FINAL REPORT - Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

“charter change express” ignores all basic requirements whether as to budget
availability or normal consultative timetables (even by the standards of the Comelec
itself 80 ) and railroads all considerations of substantive and procedural due process, 81
then we find, by elementary logic and common sense, that all roads ineluctably lead to
her as main sponsor and beneficiary of the campaign. 82
We think these pre-meditated events render inevitable the conclusion that
President Arroyo must indeed have a very personal stake in the victory of this project.
And we find no difficulty in perceiving that her ulterior motive for this
inscrutably frantic desideratum lies in the fact that her automatic constitutional
installation as President, through a transitory provision in the proposed new
constitution, will provide leeway for her to argue, no matter how tenuously, that all
charges of electoral fraud and crime relating to her assumption of the presidency in
2004, graft and corruption, and violations of human rights – impeachable offenses all
– will have thereby been rendered moot and academic, by dint of ratification by the
people in the plebiscite. 83
What the nation will then have will be a parliament dominated by President
Arroyo through her allies, not unlike the present House of Representatives that
the same token invalid, the supposed delegation of the power to do so in favor of the Comelec having sprung from an
invalid law.)
The decision also permanently enjoined the Comelec from entertaining any petition for an initiative on contitutional
amendments until a sufficient law shall have been validly enacted to provide for the implementation of the system.
80
According to Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra himself, testifying before Senator Biazon’s Committee
on April 3, 2006, the Comelec’s Finance Services Department has stated that verification of signatures alone will
entail a minimum cost of P1 billion, for which the Comelec has no budget. Neither, he added, does the Comelec
have any budget for a plebiscite, the cost of which will be at least P2.6 billion. Nor is this amount covered by the
budget proposed by the DBM, which is only P2.1 billion. Likewise according to Commissioner Borra, a preparatory
period of at least six months is required for any national electoral exercise, such that the chances for the holding of a
(bona fide) plesbiscite by July, 2006 is “impossible.” (Hearing of Senate Committee on National Defense and
Security, ANC live telecast, April 3, 2006)
81
Interviews of citizens, aired on national television, reveal that they signed without knowing, much less
understanding, what they signed. (television newscasts, March 23, 2006)
82
specially considering her latest public pronouncement, big and bold, that those who will not ride the charter
change train will get run over ("GMA rides Cha-cha train… `It's time for old-time politicians to stand back or get run
over," Gil C. Cabacungan, Jr. and TJ Burgonio, PDI, March 31, 2006, p. A1)
83
In the words of Prof. Randolph David: “…serious advocates of the rewriting of the Constitution know that a
basic requirement for doing it right is the insulation of the process from the narrow objectives of partisan
politics. Right now, it is such objectives that are driving the “Charter Express.”
It is obvious what these are. The first is to abolish the Senate, the only branch of government that has
dared to investigate criminal charges against Ms Arroyo with persistence and independence. It is this Senate
that will automatically constitute itself as an impeachment court the moment an impeachment complaint obtains a
one-third vote in the House of Representatives. The second is to lay to rest, once and for all, the legitimacy
questions that have hounded Ms Arroyo’s presidency since 2001, and all the criminal charges arising from
the fraudulent conduct of the 2004 elections.
Clearly, Charter change, by hook or by crook, is Ms Arroyo’s last card in her bid to survive till 2010 and
avoid prosecution and imprisonment at the end of her term.
178