Can Arroyo reign beyond 2010?

Read this article by former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban in the Inquirer and be afraid: President Macapagal-Arroyo’s present term expires on June 30, 2010. Can she legally extend her reign beyond that date? My answer: Yes, if our Congress, Supreme Court, Commission on Elections and people will agree to a revision of our Constitution. Failed Cha-cha bid. Let me begin my thesis by recalling the most recent bid for Charter change (Cha-cha). In 2006, during my term as chief justice, the allies of the President, led by then Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., launched a “people’s initiative” to alter our form of government from presidential to parliamentary. Armed with the alleged signatures of 6.3 million voters, the initiative’s visible proponents—the “Sigaw ng Bayan” and the Union of Local Authorities in the Philippines... [read full story]