this time to allow both the president and vice president to run for reelection. 

“In the absence of strong political parties and because of our experience under Martial Law, wala pa tayong enough safeguards to hold presidents and vice-presidents accountable at this time. It’s an abuse of power,” Maria Ela Atienza, former chairperson of the UP Diliman (UPD) Department of Political Science, said.

Such a policy can give a face to something the 1987 Constitution was specifically constructed to preclude: a repeat of the events that transpired during Marcos Sr.’s Martial Law. If Cha-cha’s onward march to the Senate continues unabated, nothing is stopping Marcos and his allies from bagging another term after their incumbency has expired.

Lawyer Neri Colmenares, himself a former lawmaker, has raised caution over the looming constitutional remodel. “It grants Congress too much power,” he said. “It grants Congress power to otherwise the Constitution.”

A Congress that is both saturated with political dynasties and presidential allies and hellbent on whittling away at the Constitution’s last lines of defense against tyranny is more than just a cause for alarm. When the 1987 Constitution‘s promise of a new social order is undermined, so too are the sovereignty and the integrity of our state. ●

With reports from Mary June Ricaña.