Change in my Pocket

I tried to listen hard to the lecture on quantum physics. I even sat on the front row in inferential statistics. I listened hard to decipher the different intonations of Mandarin. There are just some things that I don’t understand. Here are some more.

Why is everyone so horrified or hateful against charter change? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an advocate of changing the 1987 Constitution. But of course, it’s not a perfect document. It has to have some flaws. Even if it was “perfect” at the time of ratification, after some time, some provisions would become irrelevant and outdated. It has to need some amendments along the way. It’s not like some set of infallible scriptures. Why are supporters of charter change suddenly being perceived as unpatriotic infidels? The prevailing fear since 1994 was that the authors of the amendments would insert provisions on the extensions of their terms. If you keep disagreeing with your brothers and sisters who want to have your house repaired because you think they’re just up to making money out of it, eventually, your roof may start falling apart.

Then, there is this one congressman (or maybe, his group shares the same sentiments) who is saying that the public has been long clamoring for charter change. Say what? Which public are we talking about here? Maybe they mistook it for the public who have been clamoring for Daniel and Cathryn to get back together. I don’t think the public has been clamoring for change in the Constitution. With all due respect to the Filipino citizenry, I don’t think they care that much about the Constitution, much less about changing it. I’m not saying that Filipinos are politically apathetic. What I’m saying is that they care more about how to augment their income by entrepreneurship or employment. I don’t think changing the Constitution has crossed the minds of most of us.

They say, charter change is for better economic provisions. I don’t think the public has been clamoring to change some economic provisions on the Constitution. Maybe, some of the big businessmen have been doing that, but not the common Filipino. How about you? Do you really care at all if more foreigners could own property in the Philippines for their businesses? I suppose not. What difference would that make? Probably, some of the big local businessmen are U.S., Chinese or some other citizens already anyway. Maybe, they have dual citizenships. I don’t think the common working Filipino minds at all whether the CEO of the company that employs them is a Filipino citizen or not, just as long as he gets paid well, and gets to receive some good benefits. So, what clamor is this guy talking about? The clamor that I’m familiar with is the clamor of pro-federalism groups to change the charter for their favored system of government. But one of them got elected to be President, and they were not able to do anything about it. So, again, what clamor are we talking about?

Still from among the ranks of the lower House, there was this declaration that if Senate doesn’t do its part, “people’s initiative” would be back. What is peoples initiative? Is it some weapon that a legislator could brandish to threaten opponents if their agenda does not push through? Should people’s initiative be scary? Should senators be scared of people’s initiative?

How does this people’s initiative work? Reports have it that they have been gathering signatures. Like I said, I don’t really think the common signature affixing Filipino cares much about constitutional provisions. This is not an offense to the Filipino’s free will or intelligence: but I’m more inclined to assuming that signatories would affix signatures in exchange for some cash, scholarship grants for their children, hospital benefits or anything of that sort. That’s not a far cry from people getting cards in exchange for 5 kilo rice packs.

Then there’s this scare of foreigners owning schools. What’s their issue with that? Don’t we have Chinese schools around? They seem to be concerned with the threat of compromise of integration of nationalism in the curriculum. What are they scared of? Even if a certain school is owned by a foreigner and he decides to implement a curriculum from his native land, is not DepEd or CHED the final authority in the implementation of instruction? DepEd flexes their muscle on private schools that refuse to adapt K to 12 Curriculum or the Mother Tongue learning area. They could do the same if some foreign owned school decides to divert from the prescribed system. They could revoke its license or special order or something.

It seems to me that some if not all of them are working under some agenda.

Psalm 27:3: “Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.”