FROM PROPOSALS to amend the Constitution and prolong the term limits of the president and lawmakers to the establishment of a revolutionary government and federalism amid the Covid-19 pandemic, now Pampanga Rep. Mikey Arroyo urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to scrap the 2022 national and local polls.
Arroyo urged the poll body to consider postponing the elections, saying voters are scared they would be infected by the deadly coronavirus disease which attacks the respiratory system, according to a report by ABS-CBN.
It
also quoted Comelec Chairman Sheriff Abas as saying the matter is up to
Congress and President Rodrigo Duterte. “The poll body is looking at best
practices in South Korea and the U.S. to keep the elections safe,” he
said.
DDS
Die-hard
supporters of President Rodrigo Duterte are
pushing for the establishment of a revolutionary government and prolong his
term.
Members of the so-called “Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte-National
Executive Coordinating Committee” (MRRD-NECC) have been campaigning for the
Duterte-led revolutionary government which they claimed will help fast-track
the establishment of federalism before the President’s term ends in 2022,
according to a report by CNN Philippines.
The group said a revolutionary government is the way to go to
heal “all the ills of our society” without amending the 1987 Constitution.
In November 2017, Duterte threatened to declare a
revolutionary government if his political opponents tried to oust him from
power.
He also cited the precedent set by Corazon
Aquino, who established a revolutionary government soon after leading an
uprising in 1986 that ended the Marcos dictatorship. Aquino sacked all elected
officials, abolished Congress and tore up the 1973 Constitution in favor of a
provisional charter. She handpicked a commission to write a new Constitution,
which was ratified by plebiscite in 1987.
Duterte repeatedly vowed to push for a change in
form of government – from presidential system to federal – and even threatened
to make Mindanao a federal region if lawmakers fail to amend the Constitution
to pave the way for new federal government.
He said the current unitary system has spelled
so much trouble. When he was mayor in Davao City in southern Philippines, Duterte
had been strongly campaigning for the establishment of a federal form of
government and in many of his public appearances and speeches the President
said federalism is the next best thing for the country.
Last year, Duterte warned his critics that he
would declare a revolutionary government and arrest his detractors if he is
pushed against the wall. “I have enough problems with criminality, drugs,
rebellion and all, but if you push me to the extreme, I will declare the
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and I will arrest all of you,” he said.
Duterte does a ‘Peter’
Despite
the MRRD-NECC campaign, Duterte rejected the actions, saying, he did not even know the
people behind it. Duterte’s statement came following widespread criticisms and
suspicion that he wants to prolong his power beyond 2022. “Wala akong pakialam
diyan, wala akong kilala sa mga tao na 'yan, at hindi ko iyan trabaho,” he said.
Duterte’s denial of the MRRD-NECC was likened by his critics
to the “Denial of Peter” (or Peter's Denial) which refers to
three acts of denial of Jesus by the Apostle Peter as described in all four Gospels of the New Testament.
But despite his denial, Duterte attended MRRD-NEC national
convention in March 21, 2018 at the Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay City and spoke
lengthily and full of expletives about his political life, among other topics,
in front of thousands of supporters. The video of his speech can be accessed
here: https://youtu.be/mF_eUGDa3e0.
Survey
In October 2018, a nation-wide opinion poll
conducted by SurveyNgBayan, showed that 60% of Filipinos would support Duterte
if he decided to declare a revolutionary government to carry out his reform
agenda.
Considering that the question of declaring a
revolutionary government had been publicly debated for some time, the pollster,
presented this question once again squarely to the people nationwide: If
Duterte is forced to declare a revolutionary government to fulfill his
promises, would you support him? The question set in Tagalog (Kung mapilitang
itatag ni DU30 ang Revolution Gov. para matupad ang mga pangako nya payag kba?)
for the clear understanding of people at all levels was transmitted via SMS to
300,000 subscribers of Philippine-based mobile phones.
The poll targets were selected randomly from the
pollster's databank of 182.5 million Philippine-based mobile phone numbers. The
question sought Yes or No answer with the age, gender and the location of the
respondent. A total of 3,255 raw responses came by the end of the one-week
period from October 1-7 and the clean response set after deduping and purging
for nonsense replies came to 1,841. Among them, 1,117 said “Yes”, and 652 said
“No”.
The survey had a 99 percent level of confidence
and a 3 percent margin of error.
SurveyNgBayan had posed this question to the
people nationwide previously just before Duterte took office as president on
June 30, 2016, then in August 2016, after he was in office barely two months,
and again in November 2017 when the public clamor for a revolutionary
government was at its height.
In June 2016, the support for a revolutionary
government was only 43 percent, but after the general public watching their new
president for some two months, and also the activities of his opponents, the
support of a Duterte-led revolutionary government climbed to 67 percent.
Over a year later, in November 2017, amid a
persistent clamor for a revolutionary government, 71 percent of the people
tuned in favor of it. Developments since then—particularly the president
stating publicly that he did not encourage such a move, and the public
attention shifting towards the mid-term election due next year—the mass support
for a revolutionary government has somewhat waned, but still holding at a
significant 60 percent.
Several reasons can be attributed to this
continuing popular support for a Duterte-led revolutionary government. Among
them:
• The Glenn Chong revelations of problems in the
electoral system. Certain quarters have claimed that flaws in the electoral
system provide the environment for declaring a revolutionary government which
can tackle this problem and install an impartial election commission.
• The elite resistance to restructuring the
government into a federal system.
• The need to reform the judiciary to make it
impossible for the monied class to manipulate the courts for its advantage, and
make the judiciary function fairly for the benefit of all and deliver justice
fast.
SurveyNgBayan is composed of Filipino social
researchers based in the Philippines and the United States, as well as other
research and information service professionals. It employs a unique method of
researching to measure the true pulse of public opinion. (Mindanao Examiner)
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