Change in the air

As if it takes an Aquino sitting in Malacañang for the Charter to become touchable, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte agreed in principle last week to convene the Lower House and Senate into a constituent assembly that would work to alter the economic provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

The last time Charter Change happened in the Philippines was soon after the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution, when president Corazon Aquino, the late mother of President Benigno Aquino III, enacted a Freedom Constitution and then appointed members from various sectors of society to a constitutional commission that drew up the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

Attempts to amend the 1987 Constitution during the terms of presidents Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo failed due to the perception that they wanted to stay in power longer by doing away with the basic law’s single six-year term limit for presidents.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Randy David, a sociologist, attributed the swift agreement between the two chambers of Congress on Charter Change this time to President Aquino’s perceived disinterest in it.

Granting that our nation’s legislators had noble intentions and only by coincidence agreed on changing the Constitution while people rested from politics to focus on rescuing and relieving the victims of storms Pedring and Quiel, it’s still easy to perceive as elitist their option for a “con-ass” as the means to implement the “Cha-Cha.”

It has been said that the Constitution’s economic provisions need to be aligned with the realities of a globalized world, chiefly by the lifting of restrictions on the role played by foreign investors in the domestic economy, since they can inject hefty doses of capital into our markets and by providing competition to Filipino firms break the controlling stake of the old rich on the nation’s wealth.

But changes in the Constitution should be approved only after rigorous examination by lawmakers assisted by erudite economists, environmentalists, ethicists, human resource specialists, financial analysts, labor leaders and other experts.

These experts call any potential bluff disguised as a new economic provision on the general public, either through their participation in transparent congressional hearings in a con-ass or better yet, as constitutional commissioners.

The removal of the 60-percent-40-percent equity limitations on foreign investors, for instance, has more than just economic repercussions.

Allowing foreign ownership of our land would affect hundreds of thousands of farming families who still struggle to reap the benefits of agrarian reform and settlers who have no homes.

The entry of alien entrepreneurs and professionals looking for work would affect the neighborhood small and medium enterprise and the livelihood of white collar workers, whose exposure to continuing training pale in comparison to that of their foreign counterparts.

Totally foreign-run businesses will affect the value system of Filipinos, considering that most investors still believe that businesses thrive through the promotion of unbridled consumerism.

Obliviousness, in effect, to the much-cherished yet still poorly lived Filipino-first policy, will impact on our dwindling reserves of natural resources. What safety nets would be in place to counter the extinction of many biological species, which comes hand in hand with accelerated industrialization?

Xenophobia has no place in the one family of nations, but making generous room for our alien brothers and sisters in our economy should not be done at the cost of turning our own people into foreigners in their own land; victims of created, unessential wants or mere cheap labor. Neither should it come at the cost of irredeemable losses in our ecology.