Don't forget who's sovereign

Note: Hours after I wrote this article House Speaker Jose de Venecia came out on television in a press conference announcing that the majority congressmen had made a surprising turn-around and were now willing to go for a constitutional convention. I am not yet ready to accept that press conference at face value and have decided to continue with what I wrote.*

I owe the Administration congressmen and their allies in the House of Representatives a vote of thanks. Every year since after Edsa II, I have been trying to convince our two children to register as voters with the Commission on Elections. For four years I utterly failed to get them to go to the Comelec. Even my eldest, a Law student, could not find any sense in casting his vote during our elections.

Then, last week, viewing the railroad job done by the Administration lawmakers to form Congress into a constituent assembly, both my son Gino and our daughter Kay became so incensed at the way the resolution was bullied through that right there and then, without our even suggesting it, they (together with a family friend who had last year acquired dual citizenship) decided to register, just so they could vote against Con-Ass, the extension of term limits of elected officials, the postponement of the May 2007 elections and the snow-jobbing congressmen

Thank you, Joe de V and Company! My wife and I could not have done it without you. Seriously, though, I hope our congressmen have by this time realized the rising anger and resentment that their bullying tactics have sparked in the hearts of the Filipino people. The Catholic Bishops, Bro. Mike Velarde, Bro. Eddie Villanueva and the Makati Business Club are not alone in condemning them for using constitutional change as a convenient excuse to remain in office.

Millions of Filipinos, many of them like my children suddenly feeling concern for the welfare of the country in the face of this despicable display of bully tactics by people who sit as our leaders, have decided to break traditional Asian silence and to come out and shout their opposition. Whether they know it or not, our congressmen have lit the spark that will blow all of their plans for political survival away. Already, talks of nationwide protests are being planned everywhere. Oh you scheming members of the Lower House, look what you've gotten yourself and the country into!

Early this morning a friend of mine who came in from Cebu told me that the ASEAN Summit had been cancelled. The excuse given was reportedly the incoming typhoon, but according to him Cebuano businessmen believed it was the political uncertainty more than anything else, brought about by the Con-Ass Express, that caused the cancellation. The political sparks flying around, the planned protest actions and the overall image of our government officials fighting over political survival instead of focusing on development programs for the ASEAN Region may have made the foreign dignitaries and their security details jittery, what with the Australian and British embassies warning of terrorist threats during the Summit . The cancellation, if true, could mean an incalculable loss to all the money spent by Cebuanos preparing for the event.

This, not to mention the shameful image that the Con-Ass proponents must have projected to the delegates from all over the ASEAN region who watched the congressional antics from their hotel rooms in Cebu . Even among the Administration congressmen there must be many who are already deeply ashamed of the decisions they have been forced to make and to ratify. To them we say, back off, while there's still time. There is no way to disassociate the Con-Ass Resolution from the public perception that the underlying motive is simply to perpetuate the incumbents' stay in office. How else can they explain the undue haste to convene a constituent assembly before the May 2007 elections, or the move to postpone the elections to a later date.

The murder of Ninoy Aquino triggered Edsa I. During the Estrada Impeachment Proceedings, it was the Tessie Aquino Oreta jig which angered the people into the mass that culminated into Edsa II. This time around that imperious claim: "We have the numbers!", thundered by that Administration congressman who moved to ram the Con-Ass vote through, was the spark that angered millions of Filipinos and which is now responsible for the massive series of protest actions being planned all over the country. It will all inevitably end - again - in Edsa.

You were woefully mistaken, Mr. Congressman. You may have the tyranny of the hundreds within the halls of the House of Representatives, but the numbers are with the millions of your constituents outside whose collective voices you did not echo and obey. They - not you, Mr. Congressman - are Sovereign.*

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