I was asked recently what the elected president should do in his or her first 100 days in office.
My answer is: take up where Erap left off, i.e. call for a Constituent Assembly and push for changes in the economic provisions of the Constitution.

Former President Joseph Estrada had the right idea at that time, which was to reform the Philippine economy by changing the restrictive and anti-growth provisions in the Constitution. He formed a distinguished panel to make recommendations. Included in the panel were economic luminaries Cayetano Paderanga Jr, former NEDA Secretary-General and now present president of the Philippine Stock Exchange, and Atty. Maria Lourdes Sereno, an expert in international trade law.

Unfortunately, former President Estrada lacked the political capital to pursue his bold initiative. Anti-Constitutional Change forces led by former President Corazon Aquino suspected that the Constituent Assembly was going to be used by Estrada to extend his term and therefore led a campaign to stop Constitutional change.

Actually, the oligarchy was threatened by the Constitutional change initiative because it would remove their privileged and protected provisions in the economy. Foreigners would be allowed to own mass media, public utilities, educational institutions, and even land 100 percent. It would have increased competition in areas that the 1987 Constitution had reserved exclusively to Filipinos.
It would be good for our elected leader in 2004 to pick up where former President Estrada left off.

However, a Constitutional Convention or a Constituent Assembly to change the form of government may be too risky, too distracting, and too controversial to undertake early in the term of the elected president in 2004. Not everybody is sold that a parliamentary system would be good for us or that federalism is the answer to the country’s woes.

Any attempt to reform the country’s political institutions through Constitutional change, no matter how well-intentioned, may exacerbate the country’s disunity and divisiveness.

On the other hand, liberalizing the economic provisions in the Constitution may be less controversial (although the country’s scelerotic left, ever protective of the country’s rent-seeking elite, is expected to oppose it). There’s consensus building in the business community that the economic provisions barring foreign ownership in mass media, telecommunications, public utilities, and land need to be changed.
Even the so-called oligarchy may come on board. The financial woes of Maynilad Water could be solved if the creditors converted their exposure to equity but that’s now not allowed presently because of the Constitutional restriction on foreigners owning public utilities.
The Piatco fiasco wouldn’t have happened had foreigners not been barred from owning public utilities and infrastructure outright. Thus, there are charges that Fraport, a German company, used dummies to build Naia 3.

It may also take another foreign firm to rescue and operate Naia 3 but that option can’t be considered unless the Constitution is changed.

Technology has already rendered the Constitutional limitation on foreign ownership of mass media moot and academic. Foreign mass media companies like CNN are broadcasting to Filipino homes with the help of satellite technology. Pretty soon, mobile phones will be converted into portable mass media entertainment units. Restriction or no restriction, foreign mass media companies will be able to offer their content direct to Filipino mobile phone users.

Furthermore, Filipino mass media companies like ABS-CBN and GMA 7 have ambitions to go global. They will need more capital, probably from foreign sources, if they are to go head to head with foreign producers of Chinese and Mexican telenovelas.
Domestic savings are just too paltry to finance needed higher investment in telecommunications and utilities that will generate jobs and improve infrastructure.

Japan is said to be interested in a free trade, economic cooperation agreement with the Philippines if the Constitutional provisions on foreign ownership of land is removed.

Thus, one of the first things that the elected President in 2004 should do in his first one hundred days is to call for a Constituent Assembly to reform the economic provisions in the 1987 Constitution.