A new forum for charter change

There isn’t going to be a honeymoon for President-elect Noynoy because so far we see no program that can serve as a standard for achievement within the mythical 100 days. There is a lot of lip service being paid to change - i.e. to fight corruption, lift masses from their poverty etc, etc. That is the myth promised after every presidential election in the Philippines. But the reality is different.

The signs are all there that nothing will change – it is endemic in the system. Indeed, one of the disadvantages of the presidential system that we have developed is the wholesale removal of people manning institutions breaking continuity and ensuring stability necessary for progress. As a pundit once said, every presidential election in the Philippines is treated like a revolution. So how can you expect improvement when the officials concerned do not have an idea of how to run the department? Certainly not within 100 days or even six years.

One of the better suggestions I have read recently is Outgoing Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales’ plan to form a shadow Cabinet “to offer the public an alternative political opposition”. Actually, the concept of a shadow government comes from a parliamentary system of government. The intent of a shadow government is not to merely “oppose” an incoming government it is also to ensure continuity. Both ministers from the party in power and the opposition work in the House of Commons. There is a leader of the Opposition in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. He or she comes from the largest opposition party. 

At present it is the Labor Party with Harriet Harman as acting leader. It is all very civilized. Because she heads the shadow government she receives extra pay for her work. Like the Prime Minister, she, as leader of the Opposition, will form a shadow cabinet to follow the work of government departments. Its role is to examine the work of each government department and policies developing in their specific areas.

It is not like the hodge-podge opposition’s usually personal attacks that we have in the presidential system.

In a parliamentary system when the prime minister appoints a minister for energy, the Opposition will also pick a minister for energy for the Shadow Cabinet. It is his duty to watch over the shoulders of the appointed minister in the new government. If at any time there should be a change in government, the shadow minister is prepared to take over the work of his predecessor. The Shadow Cabinet are also MPs. So I do not know how Secretary Gonzales will form the shadow cabinet without a parliamentary system. But the concept of a more orderly opposition and transition for the sake of the country is certainly welcome. Both the official and shadow cabinets work within the framework of a permanent civil service.

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I am one of those who had opposed a presidential election before we had changed our system of government. Although that hesitation was well founded, I am not happy to have been proven right. I share the frustration of many with the way the last elections turned out. The situation is bleak if in the next six years we are not able to shift our system of government from presidential to parliamentary.

The result of the recent elections shows yet again why a parliamentary system is superior to presidential. It has often been said that a six-year term for a president is too long for a bad one and too short for a good one. In a parliamentary system a badly run government led by an incompetent leader can be changed with a vote of confidence.

Some Filipino leaders have long advocated for a parliamentary system to address that problem. Moreover it focuses on party programs rather than personalities. Our presidential elections are popularity contests or money binges by oligarchs who want to continue to control politics and government. The presidential system has long outlived its usefulness to the country.

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There are several Charter change groups actively discussing again the issue of Charter change in Facebook. I am glad that coming from Facebook, most of them are young and aware that only a shift in our form of government can bring real change to politics and government in the Philippines. After all the future is theirs.

A paper has been circulating around entitled The Philippines Road Ahead, Part 1: Changing the System of Government that was posted by a certain Ben K. Here are some good points I would like to share with my column’s readers:

The people must hold their chosen leaders to a greater standard of accountability: It should be axiomatic, but apparently it needs to be pointed out to the electorate that the demand and desire for a democratic system carries with it the responsibility for participation and oversight in the governing of the country. Since the voters chose the leaders, the success or failure of those leaders to govern effectively reflects not on those individuals, but on the people who put them into office.

The system of government must be changed: The present form of the Philippine government is inefficient, irrational, and by perpetuating elitist and dynastic rule mocks the fundamental principles of democracy that it purports to uphold. While the details of how it should be changed can be legitimately debated, no logical case whatsoever can be made for letting the system remain as it is.

An independent media is critical to the success of democracy in the Philippines: Honest and factual news, analysis, and even entertainment should not be controlled by the vested interests of the oligarchy, and the control should not be protected by the law of the land. Breaking the stranglehold on the nation’s media by the elite few will be a challenge, but one that must be faced, unless the people want to surrender their claim to worthiness to be a democratic society.

Greater economic opportunity must be provided to every Filipino: The path to a protectionist autarky is the path to ruin for all but the elite few in this country, and only the blind or stupid will fail to recognize that it is the path the Philippines has been traveling for far too long. While this is in some ways the greatest challenge among these four principle tasks, it is at least the one that presents the greatest variety of solutions. The only really wrong answer is to do nothing.

We here in the Get Real universe have been addressing these four canons in various ways for years, and now that the elections have turned a fresh page, in a manner of speaking, it is time to refresh our message <http://antipinoy.com/time-to-return-to-our-core-message/> and redouble our efforts.