AMENDMENTS TO the 2005 Constitution of the Undergraduate Students of the Ateneo de Manila Loyola Schools were not made due to the failure to reach the quota for the plebiscite held from February 12 to 21.

3,113 votes were cast for the plebiscite, 113 votes short of the votes needed to implement the proposed constitutional amendments for next year.

The plebiscite occurred alongside the 2014 Sanggunian General Elections, which also faced a failure of elections.

This is the third constitutional amendment process failure in the Ateneo, with unsuccessful plebiscites occurring in 2007 and 2012, respectively.

Student apathy

The Committee on Constitutional Review (CCR) and a Sanggunian Central Board (CB) auxiliary committee were given the task of coming up with the proposed amendments for this year’s plebiscite.

The CCR was headed by incumbent Sanggunian Vice President Ryan Yu, but he delegated the task to the Constitutional Amendment Process (CAP) team.

The CAP team was composed of CAP Head Nick Lucero, Ilkka Ruso, Katrina Abenjoar, Jonas Cabochan and Esther Bautista.

The CAP, previously named the Sanggunian Constitutional Committee, was made to address the need for a concrete system for proposing amendments.

According to Lucero, getting the interest of the student body has been a significant and consistent problem of the Sanggunian.

“The problem is not that the amendments might not reach the students, but whether or not the students will respond to the amendments at all,” he admitted.

Moreover, Lucero said that even Sanggunian officers themselves have questioned the student government’s relevance to the student body.

Incumbent School of Humanities (SOH)Junior CB Representative Juno Reyes echoed these sentiments, conceding that the student body “failed to understand how and why the proposed amendments were relevant to their (students) stay here [in the Ateneo].”

Lucero further said that the incapacity of Sanggunian officers and the student body to find relevance for the student government is due to a “lack of a sense of history and its (the Sanggunian’s) insufficient tools for transition.”

Proposed structural reforms

Lucero said that while the amendment discussions between the CAP team and the CB took place over a large part of the year, they were only able to cover “minor amendments and revisions.”

However, the plebiscite did include amendments to give a structural reform for the Ateneo Student Judicial Court (SJC), which included establishing an Office of the Ombudsman and the Ateneo Audit Commission (AC).

Currently, the SJC holds investigatory, judicial and audit powers. The proposed amendment would have given the Office of the Ombudsman investigatory powers and the Ateneo with AC audit powers, leaving the SJC with only judicial powers.

SJC Magistrate for Internal Affairs Administration Leo Abot explained that the Office of the Ombudsman and the Ateneo AC were supposed to make the SJC “an exclusively adjudicatory entity.”

He elaborated that procedures on accountability would have been made clear and in effect, would have improved the judicial process.

SJC Chief Prosecutor and Research and Development Team Head Clyde Maramba was “extremely disappointed” that the plebiscite failed to restructure the SJC.

“The creation of the Commission on Audit [and] the Office of the Ombudsman would [have] really helped the judiciary, in whole, to operate and be more effective, and be more efficient in serving its people, its constituents,” he said.

According to Lucero, structural reforms in the Sanggunian were also discussed but were never included in the final list of proposed amendments because more deliberation was needed.

“Given more time, the CAP team would have highly endorsed the restructuring of the Sanggunian,” he said.

The proposed changes include the addition of a Sanggunian Legislative Board (LB), and, in place of the School Board (SB), the addition of an Executive Board (EB) and Batch Coordinating Assemblies.

The amendment would have also divided the seat of the vice president into two positions, namely the vice president for Internal Affairs and the vice president for External Affairs, giving the Sanggunian five officers with top positions.

Lucero added that previous discussions indicate that the CB this year was willing to adopt the new Sanggunian structure if it was approved.

System overhaul

In light of the failure to amend the constitution, several officers stressed the need for the Sanggunian to entertain a much-needed reform in its system.

Incumbent SOH Junior CB Representative Reyes is an advocate of the reform, saying that the only way to address such an issue is “to study as much of the entangled mass of problems which they are part of.”

“[There is] value in identifying the problems before attempting to make any kind of hypothetical solutions,” Reyes added.

Both Maramba and Lucero said that the issues surrounding the amendments, such as the schedule for the next plebiscite, will be addressed by the next administration.

However, Lucero did state that constitutional amendments are needed now more than ever given the current state of the Sanggunian.

He explained that the members of the student government and the student body “must have the courage to give the Sanggunian space in order for its purpose to unveil itself.”

“The power to save the Sanggunian lies precisely [within] the dangerous space in which it currently treads.”