MANGALDAN, Pangasinan—The Sigaw ng Bayan Movement spokesman spearheading the campaign for the shift to parliamentary form of government said he is “hoping
the opposition should not resort into argumentum ad hominem or the lowliest form of debate trying to associate the move to change the Constitution in order to benefit only the President”.
Lawyer Raul Lambino told local newsmen in an interview in
his residence in barangay Bari here town that “we would like to make a disclaimer (to what the opposition keeps on saying that Charter change (Chacha) is intended to benefit President Gloria Arroyo) because when we talk of charter change, what we have in mind is the welfare of the nation, the welfare of the future generations of the Filipinos”.
He added it is farfetched in their objective to give particular
benefit to an individual political personality such as the President or any of those who are in favor of shifting the form of government from presidential to parliamentary.
He added that the opposition leaders keep on saying that Chacha will benefit the President and certain personalities in the administration. “What they are not saying though is that the reason why they’re opposing this because if they are saying that this will benefit the administration, well, we can also lay claim that they’re opposing because they have plans of becoming senators, they have plans of becoming President, that’s the reason why they are objecting to this Chacha”.

“That is most unparliamentary for anyone who is going to impute motive in lawmaking,” he said.
He said the opposition must know this that as members of the Senate or the House of Representatives, “you cannot impute motive in lawmaking”.
“I hope the opposition will realize that whether you are proposing or opposing a measure, motive should never be taken into consideration.
He said that he is taking exception to the statement of Minority Leader Francis Escudero that Chacha is intended to make more difficult impeachment process against the President.
Lambino said,” In fact, if you are going to read the proposals, it would be easier to file an impeachment charge against the incumbent President during the interim period.”
“Just one member of the Interim Parliament can file an impeachment case against the incumbent President and the Parliament has no recourse but to take the case if and when one is filed so there is no truth again to the allegation of the Minority Leader,” he said.
With regards to the other opposition personalities, Lambino said it is very certain that they are enjoying so much of the benefits under this present system. “That’s the reason why they do not want the change”, he said.
He added that these privileges are the perks that go with their
position as members of the House of Representatives or as members of the Senate.
He said that the opposition should bear in mind that it is “very, very expensive to have a bicameral legislature and it is very, very expensive to have a Congress that would not immediately respond to the need of changing policies of government”.
“We can’t afford anymore to have a Congress that would only pass six laws every year because there are many, many laws that need to be changed, there are many policies that need to be implemented,” Lambino said. He added that this has been happening for the last 20 years since the 1987 Constitution took effect.
“We have deteriorated, the system has degenerated,” he said, citing that more and more people are suffering than improving their lives.
Meanwhile, Lambino said that he could not stop the enthusiasm of the volunteer organizations working with the Sigaw ng Bayan Movement in gathering more signatures nationwide.
With already almost 8.5 million gathered signatures, Lambino said the movement which has now more than 300 national organizations supporting the call for a shift to parliamentary system, would like to show that they can also gather another 8.5 million signatures.
“So much as I would like to stop already, they don’t want to,” he said.
He added that these new groups aligned with their movement would like to mobilize their more than one million strong union members of the Associated Labor Unions and the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines to keep on informing and educating their members and their families and even to
sponsor debates .
He said that they have already printed a lot of the petitions and forms to gather signatures.
This is also true with the Philippine Council for Evangelical Churches which also likes to show that it could gather two to three million signatures, he added.
“So there’s no stopping in the information and education drive and gathering of signatures,” Lambino said.
He added that they are now fasttracking the verification of
signatures already gathered.
As of yesterday, he said there are already more than 180 legislative districts with at least three percent of their gathered signatures that have been verified. He said they are working for the last 33 legislative districts.
He said once they achieve the verification of these remaining signatures in the remaining 33 legislative districts, then they will be filing the petition before the end of the month or first week of May.
He said that despite the difficulties in gathering signatures, they were able to achieve their objective beyond their expectations because he said they thought they could only gather five to six percent.
Three weeks ago, he said the verification of signatures has begun as soon as the signatures were gathered particularly in “friendlier areas” where the local government officials and members of Congress in that area are also in favor of Chacha.