Cha-cha should ban Duterte from re-election – professor

As the administration prepares for a shift to a federal form of government by going through different amendment and revision proposals, a professor argued on March 13 that the new constitution should ban the President from running again.

During the Senate hearing on Charter-change (Cha-cha), University of the Philippines (UP) Political Science professor Gene Lacza Pilapil pointed out that Cha-cha is a “classic strategy.”

“Changing constitutions is a classic strategy of autocratic leaders elected in democracies but who later undermined their democracies,” he said.

It was in late January when President Rodrigo Roa Duterte formed the consultative committee (con-com) to study proposals on the amendments and revisions of the Constitution, to pave way for a federal form of government.

“Write down a provision banning the incumbent president to allay the valid fears of many Filipinos that this shift to federalism is part of the same script of the current president and his key allies to remain in power beyond his constitutionally mandated term limit under the 1987 Constitution,” Pilapil called on the committee headed by former Chief Justice Reynato Puno.

At the same time, the UP professor also dared Duterte’s inconsistent remarks and promises.

“[It] is as good as his campaign promise to ride a jet ski to the Spratlys, a promise which he now teases his own supporters for believing,” Pilapil said.

The professor was referring to one of Duterte’s statements during his campaign for the presidency in April 2016, in which he said that he will ride a jet ski to Spratlys and erect a Philippine flag there, challenging China. The President last week said that he was only joking then.

“To make sure that in 2022 he does not tease the country for believing him in 2018 that he will step down once his term ends under the 1987 Constitution, institutionalize his promise to step down by constitutionally barring him to run in your proposed federal constitutions,” he said.

“Ban Duterte, defend democracy,” Pilapil added.