Gloria Forever

She Will if She Can

Joel Rocamora, April 22, 2009Many analysts think Gloria’s chacha is dead. Apparently her people in the Housedo not think so. While the Villafuerte resolution was not submitted the day Congressopened April 13 as Speaker Nograles promised, plenary discussions on Nograles’separate chacha resolution (HR 737) started on April 22. Chacha opponents in the Housefear that Gloria’s people are preparing a parliamentary maneuver that would enable themto go ahead with a constituent assembly (ConAss).Quezon Rep. Erin Tañada does not discount the possibility of “amendment bysubstitution,” saying that Villafuerte’s draft resolution need not go through the committeelevel and may simply be inserted in HR 737 during the period of amendments. AkbayanRep. Risa Hontiveros said a phrase has been inserted into the resolution authored bySpeaker Nograles that would pave the way for the convening of a constituent assembly.It appears likely that Mikey Arroyo and Villafuerte have not been able to get the197 votes they need to convene a “House only ConAss” otherwise they would have goneahead and filed it. This would have enabled them to go ahead and convene a ConAss, asurefire way to get the issue to the Supreme Court. Keeping the Nograles resolution in play means they have not given up on getting the issue to the Supreme Court where they believe they have the votes."Puro porma, pero ni hindi man lang nakapag-first base," Hontiveros said. If theydon’t have 197 votes, even if they substitute the Villafuerte for the Nograles resolution,they would still have difficulty convening a constituent assembly without the Senate. Nograles insists that he won’t allow substitution, that HR737 will be sent to the Senate.In this case, the Senate can just “dribble the ball”, not reject HR737 immediately, saythey will “take it up next week” several times until the end of session on June 5, and denythe Gloria people an excuse to take the issue to the Supreme Court.We need to carefully monitor what GMA’s people are doing in the House in casethey try to pull a fast one on us. But we also need to assess chacha carefully in relation toother maneuvers by Gloria and her cabal to remain in power past 2010. We cannot be so preoccupied with chacha that we do not prepare adequately in case presidential electionsgo ahead as scheduled in May 2010. Some even fear that Gloria’s maneuvers extend beyond 2010.

Can’t Buy Me Chacha

Anti-chacha people have always assumed that GMA can buy the House votes sheneeds. With elections a year from now, congress people are particularly greedy. The factthat it’s Mikey Arroyo and his sidekick Martin Romualdez soliciting votes means that itis not just Malacanang operators pushing chacha but the Arroyo family itself. For all this,

the chacha project is having difficulty because of two factors, Lakas-CMD and Kampidynamics, and the fast approaching elections.

Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban says he hasinformation that they only have 178 votes for the Villafuerte resolution. He doubts thatthey can get the remaining 18 signatures. Of the 238 incumbent congressmen, 89 belongto the Lakas, 52 to Kampi, 30 to the Nationalist People’s Coalition, 20 to the LiberalParty, 10 to the Nacionalista Party and the rest are distributed among the LDP, PMP,PDSP, PDP-Laban and Uno, and party list members.Even if we assume that all 52 Kampi members will vote for the Villafuerteresolution, the official position of the leadership of Lakas, NPC, the LP, and the NP isagainst a “House only ConAss”. The NPC, LP and NP are deep into preparations for the2010 elections for which they’ve already spent several hundred million pesos. We cannotassume that the members of these parties can all be bought by Malacanang. Anycombination of congress persons from these parties plus some of the more progressive party list representatives totaling 42 will frustrate Villafuerte.The April 21 decision of the Supreme Court adding thirty five new party listrepresentatives does not make it any easier. Most of the new party list reps are local

