 The Philippine Senate rejects charter chains. Nasabunda agad ang perma. Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario David Jr. Another framer of the 1987 constitution is turning back. Philippine congressional leaders say they will pursue charter amendments next year even without the Senate's participation. Yes, direct. Bagandang araw po sa inyong lahat. Pahaya gan at social media ang bangayan ng Kongreso at Senado patongkol sa paraans sa pagbabago ng 1987 Philippine constitution. Sa kabilang daco, patula yung contuber siya kung sinong nasa likod at magpupondo sa pagkukulikta ng perma para sa isang peoples initiative. Why are some sectors like the Catholic Bishops Conference, Catholic Educational Association in the Philippines, UP political science professors, among others, worry of charter change o cha-cha? This is not the first time the national leaders attempted to change the 1987 constitution. All administrations after President Corazon Aquino proposed changes. There were proposals to shift to a parliamentary system, lift term limits of elected officials, amend restrictive economic provisions, and shift to federalism. But none of these attempts succeeded. So we ask, will this recent move to change the constitution prosper? Or perhaps the better question to ask is, why should we care about the constitution? This afternoon's online forum organized by the Philippines Communication Society in conjunction with TVUP, we will try to understand the context, issues and concerns, and implications of what is perceived as a sinister move of self-centered politicians to change the constitution. Welcome to cha-cha-cha, bangain dayog at ritmo sa pagpapalit sa saligang batas. I am Mike Navalio, your moderator. We are streaming live on YouTube at the TVUP channel and the Facebook pages of TVUP and the Philippines Communication Society. We are also being cross-posted by the Facebook pages of the Philippine Political Science Association, the USD Journalism Society, and Press1.ph. And we're also viewed on TVUP Signal Channel 101. We'd also like to acknowledge the help of the... Well, we are streaming live courtesy of the Philippines Communication Society and TVUP, but we would also like to acknowledge the help of the following to make this forum possible. TVUP, Philippine Political Science Association and the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines. For those who are registered via Zoom, we will soon be sending your certificates of attendance through email. Now, if you are interested in joining PCS and its relevant projects, here's how. And before we officially start the discussions, the Vice President of the Philippines Communication Society, Mr. Leonor Hernando will deliver the welcome remarks. Dr. Lenny? Dr. Lenny, I think you're on mute. Mr. Lenny, I think you're on mute. Yes, okay. All right. Hi, hello. Good afternoon. Okay. Bilang mga gurumaramin na po kami na pagtapos mga dalobhasa sa komunikasyon. Gali naman, meron din po kaming publikasyon. Mulaan noon hanggang ngayon, po saan na italan namin at nasuri ang mga kaganapan sa ating lipoonan. Kaming po ay mga advocates para sa malayang pangamahiyag at pabibigay ng balancing informasyon. In the interest of discussing relevant issues among accommodations and communication practitioners, PCS or the Philippines Communication Society in partnership with TBUP and sub-media organizations has held a series of webinars on artificial intelligence and several election-related topics. The latter dubbed as the National Forum on Communication and Democracy Philippine Elections 2022. Was recently awarded during the 20th Quill Awards under the category on issues, management and crisis communication. Ito po ang aming pinakabagong nakamit na karangalan. Ang ating pungusapin ngayong hapon ay sa diyang napaka-importante para sa ating bilang mga mamamayan ng Filipinas. Ang ating pungusaligang batas o constitution ay ang pinakapundasyon ng batas at galaw ng ating gobiel mo. Ang pangpapalit nito ay mga ngahulogang magbibigay din ang pababago sa ating nakasanayan ekonomia, politikal, social at mga nakasanayan ng gawain at karapatan. Kaya tayo po ay tumuto sa ating programa at alamin ang mahalagang pusaping ito. Kaya balik na sa yong attorney Mike. Thank you very much, VP Lenny, for stating the relevance and importance of this discussion to our Philippine democracy. Charged change, otherwise known as chacha, is befittingly liken to the dance chacha. Chacha is a dance footed in Cuba described as a fun, flirtatious dance with playful energy. That's from the website called dancingforbeginners.com. Now, liken the chacha dance, the partner or voters in this case are lured and charmed to sign a petition by dangling welfare funds. Meanwhile, the squabbles between Congress and the Senate can note the playful energy between dance partners. In a dance, cadence and timing are important. If there is a misstep, it ruins the beauty and fluidity of the movement. It disrupts order and it brings about chaos. Thus today, we will dissect the issues on charter change and provide a better understanding of the political, economic and legal context, alternatives and implications of changes in the 1987 Constitution. Sa atin talakayan po ngayong hapon, susubukan natin masagot ang limang katanungan. Anong abang saligang batas, gaano kahalaga ito sa demokrasya ng bansa? Bakit marami ang nagtangkang baguhin ito, pero hindi naging matagumpay? Totunga ba ang mga nakasaad sa Article 12 on National Economy and Patrimony ng 1987 Constitution ay had lang sa pag-unlad ng bayan? Napapanahon ba ang pagpapalit sa ibang parte ng saligang batas? At pinagkakatiwalaan ba ng bayan ang kasalukuyang konggreso sa pamamaraan, sa pagpandaing ng diumanoy mas makabansa, maunlad at mas realistic na provisions? Now joining us in this discussion are three well-respected experts. To discuss the political context of the Constitution is a political science professor from UP Dileman and she is a member of the Philippine Political Science Association, Dr. Jean Encinas Franco. Dr. Franco, good afternoon. Magandang hapon, Mike. Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat. Thank you for joining us and I'd like to thank the Philippine Communication Society and the Philippine Political Science Association and the organizers of this very important webinar for inviting me. Good to see you, Dr. Franco. Now to discuss the arguments of Congress and the need to amend the economic provisions. As a former Undersecretary of Finance and UP Economics Professor, Dr. Shelo Magno. Professor Magno, welcome to the program. Good afternoon, Mike. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to be part of this discussion. All right. And we are also fortunate to have one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution. A lawyer who was once the Comilec Chairperson and a founder and honorary chair of an election watchdog, the legal network for truthful elections or lente, Attorney Christian Munsoed. Attorney Munsoed, good afternoon. All right. So let's begin our discussion this afternoon with Dr. Franco. Give us a sense, Dr. Franco, of just how important the Philippine Constitution is and what's the position of the Political Science Department of UP with respect to this proposed charter change? Dr. Dr. Franco. Thank you, Mike. I would like to read the position of our department which was also presented in a hearing in 2022 in the House of Representatives. So this is our statement. Historically, Philippine initiatives to change a constitution were made to break from the immediate past and usher in a new political order. For instance, the 1935 Constitution provided a transition, an ambition of a post-American colonial regime in the Philippines. The 1973 Constitution institutionalized human-man rule. The 1987 Constitution dismantled the dictatorship and offered solutions to heighten social injustices. That authoritarian rule had engendered. Furthermore, institutionalizing democratic checks and balances across the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government as well as civil society's power in relation with a state. Simply put, the overarching change envisioned in the current constitutional reform process must articulate the nature of the break that it wishes to achieve. It must also be crystal clear that the problems the charter revision wishes to address cannot be done through regular legislation and or executive action. Our people need to hear from the political leadership answers that are based on grounded and evidence-based claims. Our people deserve no less. While constitutional amendments may not require any special historical moments, revisions in practice were usually undertaken after some major upheavals like revolutions, schools, post-colonial wars, democratic appricings, post-peace agreement managed transitions, or after a regime change such as when left-leaning governments were elected into power in several Latin American countries. Since 2016, several proposed resolutions in both chambers of Congress, including those favoring the federal shift or a charter change, claim that there is a quote-unquote public clamor for the shift or change. Opinion polls belie this. In a September 2022 Pulse Asia Survey, charter change was not in the list of urgent national concerns. Any attempt to amend the Constitution or change the charter requires prior consultative and deliberative processes involving a genuinely informed citizenry. The claim that there is public clamor for constitutional change remains unsubstantiated to this day. The realities of the fiscal and logistical demands required to roll out credible and substantive processes to change the Constitution, make it an even more problematic pursuit, especially in the face of more urgent and immediate local and national problems. We also humbly remind our honorable decision makers that constitutional change is not the silver bullet or the holy elixir to cure our country's problems. It is not a panacea to remedy our social, economic ills or the only means to accomplish our national desires and aspirations. Reforms can be accomplished through an