Let’s hope for more surprises.

I’m not a fan of the Daily Tribune and its kind of journalism, but the report of its editor Ninez Cacho-Olivarez on Gloria and Mike having a meeting with their congressional lapdogs at the Forbes Park residence of Rep. Martin Romualdez caught my attention last week. The agenda, according to the report, was Charter change.

A day after that, major newspapers reported that the head of Kampi, Rep. Luis Villafuerte of Bicol, authored a resolution calling for the convening of Congress as a constituent assembly that would make changes to the constitution. Presidential son Mikey Arroyo was able to garner 150 votes already as of press time.

There are two modes of changing the Constitution: through an elected constitutional convention (ConCon) or through Congress convening as a constituent assembly (ConAss). For the Arroyo regime, the latter is the better mode. That’s because it would be less costly to pull the strings attached to the congressmen than to cheat in an election for ConCon.

If these congressmen succeed in extending the term for presidents, it would still be difficult for Arroyo to win re-election, of course. That’s why it is more likely that they will push for a shift to parliamentary system. Again, it’s cheaper to buy the MPs than to do a Hello Garci. The trade off for the congressmen would probably be a shift to the federal form at the same time. That would mean more money for the local officials.

Ah, but the Senate is full of people who wants to be president in 2010, surely they wouldn’t want to turn Congress into a ConAss, right? Probably. But we’re not really sure now that Enrile is at the helm. You see, strange things do happen. But most likely, the senators would oppose this ChaCha move.

Which is why, obviously, the plan is for the congressmen to ask the Supreme Court to declare that Congress should vote together- instead of seperately as House and as Senate- on the issue of convening the body as a ConAss. This, of course, would mean that the Arroyo ass-lickers would outnumber the presidentiables in the Senate.

Now we see the significance of the seven-seat vacancy in the Supreme Court that would make it dominated by Arroyo appointees soon. Seems like Gloria couldn’t be more lucky, eh?

But Arroyo shouldn’t celebrate yet. Surprises do happen.

You see, even after the local officials from Mindanao petition the Arroyo-dominated Supreme Court to halt the signing of the MOA that would have balkanized this country earlier this year, Esperon, Romulo and Kenney still went to Malaysia for the signing of the agreement. They were apparently confident that the Arroyo appointees would not grant the TRO. But the justices, most likely the Gloria appointees, acted swiftly to stop the signing.

I’d like to think that the Supreme Court justices, at that time, were still thinking of the country’s interest, instead of Gloria’s and theirs. And it was a pleasant surprise for me.

Let’s hope there would be more surprises like this in the days to come.