We thank you for the well-lit billboards that banner your name and your smiling airbrushed mug for building that umpteenth new basketball court. We thank some of you who, across two congresses, thumbed down the impeachment complaint against the chief executive not once, not twice, not even thrice, but four times. Talo pa ninyo si Lionel Richie. We thank all of you for teaching us that, in spite of the latest Social Weather Station (SWS) survey that revealed that two thirds of the population is against charter change, statistics do not accurately reflect reality unless it is in your favor (that will teach us voters to believe in a survey that is statistically sound and quantitatively verifiable).

We also thank you for the respite we will get from the over-stimulated coverage of the sex scandal brouhaha that has kept the Senate, the Optical Media Board and dibidi vendors busy. Because now we know that the real lewd show will be played out, censorship and Senate-free, in the lower house. As noted constitutionalist Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ oh-so-delicately pointed out, the charter change resolution is an invitation by the lower house to have us as they ‘violate the constitution’. In front of law-abiding citizens and little children, no less. Give Abner Afuang a jug of water, please.

And really, my dear congressmen, do our Senators even need more television coverage!? Your smiling airbrushed mugs deserve some prime time ratings too, you know. In fact, we want all one hundred seventy two of you to become so popular so that we can stick you in the Pinoy Big Brother house can keep you there until after May 2010.

But, most of all, we thank all of you for the front row seats to this eight-year-long (or so we hope) orchestra that is this present administration. And while you fiddle with your respective instruments, we impatiently wait for the final din of the trombone so that the conductor can finally turn around so we can let them know, in graphic detail, what we thought of the performance.

Don’t all of you, from the Hahvaaahhdd graduate to the hoi polloi, realize, that the sole purpose of this constituent assembly – as Speaker Prospero Nograles has oh-so-delicately put it several hundred times – is to study the lifting of restrictions of foreign ownership of land and corporation (Uhm, because there has been a groundswell of disgruntled local landowners and local corporations demanding for foreign ownership?) for economic progress (Even if the NEDA chief says that another Cha-cha move will shock the economy? Pshaw! What does he know?)? Of course we believe this is the reason for the constituent assembly as much as we believe that the Chief Executive won the 2004 National Elections.

But let’s not rest on our laurels, my dear one hundred and seventy two congressmen. We’ve got less than a year to go until the next elections and there are still a boatload of laws that deserve the midnight oil treatment. No, I am not referring to the right of reply bill (although those journalists will get what is coming to them soon enough). Neither am I referring to the anti-child pornography bill (can the children wait any longer?). What I’m talking about is legislation of consequence.

We have yet to scrape the bottom of pork barrel to draft laws that will uplift the status of the less-than-minimum wage earning Pinoy. Given this, you may want to consider adapting some of these international laws (that are still in existence, I may add) that will garner attention, prime time ratings and (sigh) taxpayer’s money.

In Thailand, it is illegal to leave your house if you are not wearing underwear, especially if you don’t want the crotch of your paints to smell like a urinal by the end of the day. In Australia, it is illegal to wear hot pink pants on Sunday mid afternoon unless you want the fashion police to come over and beat you senseless with a fur-covered nighstick. In France, a pig cannot be addressed Napoleon by its owners, although the law is silent if you can address the pig as Josephine. In Singapore, you cannot walk around naked in your own home because you might look in the mirror and turn yourself on. And, in Indonesia, the punishment for masturbation is decapitation (and a collective shudder runs down the spine of No Girlfriends Since Birth (NGSB) around the world).

Aren’t these laws tear-jerking, knee-slapping, spittle-forming hilarious!? Tell you frankly, we’d rather have these taken up in congress instead of the one numbered 1109. (Well, except maybe for the Indonesian law. We will have NGSBs up in stumps over it.)

My dear one hundred and seventy two congressmen, we – your electorate – can’t help but feel special. Just like special children. We know that we elected all of you into office, we know that two thirds of us are adamant against charter change, yet here we are – the representatives whom we voted into office will be sexually harassing our constitution come July. We feel as if somebody’s been telling us a bad joke where we don’t really get the punchline. Unless its all an inside joke.

Sometimes all we nine-to-fivers can do is shrug our shoulders as we recall the headlines that have marked this political comedy of errors for the past several years: from “Hello Garci” to missing fertilizer funds to IMPSA to “Jose Pidal” to jueteng to the Northrail project to the Venable contract to the NBN-ZTE deal to the bribery at Malacanang to extra-military excursions in posh hotels to extrajudicial killings. It’s not funny anymore.

So please, my dear one hundred and seventy two congressmen, hear the little whispers that we utter in between typing up reports and taking down orders and riding the MRT – please give us a fresh start. Please give us – without any doubt in our special mind – presidential elections in 2010. We don’t need any more jokes. What we do need, is a break. Really.

We realize that you are all a reasonable bunch of well-meaning fellows. After all, that’s the reason why we voted all of you into office. And although we many not fully appreciate your reason for adding your signature to House Bill 1109, we respect your desire to exercise this prerogative. If you truly feel that amending the constitution prior to 2010 will benefit your electorate (and, by extension, your country) as a whole, then kindly make an effort to reach out and share with us the burden of your conviction.

But we – your electorate – are a reasonable bunch as well. And two thirds us feel that amending the constitution prior to next year’s elections is just another sequel to an ongoing comedy of errors. So please respect us as we exercise our prerogative to share with you our fervent disapproval of this bill.

For the two thirds out there who disapprove of the bill, find out who the congressmen were that voted in favor of House Bill 1109 and if you belong to their district. Their names appear in this website: http://www.thepoc.net/index.php/Politi-Ko/Politiko-News/Con-ass-resolution-endorsers-named.html. Twenty from the National Capital Region (NCR). Five from the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR). Eleven from the Ilocos Region. Six from Cagayan Valley. Seventeen from Central Luzon. Thirteen from Calabarzon. Five from MIMAROPA. Ten from the Bicol Region. Fourteen from Western Visayas. Eleven from Central Visayas. Twelve from Eastern Visayas. Six from the Zamboanga Peninsula. Eight from Northern Mindanao. Eleven from the Davao Region. Four from SOCCSKARGEN. Seven from CARAGA. Six from ARMM. Five from party-lists.

My fellow electorate, let us exercise the same persistence at getting through to our congressmen as our congressmen exercised in getting this bill passed in the Lower House. Let us find a way to get in touch with them. Visit them. Text them. Email them. Snail mail them. Send them smoke signals. Let us let them know that we – their constituents – believe that their actions should reflect our will. Especially since what is at stake is our shared political future.

We appeal to you, our dear one hundred and seventy two congressmen, please do not push through with the constituent assembly in July. Because if we careen down this path, the ending to this political flashpoint might turn out like the latest film by Brillante Mendoza.

It may be award-winning, but it won’t be pretty.