Malaya
THE Filipino people are the “real sovereign” in our country, not President Noynoy Aquino, who has been already “weighed and found wanting” and indicted in the Bar of Public Opinion for “betrayal” of the people and the Constitution.
Our 1987 Constitution, which was drafted, approved and ratified during the presidency of President Aquino’s mother Cory Cojuangco-Aquino, stresses that sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.
“The people are the sun of sovereignty and their representatives are but the moons that reflect the people’s sovereignty,” as former Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno metaphorically described it in his Constitution Day speech before the Philippine Constitution Association last February 12. He explained that the Constitution affirmed the power of the sovereign people to “remove through recall some elected officials, the power to enact local and national laws, and the power to change the Constitution itself.”
These are powers exclusively vested in the people. Does this mean that those who may be subject to recall include the elected president of the country and other elected officials in government who have, in the venerable jurist’s own words, “betrayed the people time and time again”?
If this is so, then no less than President Aquino should be the first elected top official of the land who should be recalled through “all initiatives of the people, all initiatives for the people and all initiatives by the people,” as
mandated by the Constitution, and based on his indictment before the Bar of Public Opinion. He has failed to fulfill his sworn duty under the Constitution to serve all the people, without any exception; that he has muddled through one national crisis after another from the very start of his presidency to the present time; and other innumerable instances of his vindictive nature, mismanagement, extravagance, arrogance, incompetence, ad nauseam.
mandated by the Constitution, and based on his indictment before the Bar of Public Opinion. He has failed to fulfill his sworn duty under the Constitution to serve all the people, without any exception; that he has muddled through one national crisis after another from the very start of his presidency to the present time; and other innumerable instances of his vindictive nature, mismanagement, extravagance, arrogance, incompetence, ad nauseam.
These are all constitutionally impeachable offenses, but, alas, his impeachment is near impossible at this time. He still has firmly under his control the majority of members of the House of Representatives, which exclusively has the power to initiate impeachment proceedings, as well as the majority members of the Senate, which exclusively has the power to try impeachment cases.
Oh, incidentally, this brings back to mind how Aquino had succeeded in removing his bête noire, Renato Corona, then chief justice of the Supreme Court, not on the strength of impeachable charges, but by distributing (some say, by “bribing”) pork barrel funds to all the congressmen and senators (except three members of the Senate) , who, respectively, were the prosecutors and judges during Corona’s impeachment trial.
This leaves us, the people, with one other constitutional way to remove the President from power, and this is to recall him as an elected official. So, the big, big question is whether a great majority of distressed, disappointed, distraught and frustrated Filipinos will collectively support the initiatives to stop what the venerable jurist Puno called “a small but powerful cabal of political and economic elite”, and to recall their elected representatives who have “betrayed them time and time again”?
Yes, the first one to go ought to be President Noynoy Aquino who failed to unite a tragically divided nation, to bring political stability, because of his ineptitude, ignorance, incompetence and vindictiveness.
Yes, this is the time for a true leader, not a narcissistic leader, not a proud and not a vengeful one, but rather one who will spend more time up front in planning and executing programs and solutions for the benefit of all the people, whatever their political loyalties and leanings may be, spending less time in reacting to mistakes, missteps, blaming others and calling them names.
And yes, what the people need today, and not tomorrow, is a president willing to share the functions of leadership with his countrymen — the Filipino people whom Aquino himself called “Kayo ang Boss ko!”
If Aquino is not willing to do so, and he has less than three years left of his power in office to act quickly and become a transformational leader, one who can garner trust, respect and admiration from the people, then let us all Filipinos promptly exercise our sovereign right under the Constitution to recall him now.
Time waits for no one, not even for President Noynoy Aquino, nor for glorious us!
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Quote of the Day: “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it, and where law ends, tyranny begins!” – William Pitt, the Elder
Thought of the Day: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely…There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.” – Lord Acton
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