How to elect a Kalam for president

President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam of India would never become president in the Philippines under our present presidential system. He is too serious and too intelligent. Even if he or a Filipino like him wanted to serve the country he would not even get to first base, let alone succeed. ‘Masyadong marunong’. There you are. If a ‘masyadong marunong’ or an intellectual cannot make it in our elections, something is terribly wrong with the system. It is time to change it. Remember that Marcos, (somewhat brighter than most, but fatally crooked) was a product of same system. Anyway bright as he was, he is not in the same class as Kalam of India. I am using the Kalam example to demonstrate that unless we change our system we will continue to get inferior leaders from the same pool of reactionary candidates, election in and election out. We need leaders coming from outside that pool.

That is why there is such vehement resistance to charter change. It will open the electoral field to a wider set of candidates. If we don’t change our political structure, do not complain if more celebrities and billionaires come into power. That is the natural consequence of having national, at-large elections for the highest officials of our land.

Reforming elections will be useless if we do not restructure our political system at the same time. We will end up ‘accurately counting the votes’ for the same awful candidates. That is the most cogent reason to go for charter change that would shift from presidential to parliamentary system. Electoral reform and political restructuring come hand in hand. Indeed, a Commission on Elections as we know it today will not even be necessary. In Britain, which is a good example of parliamentary government, they have instead an electoral tribunal of former magistrates and selected members of Parliament. It is not a permanent body whose members have constitutionally mandated terms. Like a Commission on Appointments they derive their power from Parliament.

But most importantly the work of such an electoral tribunal is less messy being about electoral contests in district constituencies. Instead of dealing with millions of votes, electoral disputes would be about thousands of voters and candidates who know each other. That is the beauty of a parliamentary system – the relationship between the voter and the voted is a real one. The constituency is small enough for both of them to know each other and this leads to better transparency and more accountability.

Who knows? In time, we will acquire a real leader with high standards. A parliamentary system gives us a batting chance. Staying on with the presidential system will condemn us to candidates from the same pool, only the names will change. It is not surprising that the loudest protests against charter change is coming from the senate where these moneyed or popular characters are elected at large, have no constituencies and responsible to no one. Having won nationwide, they also acquire presidential ambitions so why change the system?

But to go back to Dr. Kalam. At the state dinner President GMA gave in his honor the Palace deferred to the visitor’s vegetarian regimen as well as his Muslim religion. Instead of champagne for the traditional diplomatic toasts, apple juice was served. I noticed the new Pakistani ambassador, HE Muhammad Naeem Khan, who sat next to me, was doubtless being careful not knowing it was only apple juice so he toasted with his glass of water. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam of India is a Muslim in a predominantly Hindu nation. He went up the ladder of Indian public service by sheer merit and scientific brilliance that is greatly admired not only in his own country and Asia, but around the world. As an aeronautical engineer, he pioneered India’s first indigenous satellite launch vehicle (SLV-111) which successfully injected the Rohiri satellite into orbit in July 1980 and made India a member of the exclusive Space Club systems - which made India a nuclear weapon State. But it is not just science that occupies him. He is also literary and wrote Wings of Fire, India 2020 – A Vision for the New Millennium, My Journey, and Ignited Minds – Unleashing the Power Within India, have become best-sellers in India and among Indian nationals abroad.

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I think the point of disagreement between Mr. Gabby Lopez III and Usec. Marius Corpus, the head of a task force investigating the tragedy is a problem of semantics. Quite rightly our understanding of the words ‘treated like animals’ evokes willful, cruel acts (although the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would have something to say about that as well. Animals have rights, too). So it is understandable if the ABS-CBN honcho should be outraged if that is what Corpus meant. Corpus apologized for his statement but he refused to budge from the conclusion he arrived at, which he said came from the statements of the ABS-CBN executives themselves.

Corpus insisted that by offering only a few tickets to people who had lined up for days – mostly from poor urban communities – was "like throwing a small slice of meat to a hungry pack of wolves and that triggered the stampede." Probably, a more acceptable word would have been ‘inhumane’. That would be more apt. ABS-CBN may not have willfully inflicted pain or have been cruel to those who died or were wounded but having been remiss in making sure that did not happen amounted to the same thing in the final reckoning. One may not intend to harm them but they were harmed anyway either by negligence, mismanagement or whatever. The inference of the Corpus’ remarks is that it would not have happened if the same care would have been given the audience had they been of a higher caliber or an affluent class.

On another matter I think it is a cheap political shot to call the tragedy a wake-up call to help the poor. Do we need such a tragedy to be conscious of the millions of poor among us? I daresay there are other poor who were not at ULTRA, who would have preferred an honest day’s work than being drawn to a scramble for quick money. They deserve help 365 days a year, not only when a tragedy occurs. Let us not forget that it was not just the greed of the fans that fanned the inevitable tragedy, so was the drive for better ratings, and eventually more advertising money, to the cash rich television station. Wowowie was a successful program because it catered to elemental greed not just of the poor but also of the rich. Again we encounter difficult semantics – do we use greed or do we use media hype?

More interesting is how the ULTRA tragedy would impact on our politics. It is not unknown that ABC-CBN has fostered popularity and money elections. Would NTC chief Ronald Solis recommend revoking its licence?. ABS-CBN has been the source of the Lopez political power. It was used to bring down the first Macapagal administration that paved the way for Marcos dictatorship which then, irony of ironies, would become the bane of the Lopez empire. It came back to power and regained its wealth under Cory. Who will blink first – in this second generation of the long enmity between the Lopezes and the Macapagals?

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