A CON COM member disassociates himself from Charter Change

Read this email from CONCOM's Vicente Paterno.

Here enclosed are the texts of Secs. 7, 9, and 11 to 13 of Art. XX. Sec. 7, the NO-EL provision, assure that the interim Parliament (2007-2010) will be filled with tried and proven allies, ready to do Pres. GMA’s bidding. The other cited sections, not as widely known, are more disturbing.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Here's the section on "NO EL"

SEC. 7. The elections scheduled in 2007 shall be cancelled and the terms of office of all elective officials shall be extended to June 30, 2010, coinciding with those of the incumbent President and Vice-President and the twelve Senators elected in 2004.

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Ernie Maceda:

The luncheon meeting attended by former President Corazon Aquino, El Shaddai leader Mike Velarde, Makati Business Club leaders Ricardo Romulo, Bill Luz, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala and Ramon del Rosario Jr., Hyatt 10 members, former GMA secretaries Cesar Purisima, Butch Abad and Teresita Deles, former Finance Secretaries Roberto de Ocampo (under FVR), Jesus Estanislao (under Cory) and Jose “Titoy” Pardo (under Erap) is a very significant development.

The purpose of the meeting was summed up by former Education Secretary Butch Abad: “There is a sense of urgency that the political crisis has to be resolved at the soonest time possible because the constitutional venues for resolving the crisis are narrowing down.”

Also significant was the alliance of forces between the moderate Black and White Movement, the Laban ng Masa and Akbayan activist groups that marched together at Edsa with former Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary Dinky Soliman, Representatives Etta Rosales and Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel joining Representatives Mario Aguja, Rafael Mariano and Muslims headed by Anak ng Mindanao Representative Mujiv Hattaman. Laban ng Masa is led by former UP president Francisco Nemenzo and his wife Ana Marie who heads the Freedom From Debt Coalition.

The 30,000-strong marchers gained a significant victory when Philippine National Police Civil Disturbance units failed to stop them at Edsa and Santolan road and finally allowed them to proceed to the People Power Monument.

Clearly, the different anti-GMA groups have unified. Today, at one o’clock, Cory Aquino and Edsa I participants will lead an expected crowd of 20,000 persons together with Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay and other United Opposition/Kilusang Nagkakaisang Pilipino leaders in a reenactment of the confetti march down Ayala Avenue. It would be interesting to watch if Makati private corporations and bank employees will come out to express their solidarity with President Cory’s GMA resign demand.

All these while GMA escaped to Southern Leyte and Cebu to talk of the spirit of Edsa there. And this, after she was seen making beso-beso with ousted Edsa I First Lady Imelda R. Marcos. A fitting contrast.

Rudy Romero says that the real Edsa Dos has yet to come.

Ninez: Recycled coup plot.

Gloria Arroyo and her military chiefs must be in desperate straits, for Army chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon to hold a press conference and announce that a coup plot, named Oplan Hackle, had been nipped in the bud with prime leaders consisting of 14 junior officers who have been identified as the coup prime movers.

That, in itself was very strange, owing to the fact that the military top chief, Gen. Generoso Senga, was nowhere around to break this “big news” of the military thwarting a coup against Gloria.

But, as already pointed out by the Tribune in a much earlier report, the big chief in the military these days appears to be Esperon, as Gloria has been noted to be bypassing Senga too often, giving direct orders to the Army chief instead.

Also strange is Esperon detailing the Hackle coup plot since it was he who earlier dismissed this same plot as the renegade soldiers’ propaganda and psy-war tactics. Yet he now claims authenticity of the documented and detailed coup plot, even presenting to the media the rebel flag, pamphlets of a national recovery program, newly-minted rebel dog tags and describing the blood-letting ritual engaged in by the recruiter and recruited.

There was too, the military chief’s claim that the renegade soldiers have joined forces with the communist New People’s Army (NPA), which he termed as treason, and the reason these same prime movers of the coup plot, all 14 of them, plus some 200 soldiers, junked the coup plot and now support the chain of command as these coup plotters cannot stomach the idea of the military group sleeping with the enemy.

That line is so passe, so 1960s. Surely Esperon and the Palace don’t believe the military — as well as the people — would believe this crap? To this day, after four decades and a half of renewed red scare in this country by Malacañang tenants and their military, the communist party and its armed force, the NPA, still aren’t ready to take over the government, much less the country.