Give our Constitution a chance

By: JC delos Reyes, June 24, 2009.

“Most faults are not in our Constitution but in ourselves.”  – Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General

The forms of government, its structure and organization is an issue subsidiary to the more essential question of good faith or the lack of it. How congressmen belonging to the majority party respect, and adhere to the supreme law of the land gives us a clue as to their motivations for proposing amendments or revisions and subsequently, how it will treat a new constitution, if at all. More telling is how they disregard widespread public opinion to further their questionable agenda.

If good faith is the measure, then they have utterly failed. They want constitutional change but their manner and method is glaringly unconstitutional. They argue the legal processes but ‘ram down,’ surreptitious legal maneuvers are just too revealing. They speak of hope and economic prosperity yet there has been a continuing silence on justice and equity. Many times recent, truth and justice had to yield to political expediency and opportunism, Garci scandal, NBN-ZTE, Joc-Joc Bolante, etc. Charter change at this time will not help and heal this suffering nation whose wounds they themselves inflict.

There is a need to remind these elected big shots that it is ultimately about the good of the Filipino people, a good that must be built on a foundation of genuine love and public service, not immoral compromises.

The most overwhelming problem this country faces is not the form of government, but those in government — that inbred culture which allows unbridled corruption causing enslaving poverty. All these weaken and haunt our institutions that further structural injustices. At the end of the day, it is all about GREED… maintaining material wealth, political influence and power.

We must then conclude that this indeed is a moral problem in need of a moral solution, and the irony of ironies? It is in giving our constitution a chance to take shape and come into its own, whose promise is yet to be realized in the minds and hearts of Filipinos where it may ‘develop its sinews and gather its strength.’ This is where the moral challenge lies.

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