A Call For Self-sacrifice

Wednesday, 03 December 2008 00:00

Written by Jess Ang

The recent move by the majority party to have charter change is a gross disregard for our nation’s problems. With the world beginning to feel a deep recession and thousands of our OFWs coming home unemployed, our country should brace for an impending economic meltdown.

Our overseas remittances will decline and as a result the peso will weaken. Foreign investments and even tourism will slow down as Europeans and Americans tighten their belts and spend less on non-essentials. Here in America, people are spending less and despite the low price in gasoline, most people are still using public buses and carpooling. Our country will not be served by this move for charter change or the long vacations and absence of work and sporadic mass protests by layman and clergy alike. We need to have a truce for the sake of our people and our nation. For this truce to happen, I suggest the following:

1. End the move for charter change. I agree that there is a need for changes in our Constitution to attract foreign investments but the great deterrence for such investments is extensive bureaucracy and the corruption of the process. Perhaps if our central government can streamline the process and allow better transparency and accountability, we can encourage more inflow of foreign capital.

2. I beseech the President to ask the congress leaders to withdraw this resolution for charter change. Instead, I ask her to call for an economic summit and invite our distinguished economists as well as the opposition leaders to tackle the incoming economic crisis. In return, I ask the opposition to have a moratorium on ciriticizing our President unless a new scandal erupts. The President can put an end to these fears about extending her term by voicing her opposition to a parliamentary change of government.

3. I beseech former Pres. Estrada to live to his promise that if pardoned he would not run for any political office and will care for his ailing mother. I beseech our opposition to find a leader not tainted with allegations of wrongdoing, corruption, and incompetence. We need to find a leader who has a vision and a clear platform to solve our nation’s ills. If the oppositon continues just seeking the ouster of Pres. Arroyo and not offering an alternative platform to addres the massive poverty, the burdening taxation, the lack of jobs,education, health care and good governance, our people will remain apathetic for a call to change.

4. I ask the President to initiate immediate measures such as job creation and energy independence. We need to ask our peole to use less of our vehicles and find ways to lessen our global warming.

5. I ask the President to call on our military and our LGUs to be involved in infrastructure projects and reforestation efforts.

6. I ask the Congress and the Senate to end the pork barrel funds and instead provide the funds for the necessary basic education for all our children as our Constitution requires.

7. I ask the Senate to have a moratorium on holding probes. Instead, we need to pass the Transparency and Accountability Bill so every local and national government agency can disclose government projects for open bidding. We need to create an oversight board that is non-partisan to serve as watchdogs for any government project. This would need thousands of volunteers and this is where our local citizens can feel empowered and responsible.

THE TIME TO CHANGE IS NOW AND EVERYONE HAS TO SACRIFICE FOR THE COMMON GOOD.

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