A recent survey supposedly shows that a majority of Filipinos are against Charter change. And I am convinced that the task of rewriting the Charter should continue, full speed ahead. These are my reasons.
Until I have heard what the reasons of the so-called majority are for rejecting the revision of the Fundamental Law, I shall consider the survey results an interesting, if quaint, numerical datum, and hardly anything more than that. Genuine discourse—that is legitimating—commences when reasons are advanced, reasons are challenged and reasons are vindicated. Unfortunately, a survey does not capture that. Perhaps, it might even be safe to say that the polls we have here do not want that! In the absence of reasons, we are either in the realm of whim or sheer irrationality. Tastes in art have their reasons, that is why there is universally acclaimed art: Monet is art while my doodling will, with very good reason, never qualify.
At this time, no definitive draft of the new charter has as yet been presented. In fact, what the Consultative Committee constituted by Executive Order No. 10 is not THE draft. It will be A draft, with the peculiarity that it is by intention to be the President’s draft which he, quite obviously, expects his party-mates in Congress to espouse. So, if pollsters are right about their numbers, what was the majority rejecting?
Since the center of gravity in Charter change is the transition to a federal configuration, is it this that they are rejecting? But except for draft provisions in the different proposals bandied about by different interest groups, there is no definite delineation yet between national and regional powers. In fact, it is not yet determined how many regions we will have, and how asymmetrical “asymmetrical” will be! There are very good reasons for going federal, and I am not convinced by the reasons against it. But I grant that others may perceive things differently. But it behooves us all to know what the arguments might be for rejecting federalism and how sound or unsound they might be.
Federalism is clearly pivotal, because if we indeed opt to be a Federal Philippines, then obviously the Constitution of 1987 will no longer do. You cannot have the benefits of a federal republic and reject the constitutional change that makes that possible. Now, if it is federalism that the people purportedly reject, what solutions can one have so the vexatious and enervating national problems for which federalism has been conceived of as a solution?
My fear is that the results of the survey are the mathematization of an ad hominem: I do not want Duterte. Cha-Cha is Duterte’s idea. Ergo: I do not want Cha-Cha. And if that were the case, it would be just one more disturbing indicator of stunted political maturity—to say nothing of the infantile “illogic” that begets it. If this is the case, as I suspect it is with many of our countrymen, then there is every reason to ignore the fallacy and to proceed according to the dictates of reason. Much besides the legitimacy of law does not rest on mere numerical superiority. I am sure that no tax measure would ever win popular support, but tax measures are passed into law.
Let the new Constitution be drafted. And when we debate its merits and demerits, then let us have the reasons. It is only then that acceptance or rejection can be discursively redeemed. As for numbers, the voice of the majority is not the voice of God—not necessarily!
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@outlook.com