Let me first thank former President and Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for keynoting the launch last Friday of the monthly webinar series scheduled for 2021 by CenSEI, an up-and-coming consultancy shop, in partnership with Microsoft Philippines.
The former president delivered her political, economic, and international forecast for the year with her usual verve and depth. Readers interested to see her may follow this link to CenSEI’s FaceBook page: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=257485015811529&id=101653888061310
The second webinar in February will feature our ambassador to China and hopefully their ambassador to the Philippines. It’s a timely discussion as we await a more measured China policy from the new US president, even as China seems to be turning up the temperature in its face-off with his country and allies.
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Over the weekend, someone slipped me a copy of Atty. Christian Monsod’s latest testimony before the Senate committee deliberating on whether to ease Constitutional restrictions on foreign direct investment (FDI).
The redoubtable Monsod was, among other things, one of the framers of the present 1987 Constitution, and understandably takes a lot of pride in his co-creation. But this only explains, and doesn’t excuse, why I have so many bones to pick with the arguments he raised. Unfortunately, I’m only allowed one column per week in this paper, not three or four.
So let me stick to perhaps the most objectionable of his claims: That those FDI restrictions ought to be retained in the Constitution because we simply cannot trust our legislators—and by this I assume he means the Senate as well as the House—to do the right thing if they are empowered to relax or even remove those restrictions by ordinary legislation.
Now I’m of the school which really believes that such restrictions have no place at all anyway in a constitution. Very few, if any, other constitutions include such overreach. The basic law of the land is a social covenant, a social contract, not a prescription for every conceivable eventuality or behavior. If our legislators in their wisdom want to restrict foreign investors—or not—they ought to be able to do so without express authorization by the constitution.
But Atty. Monsod thinks a lot less of our legislators than I do. He apparently thinks that the people’s duly elected representatives have less of a right to govern than he and his merry band of unelected constitution writers, who were simply appointed in 1987 by the likewise unelected president of a revolutionary government. And this conceit may be genetic: we remember when the unlamented PNoy, during the 2010 presidential campaign, threatened to launch “people power” again if he lost that election.
If the good attorney has a problem with the quality of our current legislators—as in fact many other people also do—the answer is to replace them in the electoral process, not to deny the republican institution to which they belong the authority that is rightfully theirs. The Constitution isn’t there to provide shortcuts to those who lack the patience for doing things the hard way.
The present president, whom nine out of ten Filipinos admire, could have his way and declare a revolutionary government any day, just as Monsod’s favorite president did. But he has not. This probinsyano lawyer, whose Manila education was limited to the proletarian precincts of the University Belt (Lyceum and San Beda), is showing a lot more respect for the Republic than Atty Monsod and many of his fellow alumni from their precious “independent Diliman republic”.
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Another document I got my hands on last weekend was the new interim “Philippine National Deployment and Vaccination Plan for Covid-19 Vaccines.” It’s well over a hundred pages long, so I’ll confine myself to saying that it’s a very well-organized document, covering all the important areas:
Vaccine selection and evaluation. Diplomatic negotiation and engagement. Procurement and financing. Shipment and storage. Distribution and deployment. Implementation of nationwide vaccination. Assessment, evaluation, and monitoring.
Let me also share some choice insights from the country’s much-put-upon “vaccine czar,” Sec. Carlito Galvez:
The vaccines will not cure the disease, nor have they been proven yet to prevent transmission. What they will do is prevent severe disease and recurrence of symptoms, thereby reducing deaths and transmission.
There is only a very limited global supply of vaccines, of which 80 percent has already been taken by the richest countries. Thus, no matter what critics say, it is very much in the government’s interest to work with LGUs and as many private partners as it can.
“History, experience, and science over the decades prove that vaccines save lives,” as Health Sec. Duque reminds us. But they will not be the only solution to the pandemic. We will still be expected, in Galvez’ words, to “adhere to minimum public health standards…and practice safe behavior.”
Readers can write me at [email protected].