Why Charter Change will be More of the Same for the Philippines

With the May 13 elections now history, newly minted and re-minted politicos are now edging for a Charter Change. Of course, as to why a legislator would support such move depends on whom you ask. For all intents and purposes, support for charter change will always be based on a politicos best self-interest, and that of his family and brood of potential politicians.

Why indeed would charter change be a prime necessity?

Politicians would like us believe that charter change is now high time to respond to the new trends in world events that the Philippines is encountering. They say that the 1987 Constitution is way past is glory days, that it has lost touched with new realities, new experiences, new modes of thinking. In short, the 1987 Constitution is no longer serving the best interests of the Filipino people.

To which I say, to change the constitution is to change the icing in the cake. Changing the 1987 Constitution will never improve the lot of the Filipino masses, it will only improve the lot of the vested oligarchy that has ruled this country for the better part of the last 100 years. Again, we can try all the icings in the world, but if the cake underneath is dysfunctional, rotten and degraded, no amount of icing or frosting can cover its eventual descent to stench-hood. In the same way, we can try all the governmental systems the world has to offer, but if the rungs of power are held assiduously by the feudal families of our nation and the people remain chronically poor, undereducated and underemployed, not to mention exploited and neglected, not much can be hoped for and certainly not much can be changed.

It is not the 1987 Constitution that needs to be changed, it is the outlook of the Filipino people that needs to change. And such can be accomplished only by a leader who will wean the masses of centuries of mental subjugation and the Catholic Church's suffocating grip on the Filipino psyche that will have to be unshackled. Only then can any system work.

Unfortunately for the nation, we have not been blessed, as of yet, of a Lee Kuan Yew who will show the Filipino masses the virtue of steely resolve to rise above desperation, or of a Mahathir who has the vision, the prudence, the discipline to steer the nations resources for inclusive, egalitarian, wholistic and comprehensive national developement, of a Deng Xiaopeng who will go beyond the ideology of poverty, political dynasties, hypocritical religiosity and vested familial interests to build that progress is change in attitudes, not mere change of systems or of the resolve of the founding fathers of the U.S. constitution to create a future where the best of the Filipino can prosper unhindered by the strings of governmental control but regulated by the mechanisms of state to ensure that all will be under the law.

The great tragedy of the Filipino people is that we have failed to plant and harvest our greatest resource, or that we have failed to realize that our greatest hope, our greatest salvation, our greatest source of strength is our perception of ourselves, our destiny as we choose to mold it and our willingness to sacrifice for the common good. Unless we realize that our potentials are trapped in our minds, then no amount of charter change, no amount of governmental system change can ever make a dint in the poverty we are so accustomed to wading that we have believed it to be our place in the world.