Just weeks before the celebration of the EDSA People Power Revolution's 38th anniversary, the resistance that toppled the decades-spanning dictatorship of ex-President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was once again publicly attacked in an advertisement aired calling for a change in the Constitution. The ad hinged on the EDSA Revolution's alleged faults that enabled the root problems of Philippine society.
The commercial claims, without facts, that the 1987 Constitution is at fault for the proliferation of monopolies on various industries, including agriculture, that enriched businessmen rather than farmers. It implied that disallowing foreign land ownership has cast aside everything the EDSA Revolution promised.
And therein lies the main point of the ad. Beyond the charter change, it is pushing for selling Filipino land and its resources to foreign capitalists. It takes advantage of the problems the Philippines faces today by presenting foreign presence as the solution to all our societal dilemmas.
Some versions of the commercial name the Gana Atienza Avisala Law Offices as its sponsor. The law office supplies legal services to political figures like former Senator Panfilo Lacson, Leyte 3rd District Rep. Lucy Torres-Gomez, and Mayor Alfred Romualdez of Tacloban City. In an interview with GMA News, the firm wanted to open public discussions of charter change with the public.
However, they made it clear that no public funds were used to air the advertisement and that the money was from the "private sector," which wanted the Constitution changed. With the commercial airing on three different channels during the primetime news slot, it is clear that spending on propaganda remains high, and the anti-EDSA campaign merely shifted its focus after the election.
It can be assumed that the amount of money the commercial spent by airing on popular primetime slots on all three major channels of Philippine television for multiple nights did not come from average private citizens. Therefore, the ad would've been funded by people in the business sector and families with wealthy backgrounds, the same people the ad criticized as having been enriched by the alleged failures of the Constitution and the EDSA Revolution.
As lawyers, they have publicly and misleadingly suggested a change in the Constitution based on unfounded connections to long-persevering problems with our current laws.
Calls for a charter change have been ringing for a few years. Even before former President Rodrigo Duterte actively popularized and pursued the change of the Constitution to a federal parliamentary style, all the suggestions for changes boiled down to prolonging the term limits of elected officials and selling Filipino resources to foreign capitalists.
But, strangely, the problems cited by the advertisement in question included low-quality education and agricultural monopolies—usually associated with capitalists. Opening our industries to total foreign ownership would not solve these problems but only change the nationalities of the people directly causing them. The problem of capitalism cannot be solved by opening the gates to more capitalism.
The advertisement did get the point that a systemic change must occur, but it is not through changing our Constitution (at least, not yet). The real solution lies in establishing a national industrialization program that empowers local workers instead of selling our manpower and resources, which benefit every capitalist country on earth.
Despite toiling hard labor in farming, Filipino farmers remain landless. Allowing complete foreign ownership of land would not help them in any way. A shift in landlords from local to international is the only change it will bring.
Moreover, rice prices in markets are nowhere near the promised ₱20.00/kg that President Marcos Jr. promised in his campaign. While inflation has eased in most sectors in the last few months of 2023, the cost of rice still surges. The president sat as the Secretary of Agriculture before appointing the current secretary, Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., late last year.
A massive transport crisis will also be felt in February, as the state forcibly phases out traditional jeepneys by taking away their franchises and allowing the corporate takeover of public transportation, all in disguise for modernization.
Meanwhile, the apparent root of this campaign is the group People's Initiative for Modernization and Reform Action, which wants to use the People's Initiative option of gathering signatures to call for a referendum on the law. In concern to this, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman recently revealed reports of signature gathering in various places in the country, offering varying amounts of monetary compensation in exchange for signatures in favor of the People's Initiative.
The noise brought by the charter change is nothing new. And like most attempts to change it in the past few years, this will likely not result in anything substantial, especially with numerous of Marcos's allies, like his sister, voicing resistance against the idea. But the timing of this advertisement to create "public discussion" is a diversion from the looming problems rooted in the gross mismanagement of the Marcos Jr. administration.
The charter change campaign conversation at this time—without substantial outlines of changes and hinged only on demonizing the EDSA Revolution—is nothing but a diversionary tactic by the same propaganda machine that elected President Marcos Jr. to his office. It is merely a shift of focus to distract from the abysmal management of our country and the lavish travels of the president that bear no significant help to Filipinos in the margin. A true conversation of change would empower the Filipinos and not advocate for foreign takeover to cover up the government’s failures in its responsibilities to its people.
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