Women leaders endorse Cha-cha

The nation’s top influential women endorsed yesterday moves to amend the Constitution and shift to a unicameral parliamentary government, saying these are the "antidotes" that would cure the political instability plaguing the country.

In yesterday’s forum billed "Mahal ko, Bayan ko" held at the Manila Polo Club in Makati City, prominent civic leader Evelyn Kilayko said the Philippines is the only country in Asia that followed the US-style bicameral presidential system that suffered the system’s negative effects. She said the Philippines is lagging behind its economically progressive neighbors in Asia.

Women leaders who attended the forum like Suzette Pido, Charito Planas, Tonette Alcantara, Josefina Parilla and Josie Buencamino shared Kilayko’s view and made an appeal to end the presidential system and bicameral Congress to reverse sixty years of instability and economic stagnation.

"Let’s do what is right for our nation. It cannot be denied that the presidential system in our country has been a failure," they said.

Sigaw ng Bayan spokesman Raul Lambino, who attended the forum, said the "days of the flawed presidential system are numbered."

Since 1946, after the inauguration of a US-style bicameral system, Philippine economic development has been erratic and punctuated by 14 years of dictatorship and a series of false starts, failed coups, and two people power revolts, he said.

Lambino said Spain and Italy — two of Europe’s economic powerhouses where Roman Catholicism runs deep — have long shifted to parliamentary government because of the flaws in a presidential system. Both countries now enjoy a political climate highly conducive to stability and growth.

"It is a fact that when these countries shifted to the parliamentary structure, they started to unleash their economic potential because they had political stability," Lambino said.

"We can be as successful by changing the political structure that has widened the gap between the rich and poor and kept the economic elite in control of their interest in the political system," he added.

The demand for political stability has grown in recent months following the Feb. 24 failed coup plot to overthrow the Arroyo administration, Lambino said.

Likewise, the women leaders have condemned the destabilization attempts that weakened the country and led to massive economic dislocation.

The 1.7-million strong Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) have joined Sigaw ng Bayan in its campaign to amend the Charter. They are set to file a petition before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the next coming days, after gathering more than nine million signatures nationwide.

Big business, led by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Filipino- Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc., the Employers Confederation of the Philippines and organized labor groups, led by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, have also joined the call for the conduct of a plebiscite.