FreeThinkers Forum: ConAss or Concon

ConAss or Concon - anyone?

Posted by Primer C. Pagunuran on 8/12/2009, 4:42 pm
124.106.237.148

A war, of sorts, is to be fought. And the battlefront is no less at the House of Representatives. There are not enough men and women to do the heroic fight. By every indication, the ruling class – the united pro-GMA bloc in Congress will see the day of victory.
In the end, however much a Golez, a Satur, an Hontiveros or a Bello and their tiny nuclear following embrace the more balanced worldview – representative of the true people’s sentiment – still, the short end of the stick goes to the minority as always.
And the majority is good at muffling dissent in a contemporary parliamentary practice that allows cutting the live wire of principled debate and discussion by an almost nerve-driven, not necessarily enlightened, exercise of chairman’s prerogative – or that tipping point when the chairman alone becomes the single last authority to rule upon a conflict.
No minority ever wins – but it can create the noise – reduced sadly as mere voice in the wilderness. The people’s Golez has never won a single episode in that continuing chain of deliberation and debate, both at the committee level as it is at the plenary.
Golez is no El Cid, come to think of it.
Most members of the ruling bloc in Congress may be said to be suffering from a kind of ‘tunnel vision’. While not too few are manifestly enlightened and can express learned views, some play token chips to add to the equivalent amount, matter-of-factly. In short, they serve as ‘Industrial Reserve Army’ whenever few more patronizing votes may be required and they play willing beneficiaries rather than victims in an emerging culture of a much more perfected politics of patronage. They have GMA as their patron saint, for good reasons.
The pendulum now swings from ConAss to ChaCha on the one end to ConCon to ChaCha on the other end. But this is not to say that the controversial House Resolution 1109 has been laid on the table or killed. It was not even archived but there is in fact a proposal that it be transmitted to the Senate for approval.
But as the very competent committee chair aptly says, any such subsequent move remains a mere proposal unless acted upon by the concerned committee. Thus, it may be a mistaken approximation to say that HR is in the ICU but rather it is just sitting at some VIP Lounge, as the case may be. HR 1109 breathes at 120 over 80 – normal – and biding its time.
Something happened that day the committee deliberated on various bills or resolutions of the same theme – a proposed Constitutional Convention. Mark August 11, 2009 as the day House Concurrent Resolution of Rep. Roilo Golez was voted against at 3 in favor and 7 against, or the nayes had it. Where will this lead to?
Let us see what will the next committee hearing will be like come August 18, 2009 – ‘same time, same place’. To add, same people, same voice, same theme. So is there a future for the more nationalist sentiment? Answer is – there is none.
The chair did not fail to advance the rather fallacious notion that them (the congressmen that they are) as representatives of the people they represent, convey their voice or stand on issues as if it were their respective constituents’ desire.
More so, the chair did not fail to advance, in the stream of discussion, his voluntary desire to send each Member a copy of some 30 to 40 proposed provisions in the present Constitution that amendments thereto may be proposed. Golez was of course, suspicious about it but it seems, the chair can reason out well his way out of the noose. Golez was struck a fatal blow with his own resolution effectively shoved aside.
It may be worth studying what the Golez resolution is all about but the gist of it, as he himself explains, is for a plebiscite or a referendum be held in a schedule allowed by existing law to determine whether or not the people approve of a Constitutional Convention. For Golez, it should coincide with the conduct of the forthcoming elections
In short, rather than Congress the one deciding that the ConCon mode be opted, it must be the people opting. It then becomes a primordial issue whether the people want that amendments to the Constitution be infused.
Serious observers of trends may see something from the shift in mood by the ruling majority that lays it suspect or – why take up ConCon while ConAss – is still alive? Well, the chair at least believes that there is simply no inconsistency that other proposals be taken up by his committee. Well, it is worth listening to how the next committee deliberation will be. Nationalists, anyone?