appropriate mix of legislation and policy interventions and not simply through constitutional amendments or even institutional overhaul. Existing laws can be reviewed and amended when processes and practices safeguarded and improved. In fact, economists argue that the policy framework of the Philippines is already liberalized enough with legislation already in place. These are just excerpts from our statement because the statement is quite long but let me end and this is my own take. If we observe current developments, the way I see it is that the process seems to be a done deal. Therefore, drowning the voices of those who oppose it because of the way the process is being fast-tracked and if I may say railroaded. My sense is that those who oppose charter change must already prepare to launch a campaign against it in the run-up to the plebiscite. So thanks. This is all for now. We'll be happy to respond to questions and comments later. All right. Thank you, Dr. Franco. And just a reminder for our viewers that you can send your questions through the web. If you're on Zoom, you can send it through chat. Or if you're on our social media pages, we are now being cross-posted on CIAP, UST Journals in Society, Press 1 at PH and Philippine Political Science Association. You can send your comments there and you will try to read your questions to our resource persons later on. So now one of the issues that has been raised to justify changing the constitution has been supposedly for better economic prospects for the Philippines and whom better to talk about this other than Dr. Shalo Magno who was with administration and she is now with the UP School of Economics. Dr. Shalo, can you tell us about the truth about the post-economic amendments? Thank you, Mike. Let me share my screen and give a quick presentation on charter change and FDI. Maybe let me start with why we want FDI. This is based on the literature. It can increase productivity, facility transfer of technology, reduce unemployment. It can improve human capital, improve capital flow and of course it can create a competitive market. But we also have to understand maybe package FDIs. It's like a silver bullet. This is the only missing link not to our economic growth that we have to understand that in the development economic literature there are also concerns on why even with FDIs we do not see growth in economies and this is what we call threshold externalities. So based on the literature it says that developing countries need to have reached a certain level of development in education, technology, infrastructure and health. In emphasize po nito na hindi sa pad na nag-attract lang tayo na foreign direct investment we need to develop these sectors to make sure that we really benefit from the growth in the sector. Without high level investment in human capital we are not going to see rapid growth from FDIs. There's also this tendency that FDIs can crowd out domestic investment meaning lumili it instead because now the thinking is oh we need additional foreign direct investment to augment the current domestic capital that's available in the market. And based on existing literature FDIs can actually crowd in meaning nag-add niya siya but can also crowd out domestic investment and it can be neutral and it's because of the various types of FDIs in a country. And I think these things they need to invest in human capital they need to understand what type of FDIs we need to attract in the country are important conversations that the administration should be doing to be able to attract FDIs. At the same time there's also a discussion if you want to attract high tech FDIs it's important to address technology gap sometimes an FDI would come in partnering with the domestic sector but it doesn't mean that the whole business sector would benefit from it so we have to make sure that while we're attracting high tech investment we are also addressing the technology gap between domestic enterprise and foreign investors. So clearly I want to look at the global context of FDIs and we are seeing here a decline in available foreign direct investment flow so what does this mean for us? It means that the sector the demand for FDIs becoming more competitive countries have to be competitive to be able to attract FDIs and to put the Philippines in context we see that in recent years FDIs in the country is declining and it's the lowest in the region. So it's important to unbundle these what are the factors that foreign direct investors consider to be able to locate to a country and this is based on existing literature we know that quality of institutions rule of law with human capital infrastructure macroeconomic conditions trade policy state of technology tax policy and market size are important but again I go back sa sinabi ko kanina that there are different types of foreign direct investments and the effect of these variables vary on the type of FDIs for example market size market size matters to FDIs who are seeking where to sell their product they are not meant to produce and export their product but they come here to be able to sell sell to us as consumers those types of FDIs will not be concerned on what tax incentives we should be giving them because these companies are the ones which can actually crowd out domestic investment kasi iko kumpit nga yung market natin and then at the same time of course state of technology the ones who are concerned with high tech sila yung may concern jat so one policy fit all in attracting FDIs so the government has to clearly sit down and think of what where we're going to focus what sectors are we going to strengthen to be able to effectively attract FDIs now the question on whether to liberalize and reduce regulatory restrictiveness of the country to be able to attract FDIs ito yung pinagusapan are we very restrictive I want to point out kasi ito yung dinit sa konggreso kahapon yung FDI regulatory restrictiveness index of OECD and then keep on mentioning that the Philippines is one of the most restrictive restrictive economy but they're citing 2020 data nakalimutan at anong konggreso na sila yung magpasa na mga batas ng 2022 that are significantly liberalizing our economy nevertheless some studies specifically 2021 this is the latest they've looked at the importance of restrictiveness in terms of attracting foreign direct investment and this one is a quote from their paper mix yung findings nila so they did a robustness study to examine really what's the effect of restrictiveness in terms of attracting FDIs and this is what they said it's statistically insignificant for all investors when we talk about macroeconomic stability quality of governance piece of doing business and quality of infrastructure okay but nevertheless again let's look at the constitutional provisions and the current policies that we have we have a constitutional provision on natural resources but this has been addressed by a supreme court decision for example in mining mining allows 100% foreign ownership already this is based on a 2001 supreme court decision nila google dilaan versus ramos the reason to is circular amending the IRR of the renewable energy act classifying renewable energy as not natural resources and therefore no limitations in terms of 100% foreign ownership for renewable energy sector on land we already discussed this vietnam doesn't allow land ownership to our policies are similar but this provision in the constitution also allows Congress to elaborate further on how we can use our land so we have this RA7652 the investors lease act which allows the leasing of private land for 50 years and renewable for now in 25 years that's already a lifetime so ang importante sa land ng well-defined property rights which will allow you how to utilize the asset that's assigned to you on foreign investment again the constitution as provision limiting foreign capitalization of 6040 but that provision also gives Congress the power to further define which sector should be limited things on the interest of the Filipino and then because of that we have RA11647 again updated 2022 where the president is given the power to issue a negative list for the information of the public even China has negative list and yet it's able to grow its economy these are the negative lists the executive order of the president but again the remaining sectors are the ones we classify as public utilities under the public service act mass media education and advertising with respect to practice of profession the limitation is based on existing laws whether we have treaties with other countries or we have reciprocity policy okay that's my last slide just to summarize I think we should focus on human capital institutional quality infrastructure clear policies on how to implement all these laws and rules that we have clear implementation of rule of law and I think the government has to have strategic framework on what FDIs we want to bring to the country apologies for exceeding my time but if you have additional questions you can contact me to this channel thank you thank you Dr. Magno and just a reminder of course you can still ask your questions to to Dr. Magno I see some comments on the chat and some questions so we will tackle that later on but in the meantime let's now talk to Attorney Christian Monsard a prominent legal eagle who told hard in framing the 1987 constitution what's his take are the current moves to amend the constitution actually legal what can we expect out of this Attorney Monsard Attorney Monsard I think you're still on mute yes I was going through through my papers and I realized that Sheld and the first speaker have already covered most of the things I was going to say so I'll stick to the part that what I made about the constitution and say that the immediate trigger by the way when you talk about what's the elections for on February 7 now when many people call as a revolution but the the VD commission of which I was a member that investigated the seven attempts called People Power Evolved because it is unfinished business and part of the unfinished business has already