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Workshop on Political Reform and Charter Change Coincides with Philippine Political Crisis

As political science and constitutional law experts from Europe, Asia, Australia, America, and the Philippines met at the Eugenio Lopez Center, Antipolo City from July 8-9, 2005 to discuss political reform and charter change in the country, a political crisis broke over the country, providing an impetus for local media and lawmakers to avail of the insights of the gathered authorities and allowing the latter to analyze the unfolding situation through the lens of their individual theories.

The Workshop on Political Reform and Charter Change in the Philippines: Perspectives from the Nation and the Region, a joint effort by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), the Philippine Social Science Council (PSSC), and the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore (ARI), featured paper presentations and discussions by local and international luminaries on the history, methods, advantages and disadvantages of charter change and different representational structures, the experience of other nations, notably, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and Colombia with other forms of democratic representation, electoral administration and political and electoral reform, regional Philippine perspectives on national and regional identity, political reform and charter change, and contending perspectives on presidentialism, parliamentarianism, federalism, and electoral reform and administration.

While conference participants differed on the type of constitutional reform, if any, the country should undergo, general consensus was reached that fundamental to Philippine political reform was one, ameliorating the effect of the fixed 6-year Presidential term, two, the emergence of programmatic political parties, and three, the modernization and the reform of both the country’s electoral rules and its system of electoral administration .

The workshop was kicked off by a KAS welcome reception at the Manila Peninsula Conservatory on July 7, 2005. Reception speakers included the Honorable Speaker of the House Jose De Venecia, Jr., KAS Country Representative Mr. Klaus Preschle, and Dr. Paul Hutchcroft of the Asia Research Institute – National University of Singapore. The welcome reception also featured an exhibition debate by the multi-award winning Ateneo Debate Society on the question of whether country needs charter change for federalism as well as the formal launching of the book Charter Change for Good Governance: Towards a Federal Republic of the Philippines with a Parliamentary Government by renowned constitutional scholar Dr. Jose Abueva.

The papers presented at the workshop will be published in a volume by the end the year.