MILITARY   The administration appears set to allow unspecified numbers of foreign military personnel into the country in early May 2009 for “disaster relief training exercises” despite the absence of treaties giving this legal basis as required by the Constitution.

POLITICS   As administration allies push for amendments of economic provisions in the Constitution, research group IBON Foundation says that the resolution seeking to allow corporations to own land and land-based resources in the Philippines are based on an outmoded ideology which believes that liberalizing the economy to greater foreign investment will lead to development.

POLITICS   Progressive groups will launch a new wave of protest actions against Charter Change in April, calling on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to address the country’s economic crisis instead of prioritizing amendments to the Constitution.

POLITICS   Majority of Filipinos do not favor amendments to the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution, according to the latest nationwide survey conducted by research group IBON Foundation, Inc.

POLITICS   Majority of respondents of the latest IBON nationwide survey said that they were aware of current moves to change the Charter. Of these respondents, 67% believes that term extension is behind the proposals to amend the Constitution.

POLITICS   A sizeable majority of Filipinos (64 percent) believe that it is not appropriate to have charter change at the present time according to latest findings of Pulse Asia in its February 2009 Nationwide Survey on Charter Change.

House Resolution 737, which Speaker Prospero Nograles is reportedly maneuvering to have approved at the Lower House, is both politically deplorable and economically destructive.
Pushing for the approval of HR 737 betrays how the administration is rushing to force the legal process of charter change (Cha-cha), to beat the 2010 deadline when Pres. Arroyo’s term ends. [...]

SONNY AFRICA   Cha-cha proponents argue that removing the Constitution’s nationalist provisions is key to reviving foreign investment flows into the country. Yet this is a weak argument for an effort that is also about President Arroyo’s extension in power beyond 2010.

Bayan said that it opposes the Nograles resolution on the grounds that it seeks to keep alive moves to change the constitution and because the specific proposal is “anti-Filipino”.

The fears expressed by many sectors barely three months ago, when a coup installed Senator Juan Ponce Enrile as Senate President, were not unfounded. Multi-sectoral group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) today said that the sudden turnaround of Enrile on the issue of Charter change (Cha-cha) has further bared the grand scheme of Malacañang to perpetuate [...]

While the committee on constitutional amendments prepares to vote on Speaker Prospero Nograles’s Resolution 737, research group IBON Foundation says that changing the charter to allow foreign business to own land does not necessarily increase foreign investment.
The Nograles bill seeks to amend the economic provisions of the Constitution to allow foreign corporations and associations to [...]