Estrada may bow to protests over constitution plan

Estrada may bow to protests over constitution plan

MANILA (Agencies): Philippine President Joseph Estrada is
willing to drop his controversial plan to change the constitution
if an advisory body he has created decides there is no need to
amend it, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Under the proposed compromise, Estrada's critics should for
their part drop their opposition to a charter change if the panel
-- called the Preparatory Commission on Constitutional Reforms --
recommends that the constitution be amended, Trade and Industry
Secretary Jose Pardo said.

"It's a two-way street...being offered as a possible area of
compromise," Pardo told the Foreign Correspondents Association of
the Philippines.

He said former presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos and
top churchman Jaime Cardinal Sin, who are leading various groups
opposed to amending the constitution, were studying Estrada's
offer.

Estrada has called for the revision of the 12-year-old
constitution to remove what he said were outdated, protectionist
provisions deterring the entry of foreign investments.

Aquino and Sin oppose any review of the constitution, saying
Estrada might also scrap a provision limiting a president to one
six-year term.

Estrada, who denies he has any such intentions, held
conciliatory talks with both Aquino and Sin on Monday but failed
to resolve differences. He also met Ramos separately.

Ramos on Tuesday urged his successor, Joseph Estrada to forget
about constitutional changes and work on economic reform
measures.

He also said "there is some empirical data" behind allegations
by Roman Catholic church of rising corruption in the Estrada
administration.

A June 1999 survey of the influential Makati Business Club
found out that while most are happy with the Estrada
administration "43 percent are very much concerned" about
corruption, Ramos told a news conference here.

Ramos said he met Estrada on Monday night and told the
president to work on his legislative agenda, which he promised to
do in his first state of the nation address 14 months ago.

Included in that vow is the passage of bill liberalizing the
energy sector and opening up of retail trade to foreigners as
well as amendments on the country's banking law to entice more
foreign banks to come in.

Estrada's proposal to change the constitution has deeply
polarized the nation. On Aug. 20, Aquino and Sin led tens of
thousands in a protest march in Manila.

Left-wing groups which also oppose the presidential proposal
are to hold their own protests in major Philippine cities on
Sept. 21, anniversary of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos's
proclamation of martial law in 1972.

The six-year cap on the presidential term is intended to
prevent the rise of another dictator and is a deeply emotional
issue among Filipinos who still remember the widespread human
rights abuses under Marcos and the regime's mismanagement of the
economy, which nearly reduced the country to bankruptcy.

The preparatory commission is a 25-member body representing
the church, business, academics, labor, peasants and youth and is
chaired by a retired Supreme Court chief justice.