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Estrada has called for the revision of the 12-year-old constitution to remove what he said were outdated, protectionist provisions deterring the entry of foreign investments.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