Is Marcos’ plan to amend Philippine constitution for China deal a ploy to keep his family in power?

Other changes they have proposed include: extending terms of office; shifting from a presidential to a federal and parliamentary form of government; as well as lifting current restrictions on foreign ownership of land and corporations engaged in media, advertising, education, public utilities and natural resources extraction.

Marcos Jnr himself ran for the presidency under the banner of Partido Federal ng Pilipinas whose major advocacy is to establish a federal form of government. Human rights activists are particularly suspicious of his charter change because Marcos Jnr’s late dictator-father entrenched himself in power by calling for a constitutional convention then grabbing control of its process after imposing martial rule.

The resulting 1973 constitution enabled the senior Marcos to stay in power for another 13 years because he installed a weak parliament while retaining himself as president with the power to amend the charter and make laws.

Ruling party Senator Francis Tolentino made it clear on Tuesday that he was backing the charter change “so we can explore and develop the natural resources in the West Philippine Sea”. He said the country could only do this “with the help of investments from another country whose technology and equipment we need in order to drill, extract and convert” oil and gas deposits.

The lawyer-senator also stated in the press release that a “less restrictive development of West Philippine Sea must be included [in the charter change] to help ease prices of basic commodities in the country”.

Tolentino did not detail the constitutional edit he had in mind, nor did he mention that drilling for gas and oil in the WPS – an area under Manila’s sovereign rights according to a 2016 international