been have already been mentioned by the previous speakers was that but ETSA was not only about the restoration of democracy it was also the promise of a new social order that remains unfulfilled through every administration since ETSA and those of us who are turning government or an apology to the youth especially of this country especially those from the poor for that reason the fact is that our nation to greatness at ETSA and after we accomplished in 1992 elections the first peaceful transfer of power in 27 years we folded our banners we put away the t-shirts with the imaginative slogans that both humans at the times and we went back to our personal purposes and advocacy and we went back as we went back our separate ways with our separate causes we lost something of a dream of a nation and the significance of our interconnected lives this is why we are in bad bad bad position today also today we are still the laggers in our part of the world on mass poverty and inequality that rooted in a futuristic system of political dynasties and is a companion evil corruption according to the lucent report to the UN the Philippines was among the worst countries in the pandemic today today this is the context of now of these proposals and the constitution and I'd like just to our people to be cautious about this today we are already in a slippery slope to authoritarianism under the coalition of dynasties of four presidents Royo Duterte and Marcos our system of checks and balances is weakening the rule of law it's also mentioned but I shall earlier the rule of law is on a decline and the index of corruption is increasing we have a supreme court that deferred to president Duterte on the issue of the sufficiency of the factual basis of martial law so that now martial law can be declared anywhere and anytime in the Philippines then the supreme court for a campus went deferred to the president on senator Laila and on the removal of chief justice and then there's the impunity of the existential killings in the anti-drug campaign and the creation of pork barrel system for the executive for contingency, intelligence and so called public purposes money that should be should be doled to help the poor a recent study however and this is bad news by the Cambridge University on the supreme court on 70 mega cases and the voting record of 86 supreme court justices from 1987 to 2021 showed an average voting pattern of about 69% in favor of the government the appointing power but Duterte appointees voted 96, 94% in his favor and today 13 of the 15 justices appointees of Duterte but of course there are also golden moments in the life of the supreme court we are here today to ask why the constitution is being blamed as the hindrance to foreign direct investment which they say is the key to higher growth rates with all its benefits blaming the constitution also exploits the surveys that 73% of our people know nothing of constitution or very little of it and that's why I want to give a brief explanation of the constitution that they want to change EDSA was the inspiration of the 1987 constitution it was the first time that we spoke to the world as a truly independent and democratic Filipino nation it is a document that had not been imposed on us by a colonial power or by a dictatorship in our national consultations before we started the people we listened to the people and they preferred the stability of familiar structures democratic representative presidential system with checks and balances and separation of powers and that's we'll bring that up as an issue also on this people's initiative overwhelmingly the people wanted to vote directly for the president there are a number of provisions in 1935 and 1973 constitutions that are in the 1987 constitutions but the three most important themes of our constitution and this will apply also to why we cannot allow changes in our constitution first the heart of the constitution is social justice with the poor as a center of our development it was called by the president of the constitution commission for my justice Cecilia Monios Palma as the heart of the new constitution hence the new article on social justice to address not only mass poverty but also the gross social economic and political inequalities that is rooted in a fidelistic system of dynastic families that has been impoverished and changed for generations with the corruption that goes with it the compelling principle is encapsulated in the last sentence of article 13 section 1 and I quote by equitably defusing wealth and political power for the common good and I will go over the proposals and see that it violates many of these provisions second second central theme never again to any authoritarian government hence the strict limitations and conditions for declaring a new provisions in the bill of rights to protect citizens against abuses by the state and third theme of the 1987 constitution the national destiny must firmly and safely rest on Filipinos themselves never again amendments similar to the 1935 constitution that gave Americans equal rights to our patrimony and economic publishes where even our exchange changed after independence could not be changed without the approval of the United States which resulted in the foreign exchange crisis of the early 50s the 1987 constitution also cut the umbilical cord of our previous constitution to the United States constitution the US constitution gives primacy to civil and political rights because it's a country of immigrants who all started from the same position and only wanted to be free from autocracy hence the emphasis in the United States on individual rights in a market economy our constitution give social economic rights equal primacy with civil and political rights because we are a country of inequalities from the colonial days to the present where the starting positions of the rich and the poor are not equal therefore when you look at social justice social justice is really about the adjustment of the starting positions before we foster the market competition with such development paradigms as well it is enough to provide equality of opportunity and a fair and a fair process without being too concerned about outcomes and rising they say well rising waters raise all boats forgetting that many boats are crammed with people many without food amid the luxury rights of the rich that is why social justice provisions are even included in the article on the economy article 12 section 6 the use of property bears a social function and all economic agents shall contribute to the common good and I emphasize this subject to the duty of the state to promote distributive justice when the common good so demands to fulfill the vision of a new social order the state should engage in income distribution programs primarily quality education and quality healthcare and for asset distribution programs for the poorest of the poor a greater reform for land reform and housing ancestral domain and fisheries reform where the poorest of the poor are how can the young how can I and I am referring to this because one of the provisions they want to commend is education how can the young of the poor compete for career and business opportunities with children of the rich when the quality of their education and healthcare are not the same I accepted to speak yesterday to a school and and told them I am surprised at the remarkable thought where they have many branches now and I I said I look forward to listen to you to the young on their experiences and what they intend to do for the country for the quality education they are going because at the end here we will say how will we change things right because many things wrong with us our policies and our weekend weekend institutions with regard to the asset reform program I will not go through all of them but let me mention only agreement reform that there are all underperforming all of them because they are either underfunded agreement reform sorry to get 225 billion over 20 years but got only 175 billion or with loopholes in the loss by this distribution shares instead of land like a chandelier of the Kuangos which was finally ended by the Supreme Court in 2014 we argued for the farmers in the farmers won as for urban land reform and housing farmers can sell their lands to rich land developers with commissions of course instead of using them for housing for the poor to save them four hours of heavy traffic to go to work at the indigenous people used to own all the land they were driven to higher ground by colonial masters in complicity with Kasike land owners where they are now facing mining companies without any value given to the raw materials what are also given forestry and water rights the proposed mining reform bills to change address all this in the mining reform bill to change that and also environmental externalities as our previous speakers said the externalities of mining and what happened at the community level it never even got to plenary and they were very proud about it he said it's easy mahani why? because our congress and this is part of the context of why I don't think we should touch congress because our congress is very adept at transactional legislation and like that's they're not only politicians but also the rich I'm very adept at that I hope this introduction to the content of the constitution will urge you to study to devote time and whatever career the young want to pursue with especially the provisions on social justice local autonomy the constitution is not the problem it's very part of the solution by the way what are the people being told on the purpose for amending the economic provisions and only the three education public utilities and advertising and this I get from the farmers I'm chief legal counsel chief national farmer groups and for some urban poor people what are the people being told the people are being told and I quote President Marcos in an interview last January 23rd quote the 19 F.C constitution was not written for a globalized world we have to adjust so that we can increase the economic activity in the Philippines