Parliamentary push gaining adherents

Ever since he became congressman in 1987 Jose de Venecia has been advocating parliamentary government. His library is full of books on such form of participatory democracy. His dealings with foreign officials teach him how effectively it works. He had formed a Parliamentarians’ Bloc with politician-kin of Cory Aquino, despite her discomfiture with their constant digs at the "failing presidential system." He didn’t drop the idea even while he partnered with Fidel Ramos to notch 7-percent GDP in 1997, the first ever in Philippine economic history. He mouthed the incongruous line while running for President in 1998. Now, with the economy out flat and politics in a drift, he is pushing it all the more as the answer to the country’s woes.

De Venecia’s thrust is making it tough on Gloria Arroyo. Although beaten in 1998, he carries political weight as Speaker elected by four-fifths of the House of Representatives and Mrs. Arroyo’s co-chair of the ruling Lakas party. The Arroyo tenure is being rocked by opposition nitpicking, globalization pains, and terrorist kidnappings and bombings. She aims to reverse it by building a "strong Republic" out of a Presidency inherited from a plunder indictee. Government corruption, sagging revenues and destabilization plots continue to buffet her efforts. But from where she sits, she sees things differently from De Venecia. The presidential system is still the answer. As her spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao explained, Mrs. Arroyo sees no urgent need to switch to parliament. "There’s no clear demand from the people to change the Constitution," he said.

Such demand may never come. The masa has never bothered itself with the finer distinctions between presidential and parliamentary forms. Not that the people don’t understand. They do feel the effects of the presidential system in its propensity for centralized planning, decision-making and, saddest of all, fund disbursement. These manifest in political favoritism, unchecked poverty, and uneven development of urban and rural areas. The people somehow express disenchantment in the many popularity polls, in which the President gets blamed for personal as well as the system’s failings. Still, the debate on whether to change the form of government is always left to those who know how to do it. And that is what De Venecia is banking on.

Aided by civil society groupings, De Venecia had convened last January an All-Parties Summit to hammer out solutions to the country’s unending ills. Traditional and sectoral parties agreed to concentrate on such matters as strengthening the justice system, bringing progress to the countryside, stamping out corruption, improving education, striking peace with Moro separatists and communist insurgents. But to do these and make it last, a consensus arose, there was need to go parliamentary. For good measure, the country must also go federal.

The same points were taken up by leaders who attended the Summit of Asian Political Parties in Bangkok last month. Again they promised to move for parliament. There they go again, talking parliament but doing nothing, people might chide those in attendance: Deputy Speaker Raul Gonzalez for Lakas, Sen. Edgardo Angara for Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, Biliran Rep. Gerry Espina and secretary-general Ricardo Golpeo for the Nationalist People’s Coalition, Cavite Rep. Plaridel Abaya and Bukidnon Rep. Nereus Acosta for the Liberal Party, former Vice President Salvador Laurel for the Nacionalista Party, and Efren Villaseñor for the Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas. But De Venecia says that this time around, they agreed on a timetable.

The plan is to pass a law by early 2003 calling for a Constitutional Convention, with delegates to be elected in 2004. Elections for President, Vice President, senators, congressmen and local officials would be scrapped; present occupants would sit until 1997, by which time the convention would have amended the Constitution for a unicameral parliament under a decentralized federal system.

It seems self-serving, to be sure. More so since 50 or so congressmen prefer a Constituent Assembly, in which members of the Senate and House would do the Charter rewriting. A joint resolution for it is set for House plenary debate on December 15. Aspirants for election in 2004 naturally resent the initiative. Declared presidential contenders like Raul Roco and Panfilo Lacson would be put out of the running.

Still other politicians view De Venecia’s push as a veiled effort to save the Arroyo Administration of which he is a part. Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, of the three-member PDP-Laban , says it would give Mrs. Arroyo a three-year extension in office without voters’ mandate. He wondered aloud if it had to do with Mrs. Arroyo’s falling poll ratings.

De Venecia seemed ready for such criticism. He publicly urged Mrs. Arroyo to form a "government of unity" within 90 days, that is, within the time frame of the parliament push. In such unity government, he suggested that the President replace members of her Cabinet with leaders of the opposition, civil society, even representatives from the Communist Party and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The idea sounds drastic. But De Venecia apparently aims to have Mrs. Arroyo preside over a transition government from presidential to parliamentary form.

Some Malacañang advisers see merit in unity government. Tiglao said the Palace would certainly give it serious thought, especially since "this administration has (always) been trying to be an administration of national unity." But that’s as far as Malacañang would go, for now. Only if the President sees a real need for Charter change will she start considering a parliamentary switch, Tiglao said.

There are those who believe that no amount of system change would work if leaders remain as they are: politically weak-willed and prone to temptation of graft. De Venecia agrees, but says it would be easier in a parliamentary form than the present presidential to weed out such leaders.

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