trapo

and rabid anti-Left people like Jun Alcover of Anad and Jovito Palparan of Bantay Party.Even if GMA people manage to get three fourths of the new party list reps to sign on,however, they still can’t make up for the missing signatories that six months of solicitation have failed to produce. They can’t make up for the obvious hesitation of thelargest fraction in the House and the party of the Speaker.At a meeting of the Lakas Executive Committee April 1, 2009, Lakas leadersclaimed a decision was made to abandon chacha efforts in the House. The party insteadopted for a constitutional convention after the 2010 elections. A couple of months ago,the Speaker was taken to task by Kampi people for saying he is open to Concon. HouseSpeaker Nograles continues to make the motions, saying he will keep trying until the endof the current session on June 5, after which, he says, “I will concede that it is too late”.Even if Nograles really wanted to push chacha, he would have difficulty becauseseveral congressmen in his inner circle have refused to sign the draft Villafuerte Con-Assresolution. Among them are Majority Leader Matias Defensor, senior deputy majorityleaders Jesus Crispin Remulla (Lakas, Cavite), Neptali Gonzales (Lakas, Mandaluyong)and Kahlil Abraham Mitra (NPC, Palawan). Other Lakas members can refuse to sign andsay they are just following party policy.Other congressmen close to Nograles who are against Villafuerte’s chacharesolution are Rodolfo Plaza (NPC, Agusan del Sur), Justine Marc Chipeco (NP,Laguna), Juan Edgardo Angara (LDP, Aurora), Carol Jayne Lopez (PL, Yacap),Florencio Noel of An Waray, Mujiv Hataman of Anak Mindanao, and Joel Villanueva of Cibac.

While paying lip service to the idea of a ConAss vote without the Senate, Nograles’ chacha effort has focused on House Resolution 737 which seeks to amend theConstitution through the usual legislative process. Constitutional law expert, andConstitutional Commission member Joaquin Bernas SJ says the House and Senate, usingits usual legislative process can pass amendments if they follow the three fourths majorityrule. Nograles’ resolution passed the committee level back in February, but discussions in plenary have just started.The resolution reportedly has 163 signatures, 15 signatures short of theconstitutional requirement of a three fourths House vote to approve the amendment and bring it to the Senate. House Resolution 737 calls for the amendment of Sections 2 and 3of Article 12 of the Constitution "to allow the acquisition by foreign corporations andassociations and the transfer or conveyance thereto, of alienable public and privatelands." Nograles has said that his resolution, when brought to the plenary, could serve as basis for raising a point of constitutional inquiry before the Supreme Court.But he has not explained how this can be done. In standard jurisprudence, aConstituent Assembly can be convened if the House and the Senate, separately, and by asimple majority vote, pass a resolution. In this case, Nograles assumes that in exercise of its constituent function, the House can initiate the amendment process. But on its own,the House cannot become a Constituent Assembly. The Villafuerte formula is meant todeal with this problem by asserting that the Senate is not necessary to convene aConstituent Assembly.The House can pass the Nograles resolution with 178 votes, three fourths of theHouse. Majority Leader Arthur Defensor said the Nograles resolution "may or may not be sent to the Senate." If it is sent to the Senate, opponents can easily block Nograles’maneuver by delaying its deliberations until it is too late to have a “justiciable” case. Butif the House decides to by-pass the Senate, they would then have to have the 197 votescalled for in the Villafuerte resolution. Nograles became Speaker because the Arroyos moved to kick out former Speaker Jose De Venecia. He would prefer to remain in the good graces of the Arroyoadministration. But it looks more and more like Lakas is positioning itself for a roleindependent of the Palace and Kampi in the 2010 elections. Unlike Kampi which only gotrevived under GMA, Lakas has survived three administrations, FVR, Erap and nine yearsof GMA. GMA as prime minister would mean that Kampi would just get stronger andLakas under increased pressure. Nograles’ failure to get the chacha project in the House further than the limbo it’sin is either poor leadership or deliberate sabotage. Kampi people think it’s the latter. Atvarious points in the last six months, Kampi people have tried to get him removed. MikeyArroyo and Martin Romualdez even talked to De Venecia asking for help to get thesignatures for the Villafuerte resolution in exchange for getting the speakership back.This close to the election this move would make Malacanang look ridiculously inept, andrisk losing Lakas support if the 2010 election goes ahead.