and we can attract more foreign investors unquote this is the same president who who last year said for me for me all these things being talked about we can do without changing the constitution Shell was correct we have already done that our constitution proves to be resilient because of all the things that have been done to say we are now open to business the president after all is the chairman of NEDA which came out about September 2022 with the Philippine Development Plan for 2023 to 2028 approved by the president as chairman of NEDA that the country is quote unquote open for business I think Shell already mentioned all of these things that have been done to that is cited as open for business Atternumansod, yes. Thank you so much for that if you don't mind we will have to proceed to the next part unless you have some very important points you want to to make One example Go ahead atternumansod Here is the example of the Japanese manufacturing companies leaving China about four years ago who put the Philippines as destination number four behind Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam When the Japanese Chamber of Commerce was asked why since manufacturing in our constitution is allowed 100% foreign ownership there was much discussion of the pros and cons quality of manpower also like that and also manufacturing chains infrastructure and so on but what was the most important finally factor against us and I quote that they said country image that's what they said which they said was they tried to change but could not A big part of that image was of course corruption including transaction legislation which would open the door wider by the incensure of that phrase unless otherwise provided by law in the economic provisions at which corrupt politicians and greedy big business are very adept I was once asked and this is my final word that you know did you make mistakes in the constitution I said of course because the constitution the writers were imperfect but I think from hindsight that we made two mistakes estimated the spirit of edsa and we underestimated the greed of politicians for power and of the rich for more wealth thank you thank you attorney munson and of course we will have more chance to listen to attorney munson later on in the program we have an interaction in the reactors and we also have the q&a for our viewers and other members of the audience now to further enlighten us or seek further clarifications for our educators to react to the presentations of our distinguished resource persons to react to Dr. Jean Franco's presentation is the president of the Philippine Political Science Association and UP Political Science Professor Dr. John Robert Goe you have three minutes hi thank you Mike I would not have any negative thing to say about Dr. Franco's statement because I basically signed the same statement but I would like to point out two things in terms of the process of amending or revising the constitution if what they are saying is that they would just like to change certain provisions then that's amendment we're basically amending the constitution but the question there is what is the process being undertaken and I think if people especially those in congress right now particularly house of representatives are trying to fast track this without sufficient consultation and just assuming that since they are district representatives they have the direct power to overhaul or change certain provisions of the constitution then probably there is something wrong about that because changing the constitution is not just on the powers or on the hands of the congress or the house of representatives currently I think the people should be involved in the process of identifying which ones should be amended which one should be revised and the process should involve the people so basically that's one the second one is the question of changing amending or revising the constitution itself constitutions are institutions written institutions so we are basically talking about how the state the government will run will be formed and therefore it only presents to us one part of the equation constitution is just one part of the equation the other part of the equation are the people who occupy the political offices so we have a framework the constitution is a framework and we blame the framework as if the framework would be the one that is the force of the problem or on the other hand we see the constitution is the one that will solve all the problems we should not look at the constitution in that manner rather we should look at the constitution as the framework that will help those who occupy political offices to implement or to execute certain other specific laws and therefore if the problem is in terms of yung mga sinasabi natin poverty and all of that these are human factors and I think the constitution can only give us so much the human factor therefore should be the one we should be seeking to address the politicians who are corrupt the dynasties who are entrenched and therefore how we look at this question of constitutional change should not just be looking at the question of changing which provisions of the constitution but rather if we look at the entirety of the political system and also try to blame those who are implementing these provisions who should have made our lives better from the very start so that's my intervention here and I think will be okay. Thank you. You emphasize in your reaction the importance really of the people who are running the show so to speak who are occupying the political offices and for Dr. Franco she was saying earlier that this is certainly almost a done deal from all indications based on those who are sitting in power and you have the president now saying that he confirms that he wants a charter change plebiscite to be done simultaneously with the 2025 midterm elections saying holding it separately will be costly he just said that now from your analysis behind this charter change is it limited to just the house speaker wanting his amendments to the constitution to be introduced what's your reading of the whole thing why is this happening now Dr. Franco? Yeah my sense is that the president was just convinced to take this on remember this he categorically said during the 2022 campaign that he was not for charter change he also said that there are more urgent matters to address so in less than a year to his term he already said that his fourth charter change specifically amending the economic provisions sorry less than two years to his term so that's very different compared to previous attempts to change the charter where the presidential impetus was there from the very start specifically in contrast with the charter change proposal which was his campaign promise so and we're now seeing that the president already bought into the issue he's very much involved now even talking to both houses of congress and that's I must say a weird turn of events so let's just wait and see but as I said I mean the problem with combining the plebiscite with 2025 elections is that it might model once again more important issues because that would make the constitutional change proposal to be the number one issue come 2025 elections if they're combined but of course I understand that they're also concerned with the cost but if they're concerned with the cost then why bother to change the constitution when the economy say that there are enough laws and safeguards already Doctor Go, you agree? Yeah, I agree because I think the issues that are more important especially if we mix the plebiscite with the midterm elections the issues that are important that should be raised for the midterm elections will be eclipsed will be overshadowed by the discussion and changes in the constitution and therefore we are basically clumping all of these issues together and I think there are more important issues for example the pandemic has just ended but we're still feeling the impacts and the effects of the pandemic so how do we grapple about that I think these are important issues that also has to be raised but then we are busy with the issue of constitutional change which might not be directly associated with the livelihood with the things that are closer to the tummy of the people and Doctor Franco and Doctor Doctor Go, to what extent do you think this moves to amend the constitution now the timing of it and the context how is it affected by the ongoing squabbles supposedly between the Marcos and the Dutettas? Is this a proxy war of sorts that this is one of the battlegrounds what's at play, what's the bigger play here? Go ahead Well I think the Dutettas are just riding into the anti-chacha movement if I may say so and you know the weird thing is that they change their mind like their minds and their statements like they change their clothes so it's difficult to believe anything that comes from the Dutettas mouths Doctor Go before we proceed to another part of a program Yeah I more or less echo what Doctor Franco said about the Dutettas just riding this anti-chacha thing but I guess it only reveals that the uni team that was there before is no longer united anymore and let's just bring all of this crafts coming out and I guess if this comes to the point that we really have to decide then it's going to be chaotic in some form not necessarily violent or bloody but chaotic Final note, just curious the fact that they had to go through a people's initiative to determine how congress how senate and the house will vote that they want the boat to be joined and that's the only question in the people's initiative that's indicative to you or what does that tell you about the power balance now in the senate and in the house, very quickly Well I guess the fact that they had to go through that is just because they wanted to manufacture quote-unquote a sense of public clamor and the fact that it was not transparent we just woke up January 2024 and then there's this signature campaign tells us how they really want this to be a fast track no? Can I just can I just comment something about it I go ahead Dr. Imazad