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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Parliamentary Objections By Antonio C. Abaya January 22, 2003 Over the past weeks (actually years, if you count my earlier articles on it), I have articulated the reasons why I have favored the parliamentary system over the presidential: lower costs of running for office (hence less temptation for corruption); more open to smaller parties; a good prime minister can stay in power longer than six years; a lousy prime minister can be removed from power by a simple vote of no-confidence, without any need for people power mob rule; less gridlock between executive and legislative branches, since the prime minister and the members of the Cabinet come from parliament. Now let me tackle the objections to it. Objection One. The Philippines may become another Italy, which has had about fifty prime ministers and governments in the past fifty years. This is an exaggerated fear. Italy is a unique country. There is no other place quite like Italy, either in Europe or anywhere else. In Asia, no country with a parliamentary system has replicated Italy�s experience. Since independence in 1965, Singapore has had only two prime ministers, Malaysia only about four or five. Since independence in 1947, India has had only eight or nine. Japan has had even fewer since sovereignty was restored in 1952, until the late 1990s when several PMs did serve short stints due to scandals involving leading members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Objection Two. Filipinos are used to electing their presidents directly. There is no reason to discontinue this practice under a parliamentary system since an elected (though largely ceremonial) president would not be incompatible with it. As far as I know, Israel�s president is elected as head of state, but the head of government is the prime minister, who is chosen by the majority party. For a short time, Israelis also directly elected their prime minister (e.g. Binyamin Netanyahu), but I think this has been discontinued.. Besides, it is only the illiterate masa who would miss the (extravagantly expensive) hoopla of electing a president. Let them continue doing so then, except that under a parliamentary system the candidates for (ceremonial) president would usually not belong to any political party and would usually be elder statesmen who would be in no mood or condition to dance and sing and make fools of themselves on the stage for the masa�s entertainment. Besides, why should the progress of the republic be held back by the stupidity of its least common denominators? Objection Three. The same trapos who now dominate the Senate and Lower House would also dominate a parliament. This is certainly a distinct possibility. That is why my advocacy for the parliamentary system includes a new set of rules to govern future elections. Such as qualifying examinations for all candidates for all elective positions. All professionals � including doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, dentists, mariners, architects, plumbers, electricians, chiropractors, surgeons, aviation and marine pilots, urban planners, etc � are required to pass the bar or board exams before they are licensed to practice. Why shouldn�t we require a similar screening process for those who want to govern/manage our towns, cities, provinces and country, or who want to make our laws? Aside from academic/intellectual requirements, there should also be minimum standards for moral behavior. We should not allow to run for any office convicted child rapists, unrepentant coup plotters, fugitives from the FBI, criminally inclined ignoramuses, confirmed electoral cheats, and other forms of lowlife. Keeping the electoral doors wide open in the name of liberal democracy has allowed charlatans of all stripes to corrode our public life with their poisonous presence. Objection Four. The academic/intellectual and moral standards above and others can be made part of our electoral laws even under the presidential system. Why shift to the parliamentary system at all? Because if and when, after this winnowing process, we finally come up with an intellectually and morally superior individual who also turns out to be a charismatic political leader, it would be a total waste of a valuable natural resource if we were to benefit from his/her leadership for only six short years, not long enough for his/her reforms to take root, with the distinct possibility that his/her successor would be an inferior leader and wipe out those reforms by sheer neglect or even outright malice. Objection Five. The parliamentary system requires the existence of strong, platform-defined political parties, which we do not have under our present system. This is a classic chicken-or-egg conundrum. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? We can mandate the growth of platform-defined political parties by penalizing political turn-coatism and other forms of opportunistic behavior so prevalent in our system. For example, those who want to switch political parties for any reason must either do so at least one year before the elections that they want to run in, or are automatically disqualified from those elections and must wait for the next ones. Take your pick. Political parties must also be required to unequivocally state their positions on key issues even when there are no elections in the offing, so that those who are party-shopping know which party or parties reflect their own personal positions and would therefore have no valid reason to change parties except under the restrictions stated above. There should also be restrictions on the growth of political dynasties in which Papa is senator, Mama is congresswoman, Kuya is governor, Ate is mayor, or variations thereof.. These dynasts have made politics a thriving family business, the fastest way to fabulous wealth, the basis for what I call neo-feudalism, a condition in which power accrues from a family�s stranglehold on public offices, not from the ownership of land or the accumulation of capital. Political dynasts, in fact, use neo-feudalism to grab land and accumulate capital through rent-seeking activities. Again, these changes can be incorporated even in the present presidential system; so why bother to shift to the parliamentary? And again, the answer is the same as the answer to Objection Four. Objection Six. The parliamentary system does not guarantee economic prosperity. True. But neither does the presidential. Economic prosperity comes only from the pursuit of correct economic strategies, not from the form of government under which the economy functions. Objection Seven. Under the parliamentary system, we run the risk of having Jose de Venecia or Danding Cojuangco as prime minister. True. But under the presidential system, we also run the risk of having Fernando Poe Jr. or Noli de Castro or Panfilo Lacson or Joseph Estrada (again!) or Loren Legarda as president. Everything involves some risk. If we were to choose monarchy, we would risk having Mike Velarde as king, or Imelda Marcos as queen. If we were to choose to become a communist democratic people�s republic, we would risk having Joma Sison as Our Respected and Beloved Leader, with either Luis Teodoro or Conrado de Quiros as Minister of Twisted Information. If we were to play it super-safe and not change anything at all, we run the risk of More of the Same all the way to August 2117, when the Swift-Tuttle comet collides with Planet Earth and puts us all out of our collective misery. Perhaps then we may finally shift to the parliamentary system, in Hell. ***** The bulk of this article appears in the February 10, 2003 issue of the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine. |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Parliamentary Objections� THE PROOF of the pudding is in the eating. What more eloquent proof could you ask for than the strange happenings in the House Tancangco impeachment case, a crystal clear-cut case where good should overwhelmingly triumph over evil. The fact that evil triumphed is the strongest indictment against the parliamentary system. These * * * (insert your favorite slur) are simply, and sadly, not yet ready for it. Besides, a parliament like this would be permanent, without chance for improvement. With the presidential system there are at least the odds to get a good president once in a while. While I don't always agree with Larry H., he makes some very strong points in his current series about Cha-cha. Peter Ritter. [email protected]. February 05, 2003 MY REPLY: What �odds� are you talking about that the presidential system will produce �a good president once in a while?� We�ve had the US-style presidential system since 1935 and we do not have much to show for it. About time for a change. The fact that �evil triumphed� in the Tancangco case is not an indictment of the parliamentary system. Many, if not most, of those who supported T are in Congress as a result of the patronage of President Estrada. The fact that they come from diverse parties, as do their adversaries, shows the lack of party discipline inherent in the present system. ��������������������������� JUST TO LET you know that I love your columns. Loren must love you, too (ha-hah!). On a serious note, Objection NO. whatever is that, what you need in a parliamentary system of government is the continuity of public service with the possible changes in leadership as often as it can get. Thus, the need to professionalize the civil service which will require at least 5 years to do, if ever. Too bad Marcos really ruined it during his watch. But I am really for parliamentary, federal form of government. I appreciate my position more when I started going of town more often and finally moved here to Negros. The regions (once rationalized) can be the federated states like Malaysia or Australia. They will have just to sink or swim of their own, with possible aid from the Federal Government for the really impoverished regions. Rick B. Ramos. [email protected]. January 26, 2003 ���������������������������� At 09:13 AM 1/27/03 +0800, you wrote: >Because if and when, after this winnowing process, we finally come up with >an intellectually and morally superior individual who also turns out to be >a charismatic political leader, it would be a total waste of a valuable >natural resource if we were to benefit from his/her leadership for only >six short years, ... Assuming this individual exists and he actually makes it to PM, and further he proposes the 100% correct path to prosperity, say within 10 years, which requires belt tightening, concentrated work and DISCIPLINE from all, it is the height of naivet� to think that the presumably 200 or so trapos or worse in parliament would always say yes sir and support the PM's program, for ten years, when they could instead perform to standard and derail the country's