The words "Charter Change" or Chacha for short has been a toxic term during the time of former Pres. Gloria Arroyo. Initiatives then were seen as a demonic ploy to extend her term beyond 2010. We had her for more than nine years. I think that's too much already.
Now, demoted to a mere representative, I don't perceive her to have enough chops to come back to power (we'd have to be really really stupid for this to happen). Therefore, the time for dancing the chacha is now. Recently, the Senate, which has stood as our nation's firewall against Arroyo's plot, received comments and presentations on the need for chacha. I totally agree with this move. A lot of the provisions of our constitution are outdated and misguided. One of these is the ban on the use of nuclear power. This was an obvious tirade against former Pres. Marcos and his advocacy for nuclear power. We are suffering one of the highest power rates in Asia.
Another is the greatly abused provision is on Party-List representation. While I'm at it, I might as well include the composition of the House of Representathieves. The party list provision allowed the likes of Mikey Arroyo and her aunt, among others, to represent supposedly marginalized sectors of society. In determining the number of representathieves, an absolutely short-sighted minimum of 250,000 population merits a representathieve in the august halls of Batasan. This retarded provision is the reason why the House keeps on growing in size, when we should be downsizing them. It's also why there's a great imbalance of representation for our cities and provinces. Quezon City (pop. 2.8M) has four representathieves, Manila (pop. 1.8M) has SIX, Parañaque City (pop. 0.6M) has TWO, Cavite (pop. 2.9M) has SEVEN and more importantly, Camarines Sur (pop. 1.6M) has FIVE. A better model would follow the US Congress, wherein the size is fixed (435) with each congressional district representing the same amount of people. It doesn't make any sense that Rep. Winston Castelo (2nd Dist. QC, pop. 1.6M) has the same vote as Rep. Rolando Andaya (1st Dist. CamSur, pop. 0.18M). Incidentally, the reason why Rep. Andaya has a very small district is because another district was gerrymandered from his old district to accommodate Rep. Dato Arroyo. Guess who signed the law creating his district???
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What we can't allow our chacha dancers to do is to change our form of government to anything other than one with a direct vote for the Chief Executive. Calls for a parliamentary form of government should be ignored. While it will do away with military coups and impeachment trials, it will also pave the way for someone (in whatever form in the future) in the mold of Jose de Venecia to be our Chief Executive. Our country is not ready for a unicameral form of government. Just take a good look at Congresses past and present and you will know why. Besides, I like voting for my president. I don't trust my douchebag representathieve enough for that.
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Drug mules, or persons used as drug couriers by big drug syndicates, is old news. What's new is that three Pinoys are about to be executed in China after they were caught bringing in a bunch of heroin. They have been tried and convicted to suffer the death penalty under Chinese laws. While I am not exactly a fan of capital punishment, what I do hate is when one country meddles in the affairs of another sovereign country. Remember all the rage about the trial of Daniel Smith? Filipinos howled over the supposed intervention of Uncle Sam. Now, we're guilty of doing pretty much the same to China.
Here's the thing. It's sad that they're gonna die. As long as they were given a fair trial, I suppose that justice has to prevail. We can't keep sending high-level delegations to appeal the rulings of another country. We hated it when it was being done to us, why should it be different the other way around? I'm just saying...
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