NOW is the perfect time to change the Constitution. It’s the perfect time because Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. is president.
It’s the perfect time politically.
President “Bongbong” Marcos is not invested in the 1987 Constitution. He’s the perfect person to initiate changes because the 1987 Constitution was born from the ouster of his late father. The stars aligned when he, representing the anti-thesis to the Anti-Marcos Yellow People’s Power revolution, became President and head of government.
He is also the first President to be elected with an overwhelming mandate of 59%. This is a mandate for systemic change.
The coalition that deposed his father and wrote the 1987 Constitution has been defeated politically. This means that the people have rejected the ideology behind the 1987 Constitution.
The informal coalition behind the 1987 People Power revolution included the anti-Marcos oligarchy, the Catholic Church, middle-class professionals and social democratic activists, and the communist Left. While the CPP-NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines – National People’s Army) boycotted the 1983 elections, nonetheless they were still part of the informal coalition. They formed the core of the anti-dictatorship rebel forces, with at least 25,000 NPA fighters pinning down the Marcos military. The Left’s united front organization, the National Democratic Front, was active in the anti-Marcos struggle.
The ideology of this coalition was reflected in the 1987 Constitution, which was written by appointed members to a Constitutional Commission by former President Corazon Aquino. The anti-Marcos oligarchy got Filipino First and Filipino Only provisions in the Constitution, ensuring a lack of competition from foreign investors.
Not only were the Filipino Only provisions from the 1935 and 1973 Constitutions carried over, but these were expanded to mass media and advertising and the practice of professions.
The Filipino First policy provisions in the Constitution also ensured an overarching advantage to the Filipino oligarchy. These protectionist provisions made rent-seeking the economic model of the Philippine economy.
The Catholic Church got a provision effectively prohibiting abortion in Section 12 Article 2 that states, as a matter of principle and national policy, “the State shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception.”
The Yellow-Leftist ideas in the Constitution enshrined “statism,” or state intervention, in the provision that “the State shall regulate the acquisition, ownership, use, and disposition of property and its increments.”
A significant portion of the Constitution is about Yellow-Leftist ideas on social justice and asset distribution. While in theory, this was commendable, in practice, since the economy was based on rent-seeking and statism, it merely resulted in the redistribution of poverty.
An example is the landmark 1987 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), a product of the ideas on social justice in the 1987 Constitution. Instead, as real social justice demands redistributing lands to the farmers for free and giving them economic freedom, CARL saddled agrarian reform beneficiaries with long-term debt, prohibited them from mortgaging and selling their lands, prohibited them from expanding beyond the land retention limit of five hectares, and substituted the landlord with an inefficient and corrupt government. The result has been perverted social justice. Landless peasants became impoverished landlords. Agricultural productivity fell. The Philippine became more food import dependent. Bureaucrats, on the other hand, who had to give permits, from land conversions to food importation, became rich, as well as the criminal syndicates behind them.
Statism together with Protectionism ensured that rent-seeking (and its manifestation, massive corruption) became the dominant economic activity.
The Left, particularly the communist Left, has been a driving force behind Statism and Protectionism. The Left and its allies have been loud opponents of opening the economy. Their anti-imperialist ideology is aligned with that of the Filipino oligarchy and makes the Left strange allies with the oligarchic Right.
Now is also the perfect time to change the Constitution because the Left is nearly dead politically and militarily. CPP Founder, Jose Ma. Sison, died on Dec. 16, 2022, after decades in exile. The CPP conjugal leaders, Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, died on Aug. 22, 2022, when their boat exploded while being chased by military forces. From about 25,000 active fighters in 1987, the NPA has dwindled to about 1,500 armed fighters and zero guerrilla fronts.
The last elections showed a clear political defeat of the Left. The leftist Makabayan bloc, which used to win at least 12 representatives to Congress based on the party-list system, managed to eke out only three representatives. The socialist candidate, Leody de Guzman, got a measly 0.2% of the vote.
The Yellows too suffered a big political defeat. Their candidate Leni Robredo got only 15 million votes, less than half of the 31 million votes of Bongbong Marcos. Only Risa Hontiveros managed to get elected senator. In the coming 2025 senatorial elections, not a single Yellow candidate is among the top 12 based on the latest surveys.
The Catholic Church, which had been influential in politics under the late Cardinal Sin, has retreated from political activities, must contend with sex abuse scandals, and is focused on its schism (between the conservatives and the progressives under Pope Francis).
The decisive political defeat of the Yellows and the coalition behind the 1987 Constitution showed the failure of the 1987 Constitution to meet the aspirations of the Filipino people. The overwhelming mandate given to Marcos and Duterte in 2022 showed that the Filipino people wanted a different direction for the country and an overhaul of the failed economic model and ideology behind the 1987 Constitution.
It’s timely to change the Constitution because President Bongbong Marcos also has overwhelming support from the majority in the Senate and Congress. The timing is also right because the next presidential election is still four years away. Marcos is not yet a lame-duck president.
It would be a political mortal sin if Marcos and Duterte don’t listen to their mandate. Keeping to leftist and oligarchic policies of Protectionism and Statism would not be in keeping with the voice of the people. Politicians risk voters’ anger if they don’t listen to the mandate given to them.
If we don’t change the Constitution now, when the political conditions are ripe, when will we ever get another chance to change it?
Calixto “Toti” V. Chikiamco is a BPO entrepreneur, book author, and is president of the Foundation for Economic Freedom.
