Democracy in waiting

BANTAY GOBYERNO

Ike Señeres

“The law may be harsh, but it is the law”. To that, I will say that it may be the law, but it is only good as words, not unless it is implemented. Perhaps due to the high intelligence of our lawmakers, we have so many laws that are practically perfect in composition, but weak in implementation. As another saying goes, “What you do not know won’t hurt you”. It seems that this saying is not applicable to the implementation of laws, because it would really hurt us if we do not know the law. “Ignorance of the law excuses no one” as another saying goes, and we could also interpret that to have both positive and negative meanings. If you do not know the law, you may not know your rights on one hand, and you may be breaking the law on the other hand.

The laws allowing people’s initiatives and recall elections are two ingredients of popular democracy that many people do not know about. To put it harshly, these certain people are ignorant of these laws. Depending on who is looking at it, it may be hurting them because they do not know their rights or they may be ignoring their rights even if they would know about these laws. In fairness to everyone however, we should just say that the solution is to inform the people of the existence of these laws if they do not know about it, or to convince them if they are not making use of it, even if they know about it. In that sense, the bottom line perhaps is public information.

It could be said that the origin of people’s initiatives could be traced all the way back to the ancient Greek city states, wherein every citizen had the rights to vote for the passing of laws. Of course, that all changed when the populations grew and it became necessary to create senates wherein only the senators could vote for the passing of laws, presumably for and in behalf of all the citizens. As senates and congresses became the dominant modes of democratic participation, the actual citizens were left out in the processes of passing the laws, even if it was presumed that the people who represented them actually knew their likes and dislikes.

According to Republic Act 6735 (The Initiative and Referendum Act), a petition signed by at least ten percent of registered voters is enough to compel the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to call for a referendum. If the majority of those who would vote in the referendum would approve the initiative, it would already become law fifteen days after it is published in the Philippine Gazette. Down the line, the law provides for petitions to be submitted at the provincial, municipal and barangay level, wherein referenda would also be conducted in these local levels. Just in case you did not notice it, the Congress is practically bypassed in these processes.

According to Republic Act 7160 (The Local Government Code), a petition signed by at least twenty five percent of registered voters in a province, municipality, barangay or congressional district is enough to compel the COMELEC to call for a special recall election. The other alternative is for a preparatory recall assembly to be convened, but the latter is a less democratic approach, because only the locally elected officials could attend these assemblies. In fairness to the incumbent officials who are being petitioned to be recalled, they are automatically registered as candidates, meaning to say that they have the chance to remain in office if they would again win.

Looking at these two laws, it is very easy to realize that the people actually have the power now to pass new laws or revise existing laws without the participation of Congress. Not only that, the people actually have the power to change their local officials if the majority of them no longer favor the incumbents, and that even includes the recall of the members of Congress. By the way, the other alternative is to file cases against these officials in the Office of the Ombudsman, wherein it could possibly happen that they will be dismissed from office and prohibited from running again. If a recall election is held after a local official is dismissed, he or she may no longer be included in the ballot.

Years ago, the COMELEC and the Senate jointly appointed me to become the Chairman of the Electoral Modernization Committee. When I submitted our terminal report, I included an annex document wherein I proposed that we should be allowed to vote in the same way that we are allowed to bank. What I actually meant by that is that if we are allowed to bank through a teller, by phone, via internet and through an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), then the COMELEC should also allow us to vote using all these four options. When I suggested that, some members of my Committee objected, saying that it would be difficult to secure the system. In response, I said that it is actually more difficult to secure banking transactions compared to voting transactions.

Since the time that I chaired that Committee, the technologies have evolved by leaps and bounds, and that includes the technologies to secure and authenticate the identities of individuals. According to Republic Act 8792 (The Electronic Commerce Act), there is supposed to be at least one Certification Authority (CA), supposedly a government agency that would authenticate the identities of individuals by way of a Public Key and Private Key Infrastructure, commonly known as PKI. The PKI system would have allowed the COMELEC to authenticate the identities of citizens so that they could vote using any electronic means.

With or without electronic tools however, there are already laws that allow us to pass laws even without Congress, and to recall local officials even if their term has not yet expired. Call it any name you like, but these laws actually allow us to exercise our democratic rights to the extreme. With or without PKI, all electronic means could be used for mobilization, to convince the citizens to support people’s initiatives, or to call for recall elections. All electronic means could also be used to urge the citizens to attend Barangay Assemblies, where the people could vote directly whether to amend or repeal local resolutions. Technically, if more than 50% of the citizens no longer like a law, it’s enough numbers to have it amended or repealed. Same goes for a public official who could already be removed from office, if more than 50% of the people no longer like him or her. Democracy is just waiting to make it alive.

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