Yes, you know the house has a long list of charter changes they've been passing for the past year I have a long list of it I tried to go to the senate to get the two-thirds vote of the senate for a constitutional convention they could not get it and they went to the house to the senate again for a three-fourth vote in a constituent assembly they did not get the vote either that's why the people's initiative is their last card in order to the process and some of them are still ongoing I just talked to a group in Manila and they told me that they are still doing it if the implication of the so-called compromise agreement between the senate the house and the president was that it is going to be the senate who will lead any changes to the constitution and the senate said but only on three provisions economic provisions and if you go through those three economic provisions they are really not necessary as already explained earlier so 13 billion if it applies so now they are talking about 23 2025 to do it to do three other meaningless changes in the constitution the president has been lying about this since the since the elections I think the lady said it first she said that then he said it's not a priority then he said I do not want to interfere with the house it's an independent agency and then finally he said he studied he studied the philipine development plan that mentions nothing about charter change in the world achievable objectives 73 billion dollars of pledges he got from abroad did any of them have a condition for charter change none so the deal it seems behind all this charter change is going to be much bigger than we thought it was going to be and they are going to they are going to include a plebiscit in the elections in 2025 so let's not kid ourselves on this the signs are so obvious okay thank you at the anyone said doctor go would you like to say something before we move on I'm good thank you now to react to the statements of Dr. Shailo Magno earlier we now have with us Professor Felipe Salvosa II he is a PRO of the PCS and head of the journalism program of the University of Santo Tomas he will be reacting to Dr. Magno's statements earlier Professor Epe go ahead hi good afternoon to all of you in the Zoom room and all of everyone watching on YouTube and on Facebook and the different pages who are cross posting our live stream today thank you to Professor Magno for your dissection of the proposals to amend economic provisions of the 1987 constitution I think every time the discussion of changes in the constitution crops up the the discourse becomes almost too predictable so every time chacha comes out there's always talk of they're doing it because politicians want to extend their terms so I think one aspect of the 1987 constitution that's really done the work of keeping politicians in check so when a president is out of power he is really out of power as we can see in the case of our former presidents including former president Rodrigo Luterte they cannot come back there's no more coming back so term extensions the second one is whether we will do it by con us or con con and then when we talk about con us is it going to be voting separately or voting jointly so these are the common discourses that are always crapping up when it comes to chacha and then these discussions are always predicated with proposals to confine the amendments to the economic provisions no as if amendments to the economic provisions carry automatically pure and good intentions for the Filipino people so I think Dr. Magno is right that we need to examine the motives and the implications of the economic provisions that they want to amend we need to question the basis and the premises of these proposals for instance the passage of amendments to the public services act during the Luterte administration undermines their argument that the goal is to increase foreign direct investments as we have seen the amendment to the the amendment to the public services act now allows 100% ownership 100% foreign equity ownership in sectors like telecommunications of course there are a few remaining sectors in our constitution that are close to foreign direct investments and that includes mass media and education although if you look at mass media what was the intention for blocking off foreign equity in mass media at that time when there was no internet no social media and cable TV is not that prevalent I think the attorney could validate this the intention was to prevent foreign foreign agendas to cloud public discourse in the Philippines as we can see time has the passage of time has rendered that provision of the constitution almost ineffectual because right now Filipinos are bombarded with foreign content from foreign news organizations the CNNs and BBCs of the world are easily accessible to Filipinos but then again we have to we have to consult all of our stakeholders is it a good idea to allow foreign equity in mass media maybe not 100% but what proportion of foreign equity should be allowed in mass media because we should also look at the experiences of other countries for instance in Poland one of the problems there is that mass media is controlled by the superpowers that sandwich Poland Germany for instance and Russia so the police are consuming mass media influence by the superpowers that are colliding in that sphere so we have to we have to discuss this what kind of foreign equity what is the proportion of foreign equity that could be good for sectors like mass media and advertising that will allow these industries to innovate to reinvest and perhaps ameliorate the level of compensation of workers in these industries I think Professor Magnus reaction to one of our guests here is instructive that even in industries like mining where ownership of FTAAs can be 100% foreign owned can be 100% foreign equity we have not really benefited from mining as a result so that is a valid issue that we should reflect upon sure to wrap things up what I'm going to say is nothing new so this cha-cha process I would say is too important to be left in the hands of politicians I agree with Atoni Monsoed and the other resource persons we should we should be more consultative and we should listen to the vice council of our bishops who said that people's initiative should really come from the people rather than from self-interested politicians thank you thank you Professor Salvosa and Professor Salvosa touch on this but I do want to ask Professor Magnus about those industries which are still 100% Filipino owned we still have a negative list for them for example the media as Professor Apet said they have education land ownership is there not any argument in support of allowing foreigners to come in or is there really a good reason to keep them out for example if you're concerned that lands can suddenly be owned by for example Chinese trying to come and flock to the Philippines or trying to control the media what's the logic for these provisions and what's your take on allowing foreign ownership for almost all or in fact all our industries in the Philippines is that a wise move I think one primary reason why we have restriction is also a concern for national security other countries have restriction and that's why it's 6040 because it has to be Filipino controlled especially for sectors that are very exposed to foreign intervention for example national grid corporation of the Philippines and how risky it is that China has significant investment in that sector imagine allowing foreign a foreign company owning the distribution of water in the country and then all of a sudden we had a conflict with that country then they have a control of the quality of access to water etc so national security is a big consideration I have no objection in terms of liberalizing the mass media sector but the question is actually as Professor Salvosa already pointed out the sector is experiencing competition already because of evolution in technology and the exit of CNN showed the degree of profitability of the sector so opening the sector does not guarantee entry of investors in the sector but we actually have to look at whether it's still profitable or not with respect to education of course I fully support the liberalization at the entry of foreign universities in the country but the immediate question before us is that we have limited resources we have to allocate them we have to prioritize are we really going to go through this process of amending the constitution just to allow 100% university foreign universities to be in the Philippines with respect to the education sector I think our problem is how to improve basic education and the amount of money that we are allocating in the education sector is very small compared to other countries including Vietnam in Vietnam and India the way they improve the education sector is not by relying on foreign universities coming into their country but actually providing support to their students and then come back and invest and grow their IT sector on land ownership we can look at Singapore experience they are allowing foreign ownership of land and now they have an issue in terms of the increasing price of real estate property and access of Singaporean to real estate property but then going back to again the issue of FDI is it really a constraint the land ownership and the Vietnam experience is an example of that the investment in Vietnam is significantly higher than investment in the Philippines and yet they only allow leasing and not ownership so those are my concerns with respect to the remaining items that have not been liberalized Professor, your concerns about these remaining items which are still not liberalized I did mention some day what the media earlier said but the other industries that still remain 100% Filipino owned which of them do you think can be opened for an ownership which ones should remain 100% Filipino owned I don't think there are still provisions or specific industries that are limited to just Filipinos we are open to partnership some tech sectors allowed 40% in the executive order of the president they