progress in favor of their own personal benefit, with old and new rackets, as has been the case since time immemorial. (It is also the height of naivete to think that the 200 trapos in the present Congress are motivated by other than their personal rackets. No one is claiming that a parliament would be made up of angels. But the experience of Malaysia and Singapore shows that a strong and visionary PM can whip most MPs into line and allow for a continuity of policies, which a six-year president, no matter how good, simply cannot because of his/her time limit. ACA.) Sorry for this long sentence, but this is the real crux of the matter. The Philippines have been likened to Italy in many instances, and those who know both countries cannot deny the many similarities. All indications are that the situation here would even be worse than in Italy, with every trapo MP trading his votes for a turn at the trough, and the country go hang. (Since a parliament has never existed here, your opinion is only opinion, supported by prejudice, not by empirical evidence. ACA.) If the Philippines had so much in common with all those other Asian countries you cited, why don't we show the same level of progress? (You are confusing political progress with economic progress. As I have stated many times, our failure to progress economically as fast as our neighbors did was due largely to our failure to gear our economy to the export of manufactured goods. Our political failure, on the other hand, is due in large measure, to the liberalism inherited from the Americans in which the individual is deemed more important than the community, thus crippling our attempt to develop a sense of nationhood. ACA.) It is not very smart to jump into the fire just because you are in the frying pan. (It is also not very smart to sit forever on the frying pan and hope that someone else will put out the fire. ACA.) Peter Ritter. [email protected]. January 27, 2003 �������������������������� GOOD LUCK and more power to you. Gras Reyes. [email protected]. January 27, 2003 ���������������������������� THIS IS TO acknowledge that I have been receiving your column thru email. I find your insights very helpful and provoking. Please continue to send them. I am very grateful. Gus Lucero. [email protected]. Fullerton, CA. January 28, 2003 ���������������������������� DEAR MR. ABAYA, thanks for including me in your list and for your incisive thoughts about many important policy issues. I am an old convert to the cause of parliamentary form of government plus FEDERALISM. FOR THE FOLLOWING SUGGESTION OF YOURS; Aside from academic/intellectual requirements, there should also be minimum standards for moral behavior. We should not allow to run for any office convicted child rapists, unrepentant coup plotters, fugitives from the FBI, criminally inclined ignoramuses, confirmed electoral cheats, and other forms of lowlife. Keeping the electoral doors wide open in the name of liberal democracy has allowed charlatans of all stripes to corrode our public life with their poisonous presence. DO YOU HAVE SOME CONCRETE PROPOSALS HOW WE CAN PUSH THIS CRUCIAL RULE OF THE FUTURE POLITICAL GAME? DOES THIS MEAN THAT THE ABOVE WILL BE MAJOR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ITSELF. OR CAN WE ADOPT THE RULE WITHOUT AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION? DO YOU HAVE AN ADVOCACY PLAN TO MAKE THIS SUGGESTION SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE TO THE BLEEDING HEARTS LIBERALS AND LIBERTARIANS WHO DO NOT MIND THE DAMAGES INFLICTED BY IGNORANCE, FANATICISM, AND UNBRIDDLED POPULISM AND OVEREMPHASIS ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE ABOVE TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE RIGHTS OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND GOOD GOVERNMENT. IF YOU DO, MAY I SUGGEST THAT YOU START THE ADVOCACY NOW. Nap B. Imperial. [email protected] January 28, 2003 MY REPLY. Not being a street marcher, my options are limited to ruminating about these issues and writing about them. My group and I will try to consolidate our thoughts on these matters and present them to the public as Tapatt�s Vision in our website. ���������������������������� SIR TONY, One of the key areas you have mentioned which will merit the approval of every rational Filipino is the professionalization of our political personalities (both moral and intellectual). This is worth the risk, as what you've said... Being in the government service, I was lucky enough to think of options that would assist me in my professional advancement. Yesterday morning I went to the Civil Service Commission to be interviewed by a panel (the 2nd phase of my Scholarship requirements). When one of the panelists asked me 'Where do you see yourself 10 yrs from now?' I can't help but think....'What would become of the Philippines 10 yrs from now? and think of your articles... the masang tanga steering the course of the future (God forbid!). I thank you for writing articles, I e-mail them to my friends, hoping that they begin to question the political weather of the Philippines based on your standards, which I find to be so intellectually sound and morally upright! May the Great Provider, who resides in His Celestial Lodge above grant you life's blessings, knowing that you are a catalyst for change.... Rommel R. Billones. No email address given. January 30, 2003 MY REPLY. Thank you. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |