VETERAN POLITICIANS say they are not convinced the Constitution can live up to its drafters’ claim of suppressing corruption.

However, a law professor who sat on the previous constitution drafting panel asserts the current charter will combat graft by preventing crooked people from entering politics – given the tough constitutional requirements for political officeholders.

Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said the term “corruption-suppressing constitution” used for the present charter was just a “marketing ploy”.

The charter was promoted by the Constitution Drafting Commission, particularly its chairman Meechai Ruchupan, as a “corruption-suppressing constitution”.

Former prime minister Abhisit said that in reality the Constitution would not actually help combat graft as claimed. He pointed to clauses in the charter that he said would weaken rather than strengthen the fight against corruption.

Abhisit said, unlike its predecessor, this Constitution does not require that impeachment be sought against Cabinet members who are accused of corruption in a no-confidence debate. He said that censure debates alone would not lead to removal of corrupt Cabinet members as they would naturally get majority House support from government MPs.

Also, the Constitution does not allow MPs to directly sue any member of the National Anti-Corruption Commission suspected of failing to perform their duty, Abhisit noted. Any complaint must be submitted through the Parliament president, which makes it difficult for whistle-blowing politicians, he added.

Abhisit also said that although the Constitution has a clause that encourages public members to take part in scrutinising political officeholders, it is not easy for them to do so.

He was speaking during a panel discussion, “Will the Corruption-Suppressing Constitution Actually Work?”, held at Bangkok’s Miracle Grand Hotel. The event was organised by the National Legislative Assembly’s committee on political affairs, Public Administration Association, and National Institute of Development Administration (Nida).

Phongthep Thepkanjana, a key figure from the Pheu Thai Party, said the claim of suppressing corruption was “just propaganda” for the Constitution, which has been in effect since April last year.

He viewed that the charter instead contains some provisions that actually promote corruption, particularly Article 265 that guarantees the ruling junta’s power to issue orders that are regarded as law.

Phongthep, who previously served as deputy prime minister and justice minister, suggested that the charter must be amended to allow easier scrutiny of people in power and independent organisations charged with scrutinising officeholders.

Professor Banjerd Singkaneti said at the panel discussion that the Constitution by itself could not actually suppress corruption, which would need the addition of relevant laws and regulations.

“What the Constitution can do about suppressing corruption is to prevent dishonest people from entering the Thai political system. Qualifications have been clearly set,” he said.

The academic said a weakness in the charter regarding the fight against graft was that it gave “too much power” to state agencies. He called azfor empowering the civil sector through anti-corruption measures in a new organic law. Banjerd is former dean of Nida’s law faculty and a member of the post-coup Constitution Drafting Committee headed by Professor Borwornsak Uwanno, whose charter draft was rejected by the National Reform Council.

Some Thai social media comments criticised the low pay for the temporary job as published this week in an employment ad.

The school executives then made a further donation that hiked the position’s salary to Bt7,000 a month.

Nobody has yet applied for the position, said academic affairs teacher Anuthida Kanjanya.

The school is seeking a teacher with a bachelors degree in early childhood education or a related field.

The permanent Kindergarten 1 teacher had fallen ill and would need frequent hospital visits and undergo brain surgery, and so requires time off from teaching, said Anuthida. The teacher will undergo brain surgery.

With the school term opened this week, other concerned school teachers donated money so that the school could hire a temporary teacher for three to four months at a Bt4,000 salary. School executives have since added to the donation, enabling the position to offer Bt7,000 a month.

In the mean time, the school has blended the Kindergarten 1 and Kindergarten 2 classes under one teacher as a short-term solution, said Anuthida.

Ban Pha Wiang School in Tambon Mae Sin, located 100 kilometres from Muang Sukhothai, has 320 students from kindergarten to Mathayom 3. Five of its teachers had recently requested a transfer and those positions had not been re-filled, causing the school to suffer a severe teacher shortage.

Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin has waded in, noting that a Bt4,000 salary would be below the minimum legal wage. A teacher receiving that sum could file a police complaint to have the Labour Ministry or related authority look into the issue. However, he said, this particular matter is more correctly viewed as a mutual-consent agreement between an employer who wanted a staff member on those terms and an applicant who wanted a job.

Teerakiat said the ministry has a system for legally hiring contract teachers. Before criticising this school’s case, a detailed look at the job requirements is needed, he said.

Col Pramote Prom-in, spokesman for forward command at Internal Security Operations Command Region 4, said drones cannot be flown in aviation zones or near military outposts, checkpoints and other areas engaged in national security.

Offenders would face legal measures and the drones could be seized and destroyed, he said.

Pramote dismissed news reports that the Fourth Army Region chief had ordered the automatic destruction of any drone flying in the region.

The reports followed a May 15 insurgent attack on a military outpost in Yala’s Yaha district in which two people were injured. Someone at the scene reported a drone flying over the outpost a few days earlier.

Pramote said the erroneous reports had caused public confusion and misunderstanding.

Drones could still be used for aerial photography anywhere in the South that is not deemed sensitive in regard to safety and security, he said.

The source said Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Grisada Boonrach was already informed of the results from the EU’s review of Thailand’s performance.

A delegation from the EU visited Thailand last month to discuss anti-IUU efforts.

“Two issues behind the EU decision to not upgrade Thailand’s anti-IUU ratings are fleet management and laws enforcement,” the source said.

The EU apparently found discrepancies in boat categorisation at the Marine Department and expects to see strict laws enforcement, efficient management of administrative orders and clear timeframes.

The source said the EU wanted Thailand to achieve visible progress within four months.

Since 2015, Thailand has been slapped with a yellow flag for “shortcomings in its fisheries monitoring, control and sanctioning systems”. If the EU were to issue a red flag, Thailand’s seafood exports would be banned by EU members.

Deputy Prime Minister General Chatchai Sarikulya, who oversees a subcommittee on solutions to IUU, said the Fisheries Monitoring Centre (FMC) needed to upgrade its operations and staff.

“I have also assigned the Command Centre for Combating Illegal Fishing to send five staff to the FMC to help train and monitor the workforce there over the next three months,” Chatchai said.

He said he also instructed the legal authorities, from the police to public prosecutors and courts, to boost coordination and efficiency.

“I expect to get clear and positive results by July,” Chatchai said.

ACADEMICS urged the government to prioritise the protection of people’s health from the threat of chemical contamination and ensure a healthy environment in keeping with the county’s pledge to pursue Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The group of professors and researchers in the medical and environmental fields from Thailand’s leading universities pressed two major demands on the authorities in an academic seminar titled “Academic truths on the controlling of hazardous chemicals: paraquat, glyphosate, and chlorpyrifos” at Chulalongkorn University yesterday.

The academics called on the relevant agencies to consider the banning of paraquat, glyphosate, and chlorpyrifos in Thailand and reform the country’s agriculture in order to switch from chemical farming to more environmentally friendly organic farming.

Paraquat and glyphosate are widely used herbicides in Thailand, where chlorpyrifos is routinely used as a pesticide.

The deputy director of the Centre of Excellence on Environmental Health and Toxicology, Jutamaad Satayavivad, stated that people in Thailand have been facing “silent threats” from the intensive use of chemicals in the agricultural sector, especially paraquat which has been identified as a very hazardous substance when coming into direct contact with the human body.

Jutamaad revealed that not only can these chemicals have acute effects on health – the mortality rate for consuming paraquat is as high as 46.18 per cent – they also trigger severe chronic symptoms in humans. Recent studies revealed that prolonged exposure to these chemicals could significantly increase the risk of lung cancer and breast cancer.

Dr Thiravat Hemachudha, head of the Emerging Infectious Disease Health Science Centre at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine, also revealed that many studies found that people who worked closely with these chemicals for a long period of time had 70 per cent more chance of suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Noppadon Kitana, head of the Biology Department at the Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, said that in addition to the health threats from direct exposure to these chemicals, the continuous intensive use of herbicides and pesticides also caused severe chemical contamination in the ecosystem. Many studies, including his own, found high residues of paraquat, glyphosate, and chlorpyrifos in soil, water, vegetable, and aquatic animal samples.

“The findings of chemical contamination in food and the ecosystem prove that consumers are not safe from health threats caused by these chemicals, hence we would like to ask the government to solve this problem by banning these harmful substances once and for all,” Noppadon said.

“Moreover, the government has the duty to ensure a clean environment and healthy living conditions for all citizens, under our obligations to the international community to follow the SDGs.”

As the plan to ban these three commonly used farming chemicals has met with strong opposition from some groups of farmers, he suggested that the authorities and all stakeholders in the agricultural sector needed to move forward from chemical farming to organic farming. It has already been proved that chemical-free farming can guarantee similar or even higher yields than traditional ways of farming, he said.

Drug System Monitoring Mechanism Development Centre manager Dr Niyada Kiatying-Angsulee emphasised that when considering environmental and health policies, authorities must take a precautionary approach as an assurance that the environment and citizen’s well-being would be properly protected.

The academics’ request to the government has been made a week before the Hazardous Substance Committee will have to make a decision next Wednesday on whether the country should ban paraquat and chlorpyrifos and limit the use of glyphosate. “In this forum, we have provided much evidence of the dangers from these chemicals to the health, to the farmers, those who use the chemicals, their family members and even the consumers who eat unsafe food,” Niyada said.

“So, we only hope that the relevant agencies will consider our information, judge from the scientific facts, and ban these harmful chemicals in order to protect the people from avoidable dangers to their health and well-being.”

Public hearings for the plan to release wild monkeys from various provinces that are overcrowded with monkeys to these small islands will be held later this month.

“Surveys show there are five islets in Phuket that should be able to serve as monkey colonies. These islets have neither human inhabitants nor predatory animals. But they have food and water sources,” Pol General Pongsapat Pongcharoen, chairman of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA)’s subcommittee on animal welfare |protection mechanism follow-up, said yesterday.

The plan to develop monkey colonies has emerged because of the serious overcrowding of macaques in 12 provinces.

According to Pongsapat, monkeys have caused problems to people in as many 53 provinces across Thailand. Twelve provinces with a “serious situation” are Lop Buri, Krabi, Chon Buri, Trang, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Phetchaburi, Phuket, Mukdahan, Satun, Saraburi, Amnat Charoen, and the Bang Khun Thien district in Bangkok.

Thai authorities have suggested 100,000 monkeys may be rounded up and isolated on 191 remote islands.

Pongsapat cited Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) findings that said conflicts between humans and monkeys stemmed from the threat to the natural habitat of monkeys from the building of residences.

He said this encroachment on the animals’ land, or surroundings overlapping monkey habitats, had led to a change in the ecosystem and caused food shortages. As a result, the monkeys raided people’s homes to ransack for food and even attacked people.

He said the idea of creating a “monkey colony” on islands to support the overspill, especially those with aggressive behaviour against humans, would soon materialise. He said the monkeys would be sterilised first.

While agreeing that the monkey overcrowding issue must be managed appropriately, marine biologist Thon Thamrongnawasawat said he did not support solutions that could create other problems for the national parks’ island ecosystem.

Some NLA members had discussed the issue with him and assured him that the “monkey island” solution wouldn’t include islands within national parks, he said.

According to DNP deputy director-general Pinsak Suraswadi, a survey of 7,000 people across the country found that the most irritating animals for them were monkeys/macaques, who were reportedly overcrowding 183 sites in 53 provinces, including the 12 provinces in a “critical situation”.

Eleven other provinces, including Ratchaburi, Sa Kaew, Chai Nat and Udon Thani, faced a moderate situation while the problem was mild in 30 other provinces.

Pinsak said the DNP had been implementing monkey-population control measures, including sterilisation, but they had not been able to stem the fast-growing monkey population. He said the problematic 100,000 monkeys included 34,608 macaques.