are varying degrees of ownership and the basis for that is one in terms of the national security risk there are prohibitions in the constitution which we have identified already the four sectors and then other strategy with respect to prohibition would factor in the differences in the types of FDIs it's not that we don't allow 100% ownership but for example if a company would locate to the Philippines in FDI but the reason why it's located so that it can sell its shampoo to the Philippine market you don't really just open up and say come here and we'll give you a 7 year tax holiday don't pay corporate income tax what's going to happen it's going to crowd out local entrepreneurs producing shampoo because the local entrepreneurs we tax them our SMEs we tax them but now we are allowing FDIs and zero tax these are things that should be thought of by the government but I think related to your question kainina that the part of economic reform that the government needs I think President Mark was actually realized that he's not able to increase foreign direct investment in the country and he's he realized that it's easier to blame the constitution than do the difficult job of improving address and corruption improving the energy sector improving human capital to explain why he's not able to attract foreign investors in the country kaya hindi ako naniniwala that this is the solution I already identified we've enumerated what the government has to do to be able to attract foreign investment because the economy is open and yet they continue to insist that it is the constitution that's the problem looking for a name excuse for their non-performance if tomorrow we declare the entire Filipino economy open for foreign investors we will continue to have the same bureaucracy that will approve all of the applications and the investment incentives all of the same bureaucracy in city hall the permits and the same number of signatures that are required to open a business or secure a mining FTA or MPSA so I think in one of the hearings and it was mentioned by one of the heads of the local investment banks we cannot neglect the need to improve the business environment the business climate making sure that doing business in the Philippines is easy walang bribes I mean if one day we say Philippines open to foreign investors then who's to say our bureaucrats our politicians will not exact the same bribes from these investors baka yun paang motivation mas marami mas marami may I add another concrete example when I was undersecretary of TOF ang loobas din naman sa news the Japanese firms threatening to leave the country it's not because of the constitution it's the inefficiency in the reimbursement of black credit so meaning the BIR and what has the government done to address the inefficiency in terms of reimbursing tax credit to BIR one and the Japanese threatening to leave the BIR tax administration reform computerization invoicing matagal na sa pipeline niya Professor Magna we're not even talking yet of the high cost of doing business in the Philippines like the power costs locality of human capital the infrastructure the infrastructure we think we have to look at holistically Ang dami pang puweteng pagusapan Professor Salvosa actually I wouldn't want to ask Sana who tends to benefit from this how can we ensure that if the economy is opened up if the economic conditions are revised or amended how can we be sure that those the farmers those at lower levels of sight can actually benefit from these changes from the constitution but I guess it's a long discussion and I was told we have to move on so we'll have the call father Tria the advocacy chair of the catholic educational association of the Philippines and the president of the BICOL association of catholic schools to react to the presentation of attorney Christian Munson father Tria father Tria go ahead yes I'm here I'm here to attorney Christian Munson I'm not a lawyer I'm not a constitutionalist not an economist I'm not even the president of the CAP father Albert Delbo just asked me to represent him so I'm just a a voice or a noise depending on who is listening to me first I like the opening statement of father of attorney Christian that EDSA is a work in progress so our achievement is the 1987 constitution but it's just the bedrock of democracy unless people are empowered it's just a work in progress I mean there's no real genuine democracy in the country so authoritarianism is right at the door steps actually once in a while it enters our house but the real focus is first to preserve the 1987 constitution while we have the great task the long term task of empowering the people through economic educational reforms you know depth eds profile about graduate is that they are equipped with 21st century skills I said that's not enough because we are not meant to be workers of the rich countries we are supposed to be good and responsible citizens therefore the focus must be on critical thinking democracy is about numbers so the majority of the Filipino people must really be equipped with critical thinking so that is one second is moral recovery there's a great gap between faith and justice so I'm happy to hear that the heart of the constitution is social justice equal distribution of goods so if we hear that 80% of the wealth of the country are in the hands or in the pockets of our politicians then there's no social justice so again it's a work in progress and the last one is livelihood productivity of the people so that's my first reaction second I also like the final statement of attorney monsoed he said that we overestimated achievements of edsa but we underestimated the greed of our politicians so to me to trust that our politicians want to change the constitution for the common good it's not only naivity not only but it's stupidity I mean if you cheat in the elections if you are elected by the slot machines made in China how can we trust that you are going to work for the common good so we should remain to be vigilant all these attempts to amend focusing only on education on the economic provision these are diversionary tactics so we should not lose sight on the fact that they just want to perpetuate themselves in power so that's my second and the last one is about the economic provision the FDI and so on and so forth you know the poison that's ruining our country is begging and shopping people flock at municipal halls to beg and then only to hop at city malls to shop so if that's the activity of the people then there's no future for our country we become a nation of beggars you know whenever there's election people flock at municipal halls to beg and then the culture of shopping is being promoted through different programs like the four piece like the extended long weekend early Christmas bonuses so that we drain our pockets so that we go back to our politicians and beg again but we are silent about productivity of our country we just want to relax the taxation so that we can import products and buy them but we are not working hard to invest on chemists on mechanical engineers so that the cacao that we produce here can be turned into good chocolates you know in Switzerland they have minimal agricultural window the snows because of the rocky alps and yet they produce the best chocolates in the world so we are not a nation of producers we are just a nation of consumers so I keep asking my students why is it that we are one of the poorest countries in the world but we have the biggest malls in the world because we are shoppers because we are beggars and shoppers so that's an illness that we see in our country and that requires real thinking, real discernment, real reform that's all those are the three points alright thank you father Tria attorney Mansoy alright thank you father Tria no attorney Mansoy I just want to ask what can you make of the fact that the so called people's initiative that they are doing now is supposedly from the public and there are allegations that this is in fact actually being done under the orders of the house speaker is it the proper mode for a proposal to amend the constitution to be done through a people's initiative supposedly and yet the people behind it are actually house lawmakers congressmen is that an abuse of the constitution or is that actually acceptable when it contemplated that particular form of amending the constitution go ahead go ahead attorney Mansoy that's for you okay let's put it this way when I was talking to the people the other day in san palo I was tell them alam puni nyo antawag yan people's initiative ibig sabihin niyan ng galing sa inyo congressmen's initiative kayo kayo ang dapat nag umpisa ito-ito gunit sinesabi nyo sa akin na hindi binapaliwanak sinyo kung ano talaga ibig sabihin na babagwuhin yung boating joint deal ay alam ninyo if you read the case of sanchago case and also the case of lambino sinesabi nila na there is no law for for a people's initiative to change the constitution kasi there are three right? people's initiative for national legislation and change and amending constitution sinapin na nung nung case doon ang punentipo na wala description kung pa ano man yangyari yung people's initiative to amending constitution kasi po ang dapat the process should include pinapaliwanak ano ba ang consequences ano ibig sabihin ito na hindi ang boto ng senado ipapalang isang boto lang ng congressman hindi pinaliwanak yung sa kanila kasi maalaman ang tao ay ibig sabihin doon sa constituent assembly total control ang house mawala na ang senate doon sabi ko doon po ba yan? kasi dapat doon voting separately may sabi ko may omission kami doon doon sa constitutional commission na hindi namin di nagdagang doon voting separately in three provisions one of these is this the other is amnesty and amnesty but over the years the house and the senate have accepted that the interpretation should be separate kaya yung din lang ng house yung constitutional convention and constituent assembly the implication was voting separately kaya hindi nilang nagawa yung ginawa kaya they resorted to people's initiative so sabi ko sa mga unang-unang