CALLS for 'Charter change' are so predictably a part of the political activity in the months following the installation of a new president in the Philippines that you could set your watch to them, so it would have been more of a surprise if the current class in Congress had not proposed tackling the process of amending the 1987 Constitution. However, the current effort is more worrisome than those in past years because of the intensely aggressive way it is being pushed by a legislature that, with precious few exceptions, is populated by 'lawmakers' who are quickly becoming historically outstanding for their lack of competence and intellectual depth.

It is one thing to be kind of stupid; it is quite another to be arrogantly proud of being stupid, and to consider it one's mission to manifest that in national policy and laws. Think that's harsh? Consider the response of Cavite Rep. Elpidio 'Pidi' Barzaga Jr. when asked for his reaction to a joint statement by six major business groups opposing Charter change. 'Eh, ano ngayon (What of it)?' Barzaga was reported to have said. Pidi should probably thank the media for not actually reporting that and making him look bad, and instead publishing his slightly more respectful follow-up statement that 'the members of Congress, being the representatives of our constituents, are in a position that the restrictive economic provisions that were first incorporated in the 1935 Constitution and carried over into the 1973 and 1987 Constitutions should already be amended in order to spur the economic development of our country.'