The second and third most irritating animals were wild elephants at 166 sites and wild boars at 82 sites, he said, quoting from the survey.

STUDENTS WHO flunked their courses are being given a second chance by Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi (RMUTT). Those dismissed because of poor grades will have the opportunity to re-enrol on Bachelor degree programmes this academic year, says Prasert Pinpathomrat, rector of the Pathum Thani-based institution

RMUTT expects up to 1,500 of 2,000 students who have been dismissed over the past four academic years (2014-2017) to apply for admissions interviews by the deadline of May 28.

Many were dismissed because they couldn’t adjust to the environment or came unprepared, so if they got another chance to resume their study, they could still graduate, get good jobs and join the workforce to benefit the country, Prasert said.

Explaining that the institute had to adjust to a trend of fewer people going to university, the rector insisted the move wasn’t an attempt simply to boost student numbers. “Our student intake each year has exceeded targets,” he said, adding that the re-enrolment move followed a successful pilot project two years ago when 20 reinstated engineering students went on to achieve good grades and job prospects.

Nuchtiphong U-thong, head of RMUTT Academic Promotion and Registration, backed the offer of a second chance. He said 4,800 new students had enrolled via the central admission system’s first two rounds so far this academic year, with 900 more having applied in the ongoing third round.

He said the re-enrolment scheme was permitted under existing rules that allowed recent graduates or students who had quit to transfer credits and thus meet course registration requirements for Bachelor’s degrees.

He affirmed the scheme would screen out those who had been dismissed for bad behaviour.

Sompong Jitradap, a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University’s faculty of education, said the RMUTT initiative was unprecedented and that it might be difficult to explain to society why the institute was recruiting disqualified students. But he added he could understand the motivation for the move since Rajabhat universities and universities of technology faced fierce competition for student enrolments under the central admissions system.

If this were a move to tackle a student shortage, it could backfire in damaging the credibility and reputation of RMUTT and Thai universities in the long term, he said, urging the Office of Higher Education Commission to check whether current regulations permitted re-enrolment.

Last Thursday, Deputy Education Minister Udom Kachintorn commented that the RMUTT initiative for dismissed students was workable in principle as long as it didn’t violate the university’s own regulations. But the screening must prevent those dismissed over serious breaches from getting back in, he added.

“I don’t want to view this in a negative light as an attempt to boost student intake. I think the university wants to help the youths. … I’ve never seen any Thai institute do this before. Should others follow their example? It depends on each institute’s discretion and regulations, provided that the quality of education is in consideration,” he said.

The system failure caused an uproar from students who feared it would hit their chances of enrolling at their favourite university.

“We would like to apologise for the problem. We would like to assure everyone that we have already upgraded the system,” Suchatvee Suwansawat, who heads the Council of University Presidents of Thailand (CUPT), said yesterday.

He said the server capacity had now been increased threefold to handle up to 60,000 users at the same time. Moreover, networking and database experts have been assigned to monitor the system round the clock.

Featuring five rounds, the TCAS was introduced to replace the previous central university admission system. Students can join any of the five rounds but once they confirm their choice they cannot apply and block another seat at a higher-education institute.

In the first round applicants are selected based on portfolios and interviews. There are no scores from written exams as criteria.

The third round is for joint admission schemes, such as that operated by the Consortium of Thai Medical Schools.

The system failure occurred because many students submitted their applications in the third round, which was initially scheduled to receive applications between May 9 and 14.

Following the problems, applications for the third round will now be accepted till Saturday.

As of Tuesday, 97,535 students had submitted their applications for the TCAS third round. By Saturday, that number is expected to exceed 250,000.

Suchatvee said that despite the recent system downtime, the CUPT had no plan to cancel the TCAS. “The TCAS will save parents’ money, too,” he said.

According to research, the previous system cost parents an average Bt70,000 while the new system cut that burden to Bt20,000.

“The problems with the TCAS this year are technical and can be solved to some extent. But in the future, the TCAS system needs to be improved to suit the changing society,” Suchatvee added.