dapat sabihin kusapin yung mabuti ang congressman yun yung ok magagalit pero ko kailang marami kayo because you have the numbers to say masamaapubayat ang mga inyari sa ating constitution and that's what you should be doing and because they asked me how do we change this? because there is one thing that pandemic achieved which I like what the public pandemic told us showed us was that many communities solved the problem when those who have the means who needed help like panteries community panteries what does that show us it showed us that transformation is possible in our country from the bottom up silo mga ating presidential candidate silo mga ating senatorial candidate hindi po eh the solution from the barangay mga tao mga farmers ko you have the numbers of sovereignty and so many resides in the people use that power because in the sabi sa ating the only way that you lose power is when you think you dub any you have the numbers so you choose your people at the barangay then you wait another 3 years for the people who will manage parties and other 3 years for provinces in a basically national and this process it cannot be done overnight you know who are intermediaries we are intermediaries and we should always help them identify help and so on and we should retreat and go back to different life once there are enough elected officials who come from the poor when they can act for themselves we are just intermediaries sabi ko it's a church we need the church for this in order for the church to help the poor protect the poor from threats and all that until the poor have control of the good barangays this is the good blessing the transformation is possible from the bottom up as only way we can do it when we have a new generation of leaders who come from the poor that is when we are going to change and you know elsa was listening by international audience and it brought many of our international TV audience to tears by the nobility's purpose now we have ahead of us the change that we have promised the poor and there is a way to do it and that's transformation from below until we have a new generation of leaders who come from the poor I think we said thank you we're still not letting you go I'm just transitioning to the next part of our forum which is the Q&A we have some questions lined up for you and let us hear also from our zoom participants and viewers either on Facebook or YouTube you can send your comments online I will try to read some questions and comments given the limited time we have left but the first question goes to you and this is from Francis Magno why did the framers leave the creation of an implementing law on people's initiative to congress and not simply enshrine it in the constitution without need of an enabling law if we are going to to put in the constitution the contents of every enabling law of the principles in the constitution we will have 10 volumes of the constitution but that's precisely the part of congress now that's what the same thing that congress says bakit hindi you didn't legislate the constitution kung ano yung relationship no anti-dynasties 2 degrees, 4 degrees and so on so sa kanilagani ito yung studying this you know we will discuss it and sabi na pag nilagay natin sa constitution yan ngayon, ang kailangan prohibition should be 4 degrees, what's that first casings if we put that that there is part of the constitution you need to amend the constitution if 10 to 15 years old from today or 20 years old we have matured enough as a democracy we need 2 degrees and if 30 years we also have matured some more we may not even need it that's what we said because congress keeps on telling us we need to change the constitution because it doesn't adjust the circumstances it's not resilient enough and here we are with the prohibition of the constitution for anti-dynasties 36 years another that I'd like to bring up is that your party system unfortunately bad decisions of the supreme court that the party system is a proportional representation it is not or exclusive to those economically poor it is an implementation of social justice provision of addressing inequality not only in economic but in social and political inequalities and this is part of what tapit namin we have a lot of people who say they know of ideology for a better Philippines and so on why don't we give them a chance to be heard in congress that's the place where we can hear all of the alternatives available to us but meru lang nine years three consecutive na meru nakalagay doon yung mga areas but after that it must be proportional representation we only need three amendments to the party system that is now being abused by politicians three, number two anti-dynasty provision number two remove the limit of three this is proportional representation a group earns enough votes for six or seven represented groups and you give them only three where do you give the other votes today the commonly gives other votes to other party list even if ideology is different from who they voted for so take out that limit if they are entitled to seven give them seven representatives and number three amendment there is a phrase in the law that says that the candidates must be organic or members of the group an exception is they have a track record of advocacy for the group palosot doon palosot in fact justice Castro said justice Tony Carpio said we cannot legislate but this must be changed by legislation because a resident of Forbes Farm son of a president represented tricycle drivers that is not party system so with these provisions we can change the quality of the elections both the quality of the process and the quality of the vote now quality what about about the warlords we already were told in two three years ago that 20 new arm groups in the Philippines in Mindanao there are two million arms that are not licensed what is the PNP doing about this so that we don't have the use of money, the use of force that devalues the quality of the vote of the poor particularly they are the majority in our country they will not vote they will not vote for people who are what do you call it warlords and so on poor choices poor choices we have to give them more choices by taking away all of these restrictions that devalue the quality of the vote in elections we have so many more that we can do on legislation and telling the congress what are you doing changing the constitution and it's even not very meaningful for those three areas why don't you why don't you this way anti-dynasty prohibition why don't you amend the party system why don't you amend the mining law there are so many things that can be done by them and what are they to change the constitution in order that they can have more power when you shift to parliamentary system they combine the executive and the legislature correct that gives them more the prime minister has no limit on his term he's elected by parliament and not by the people and that's what I'm told that they'll be doing once they get the chance once they get the chance to change more of the constitution I have a long list if you look at the list of the house right this is not the place to do it but I have a long list of new constitution and we must not allow this charter change to take place a couple of questions here I guess some of it you've already answered one from a PCS member you said earlier that the constitution is not perfect which provisions need amendment and what is the legal way I believe you have answered some of the questions but his question is what is the legal way and I'll just wrap this asking if you would question chacha before the supreme court if you think that's not legal go ahead of course you will question the supreme court on constitutionality and of course what's happening at the top within the four before the inastic families there seem to be all kinds of disagreements and so on and one of the factors here is how will the supreme court decide who is in the supreme court right so I think that we will go anyway because when we fought against Sigo Nambayan of Arroyo we were told Chris why are you filing this out of the justices 10 were appointed by Arroyo well you have no chance well we won 8 to 7 both appointed 5 and 5 and when we went after a chandelier we see they said no empowers where we won that case for the farmers 13-0 in favor of the farmers my point is there are golden moments in the supreme court and let us pray and if your connections let us try to influence and tell the justices you you know we are taught in law school legislature is the first the executive is the sword and the supreme court is the conscience of the nation and their claim to legitimacy is their independence because they are appointed people those are elected the source of legitimacy is the vote of the people unenacted and appointed the source of legitimacy is their independence Anthony Monson there's another question from Mr. Joseph Solis from the chat would it be more beneficial to our country to completely remove foreign equity ownership restrictions altogether from the constitution to assure the irreversibility of FDI liberalization laws that would allow our country to forge FTAs with the European Union Mercasor Pacific Alliance and the United States United States, Canada and Mexico what do you think of that? Actually our economy is open I'm surprised it does already mention all of these things natural resources possible under Article 12 Section 2 of the constitution while utilities already open not only telecommunications but transportation because one of the problems in our country is the cost of bringing goods from Luzon to the Visayas that somebody is even cheaper to go from Manila to Singapore to Visayas than direct now that's open now to foreign ownership so I can see today the constitution has proven to be resilient and has adjusted to the so they're wrong when they said it's stuck there no, laws have been passed I'd like to mention on energy one of the problems they say is the cost of energy and yet that's allowed 100% to foreigners my experience because I was at Melanaco is that when you negotiate