The Assembly’s Statement on the Plenary Debates on Charter Change
Posted by spacesofresistance | Filed under History, Politics
The staff of this blog, being current officials of The Assembly, the Political Science organization of the Ateneo de Manila University, wishes to share the organization’s stand on last night’s atrocious “gang-rape of democratic institutions” by the venal Un-Representatives at the Bastusang Pambansa led by Prospero Nograles et al. Please do read and share:
Yesterday, June 2 2009, the House of Representatives convened to decide on the issue of H.B. 4077, aka the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program with Extensions and Reforms Bill. But in another contrived turn of events, representatives allied with the Arroyo government have instead began plenary debates on the issue of amending the 1987 Constitution by convening the Congress into a Constituent Assembly which will have plenary powers in changing provisions of the constitution. Arroyo’s allies in the lower house intend to do this without a vote in the upper house of Congress – an act considered unconstitutional by many legal experts.
Baffled and confused, helpless farmers outside the gates of Batasan waited in confusion and disorientation, as the cause they have marched for, fought for and lobbied for becomes scoffed at and stuffed into the political drawers of non-engagement, all in the name for the push towards constitutional reformatting in the name of perpetuating the interests of the Arroyo regime supported by well entrenched oligarchic elites occupying most seats in Congress.
THE ASSEMBLY recognizes the social realities of the farmer’s plight, the clandestine extrajudicial killings and the smokescreen democracy that the Arroyo Administration fronts.
As such, THE ASSEMBLY standing firmly as an organization in support of a democracy as the rule of the people, grounded upon the Christian value of preferential option for the poor, VEHEMENTLY REJECTS the junking of the land reform bill and the persistent efforts of Arroyo’s allies to change the constitution. The subsequent moves of the House of Representatives, first in the shifting of gears in its legislative action from CARPER towards Cha-Cha, then to the subsequent silencing of mainstream media, employing its capitalist properties to alter the dynamism of our political atmosphere all constitute a violation of authentic community-building and are an affront to human dignity.
For THE ASSEMBLY, however, the issue is not just about the legality or constitutionality of what has happened today. What has happened today is another manifestation of the crisis of the country’s liberal democratic institutions. In fact, the very reality that members of Congress can easily dispose of the people’s agenda in exchange for their own vested interests highlights precisely the problem with the structure of liberal democratic politics – the narrow and highly restricted notion of what constitutes public interest.
This move for charter change proposes a notion of finality in political citizenship by claiming that a change in the constitution will finally resolve issues of injustice. It does not only deepens the chasm between man and his community, but also leaves him docile, acquainted to this solitary polity, creating a majority that is fundamentally fragmented yet legally represented by a House that claims sovereignty from a ghastly constituency.
Politics is a facet of humanity that belongs to the people, not to the institutions that govern them.
Ad Majorem + Dei Gloriam
Tags: charter change, Congress, outrage, Politics, the assembly statement
One Response
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Apathy | bury me in this dress Says:
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