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October 15, 2006
The EditorTHE BusinessWorld
Quezon CityDear Mr. Editor:In positive response to the current political crisis and economic difficulties that our nationis facing, may we respectfully submit our advocacy paper 
CHILDREN’S CHILDREN ll
Why are we trying to amend the Constitution? I view our attempt to amend our Constitution as the basic process by which we hope to prepare a better life for our children’s children.
There was a stage show in Green Belt featuring the best of the Filipino thespian talents. Itwas produced by Repertory, the same group which trained Lea Salonga and company tostar in the Miss Saigon series. The Leading lady, Ms Malou Lauchengco has the profile of Julia Roberts with a difference; she has a voice. The cast are very professional and theshow is worth watching. In the Man of La Mancha, the theme is built around the song the“THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM.” Is planning a better life for our children’s children animpossible dream? Let’s dream first and see if it is really impossible to accomplish. Let’stry any way because at the end of our days we will not be judged by what we have won or lost, but what we tried to do. For isn’t
“SERVICE TO HUMANITY…. THE BEST WORK OF LIFE?” 
If the intention of the amendments is purely political and short sighted, then we would besimply wasting the people’s limited resources in terms of TIME and the maximum use of the factors of production. By the year 2040, the Filipino population is projected to reach140 million Filipinos. Can the amendments prepare the future generations for the bigger tasks they will face? We are currently producing around 5000 Filipino babies every day.Due to lack of jobs domestically, around 2,500 (+/-) Filipinos also leave every day insearch for the income they need to ensure the survival and progress of their respectivefamilies. Is our role in the international community merely to become service providersof the world? Our OFW’s are producing the vital foreign exchange to ensure the
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economic survival of the country. Thus we pay less for the foreign debts we incur  because of the daily sacrifices abroad of our OFW’s. Such foreign exchange earnings of our workers do carry a long term social costs with severe penalties as parents areseparated from their young children who are deprived of the daily love and care that onlynatural parents can provide.The long term viable solution to reduce the future social costs of the future generation isto create enough domestic jobs that will somehow bring home our children. To do so, the proposed amendments must re-engineer our system so that our country can attract moreinvestors to create jobs locally. Some investors has placed our country’s rank as aninvestment area even lower than Vietnam which is supposed to be more underdevelopedthan us because of the lengthy civil war they had. The investors say that our country isnot attractive as our regional competitors largely due to…
 POLITICAL INSTABILITY, PEACE AND ORDER PROBLEMS AND LACK OF INFRASTRUCTURES.
While our neighbors progress, we have faltered. While our neighbor’s leaders try to findthe solutions to their country’s problems, our political elite are engaged in infernal,fratricidal bickering. The political elite is less than 1% of the total population and whenthey catch a cold, the other 99% of the Filipino people suffers life threatening pneumonia.When the elephants play their political war games, the ants get stomped and squashed.
Being jobless provides very few options.
8 millions plus of our people don’t want to catch pneumonia, or be stomped on andsquashed, nor to do they want to commit violent crimes to feed their families, nor do theywish to go the mountains and fight the government, so they migrate to other countries inseeking for a better life. Some would even take life threatening risks in working in acountry like Iraq where suicide bombing is an almost daily ritual because they could notfind work locally. Some Filipinos will migrate for good abandoning the country of their  birth; some migrate to earn and save the capital needed to go back home to their childrenso that they could be entrepreneurs and start their own business.Will the amendments proposed be bold and innovative enough to think beyond thelifetime of the authors? Will it place as a primary objective …
bringing our childrenhome for the long term interests of our children’s children?
Will the amendmentsmerely strengthen the status quo of a system which has placed a country so rich in naturaland human resources lagging behind their neighbors who are less endowed and has verymuch less to offer?
Will our children’s children honor our legacy or desecrate our memory for our  shortsighted failure to think beyond our lifetime?
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A country’s survival and progress depends substantially on the leadership elite’scapability, expertise, strong political will in managing the twin forces of economics and politics. The pressure and stress of placing national interests above personal agenda willdetermine the greatness or mediocrity of the political elite governing a country andmanaging its limited resources.
Politics:
We have often blamed our politicians for the ills of the country
 . Is it the man or the System that is at fault ?
I personally believe on the basic goodness and patriotic objectives of the politician.Despite their obvious human short comings, we still need political leaders because they prepare the game plan, set the direction and are basically merchants of hope. They always promise to make the future brighter so the people can always hope that there is a better tomorrow.Our leaders are what the system made them to be. To survive as a politician, you mustwork within the system and basically follow what the system dictates. If the motivationof seeking political office is not the positive P’s (patriotism, professionalism) but rather the negative P’s (prestige, power, “
 pera”
) then rules will be bent/misinterpreted toconform to the negative objectives. We are a supposedly a democracy wherein the rule of the majority supposedly must prevail. We have followed the system to the letter butsomehow we don’t progress as much as those countries that modified the system to fittheir culture and objectives.We must overhaul and re-engineer the system of selecting our leaders in terms of thequalifications not only of the leaders but also of the voters. Perhaps we should consider the draft of the 1
st
Constitution written in June, 1898 by the national hero ApolinarioMabini as a guide. The Sublime Paralytic expressed his admiration for the representativesof the people by writing that:
 par 27” : The office of the representative is the most honorable to whichevery Filipino can aspire because the functions thereof are august and of eminently patriotic character; Said office in itself constitutes anindelible stamp of honor for the one who deserves it through his honestyculture and industry; it is the most authentic title of personal dignity and  patriotism”.
He wrote in subsequent paragraphs that the voters must be first and foremost betaxpayers. Our Constitution should be amended to state that if the citizen do not register 
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