foreign investors 100% is theirs they still would not invest until they get take or pay provision from Melanaco for say 20 years 15 that you take a certain volume from them regardless of whether you use it or not and that's why it's part of the high cost of electricity in this country it has nothing to do with the constitution because the constitution allows foreign ownership for power generation thank you very quickly I know we're supposed to wrap up but I can see Dr. Magno smiling there earlier there's this very quick question allowing foreigners to become freehold legal landowners would make marrying Filipino nationals unnecessary to circumvent the ban 25-year lease lands cannot be more more gageable what do you think of this argument that they don't circumvent the law that's part of the law but I don't think that's a major major problem in our country that is not a reason to amend a constitutional provision during their in one of the earlier hearings the foreign chambers of commerce admitted that if land is allowed to be owned by foreigners in our country the price of the land can be out of the rich of the poor this is from the foreign chambers fitting that and yet some of our congressman want to change it for what? I think it's all about as I mentioned earlier it's all about transactional legislation where our congressman thrive and for example if you listen to the PIDS study part of the problem is that the money that's supposed to go to the LGUs are instead put at the control of the department and those department of the budget work with the congressman to spend those money that is the source part of the source of pork balil and all you need to do is amend section 17 of the of the local government code thank you attorney monzod final word Dr. Magno very quickly before we go thank you Mike I do not agree that we need to amend the constitution now particularly on the economic issues we've already summarized that our economy is very open and we've identified very specific concerns to ensure that we are able to attract foreign investment in the country I think the president should focus its energy in doing and solving the real problems of the country final word from Dr. Franco thank you Mike no constitution I think is perfect we've discussed today but this doesn't mean that some people can just hijack it's being imperfect just to serve their ends I have no problems with changing or revising the economic provisions of the constitution except that I do not see compelling evidence to change them thank you alright on that note we are overtime Mike Tao thank you so much for joining us this afternoon and for sharing your insights Dr. Jane and Senas Franco Dr. Cello Magno and our reactors Dr. Jean Roberto Professor Felipe Salvosa III and Father William Tria now we now proceed to a synthesis and closing remarks to be delivered by the president of the Philippines Communication Society Dr. Elena Perna Dr. Perna hello and good afternoon to everyone there are several dates in February that are dear to us February 14 is Valentine's Day February 22 to 25 are the dates we Filipinos commemorate as people power or edsa revolution never mind that this year it was listed as a holiday February 2 is Constitution Day a proclamation made by then president Corazon Aquino commemorating the ratification of the 1987 constitution which restored democracy in the Philippines so today's round table on cha-cha-cha mga indayo at ritmo sa pagpalit ng saligang patas is very timely this penultimate day of February 2024 for we talked about the constitution people power and all underscored but by our love for country for some time now the charter change debate has filled our news media advocates for charter change site the urgent need to amend provisions particularly the restrictive economic provisions meanwhile those who oppose charter change suspect that these campaigns are mere attempts to perpetuate themselves in power as pointed out earlier this is not the first attempt to change in 1987 in our constitution as all administrations after president Corazon Aquino have proposed changes to it today's round table discussion is our contribution to deepen the students and general public's knowledge about the current issues that affect our lives our webinar began with the welcome remarks of PCS vice president and Atineo de Manila university faculty Leonora Hernando she touched on the mission of PCS specifically the relevance and importance of discussing the constitution to our democracy our very able moderator lawyer and multi-awarded journalist Mike Navalio engaged our panelists in dynamic conversation his in-depth comments and questions steered this exciting discussion from professor Jean Encinas Franco a member of the faculty of UP Dileman's political science department and member of the Philippine political science association cited from their position paper and she pointed out among other things that one historically Philippine initiatives to change the constitution have been were made to break from immediate past and usher in a new political order the problems that the charter revision wishes to address cannot be done through constitutional amendment regular legislation or executive action the claim that there is public clamor for constitutional change remains unsubstantiated constitutional change is not the silver bullet to cure our problems and current development show that charter change is a done deal so that those who oppose the charter change must speak and act now with reference to the charter change to enable our country's economic resurgence professor Shelo Magno of the UP school of economics educated us on the benefits and limits of foreign direct investments and current policies on foreign investment while FDIs may foster economic expansion create new jobs and enable knowledge and tech transfer they are not also even with FDI growth even with FDIs growth cannot always be expected importantly former finance Usec Magno pointed out that congress in 2022 already addressed restrictive provisions citing as examples the current policy on mining provision for use of land amendments of the foreign investment and economy she said is already very open meanwhile lawyer Christian Manso who was one of the framers of the 1987 constitution spoke beautifully about the importance of the constitution and what should be done to amend it he noted he noted the importance of talking about the constitution at 73% of our people know nothing or very little of it edsa he said was the inspiration of the 1987 constitution which had three central themes one the heart of the constitution is social justice with the poor as the center of our development second never again to any authoritarian government and third the national destiny must firmly and safely rest on Filipinos themselves he warned that we are on a slippery slope to authoritarianism under a dynastic political system and he lamented that the 1987 concom's mistake was to overestimate the spirit of edsa and underestimate the greed of our politicians from our resource persons and reactors there is an apparent consensus the charter change should not be left to the congress president of the philippine political science association and up policy professor dr goh called the constitution a written institution where the people must have a hand in what and how to change it dr goh stressed that the constitution is just one part of the equation to progress as the human factor both its positive and negative characteristics and consequences comprises the other parts of the equation professor philippe salvoza the second head of the usd journalism program and pcs director quoted an adage saying that changing the constitution is too important to leave to the politicians professor salvoza agreed with dr magno that the social that the so called economic amendments should not be taken as pure and good among other things the people to appreciate the premises of economic proposals father wilmer trilla seap advocacy chair and president of the beagle association of catholic schools agreed that philippine democracy is a work in progress he also said that authoritarianism at our doorstep it is important to preserve the 1987 constitution while at the same time improve long term mechanisms to empower people one way is through education which should create learning environments that allow critical thinking the discussion was extremely rich and this synthesis has not adequately captured all the points brought out so i invite you to rewatch this webinar which is available on the pcs facebook page the tv up website as well as the youtube channel this will also be shown on the tv up channel signal 101 ibalita na rin nyo sa inyong mga kaklase, kaibigan, ka-pamilya para sa patuloy nating pagmamulat this webinar is in line with the pcs's mission to generate knowledge on current issues and to champion social justice i wish to acknowledge my co-directors of the pcs board with a special mention of professor flor delis abanto who set this into motion and to tv up our thanks for making this webinar an important educational resource ina-anyayahan ko kayong lahat na maging miembro ng pcs sana po i-visitahin nyo ang website namin sa www.fillscomsoc.org kung saan na kalahad ang ibat-iban namin mga proyekto at ang mga beneficio para sa mga miembro muli isang malaking pasasalamat or through a tv channel even on cable to be able to discuss pressing issues and my wish is that people will talk more about this cha-cha will always be there for as long as there are people in power who want to extend their term who have different motivations that will always be an option and thus it's always important for people to ask ano ba ang motivation bakit ba mag-cha-cha anong papalitan yung kinabukasan natin kapag binago ang constitution atang tanong ang constitution ba ang saligang batas ba ang may problema o tayo na nagpapatupad nito kung sinong nakaupo sa presto so friends this has been cha-cha-cha mga indayo ga-treat mo sa pagpapalit ng saligang batas and I am attorney Mike Navalio greeting you all up to us in afternoon thank you thank you everyone