PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s sudden change of mind in amending the 1987 Cory Constitution, either through a Constitutional Convention or through a Constituent Assembly, has given rise to a spirited debate on what method to restructure the unitary, presidential system that we now have into a federal system of government is best.
Obviously, President Duterte’s sudden change of mind came from his many advisers who must have told him that ConAss would be less expensive than a Con-Con, which they say can cost as much as P10 billion. The amount includes a plebiscite that would be called for that purpose at the end.
There are estimates that under ConAss, the government at most would spend only P2 billion to P3 billion.
Another point that led Digong to change his mind is the possibility that the Con-Con mode of amending the Constitution would not only concentrate on restructuring the government, but could open the doors to an overhaul of the Cory Constitution considering its many flaws.
Santa Banana, remember that the 1987 Constitution, developed by delegates chosen by the late President Cory Aquino, was a reactionary charter. The delegates gathered just after the 20-year dictatorship of the late strongman President Ferdinand Marcos.
In fact, the University of the Philippines Law Center identified at least 27 flaws in the Constitution that must be amended to conform to the needs of the times.
The problem of a ConAss as I see it is that those who would be making decisions have become lapdogs of Duterte. To have meaningful change, we need the input of all stakeholders, not from elected lawmakers who are only out to protect their own interests.
I cannot imagine a ConAss working to end political dynasties. I cannot also imagine a ConAss making the pork barrel system illegal and unconstitutional. That would mean the end of graft and corruption in Congress.
And then there is the problem of how the Constitution would be amended—by Congress, composed of both the Senate and the House as a whole, or voting separately? Santa Banana, I cannot imagine the Senate conforming to what the House wants because it is outnumbered. That the Senate has far fewer members may raise the possibility of the abolition of the Upper House. Not that I am for it.
President Duterte should not count the cost of having the Constitution amended. That would constitute real change that he had vowed to give the people, which many presidents before him had tried to do but failed. They did not have the people’s support like Duterte now does. In fact, he should capitalize on his 91-percent trust and acceptance rating by the people.
We have been under the presidential system of form of government from the late Emilio Aguinaldo. Santa Banana, that is a period of more than a hundred years!
We began from the provisional government of Biak-na-Bato to the Malolos Congress, to the Philippine Bill of 1902, to the 1935 Constitution, the Japanese-sponsored Constitution of the late President Jose P. Laurel, to the restored 1935 Constitution after our liberation from the Japanese military forces in 1945, to the 1973 Constitution under Marcos, to the Revolutionary Constitution of 1987, after Edsa 1, and to the current 1987 Constitution of Cory Aquino.
In fact, there was an attempt to shift from presidential system to a parliamentary system during deliberations for the 1987 Constitution. It failed by one vote, my gulay!
In fact, the presence of party-list members of Congress is an anomaly. The party-list system contemplates a parliamentary system of government patterned after that of Germany where the marginalized could be represented.
This is an anomaly I think because members of the Communist Party of the Philippines and their affiliates have been able to get into the legislative branch of government.
I am glad that President Duterte wants the party-list system in Congress abolished. It’s an anomaly since members of Congress, duly elected, already represent the marginalized sectors of the country. The biggest argument against the party-list system that their participation in Congress has led to the election of the elite, the rich and the affluent contrary to the spirit of the law that marginalized groups should be represented by members of the marginalized groups.
Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile so eloquently said: “If we compare our national circumstance with those of our progressive neighbors in Asia, which by the way are all under the parliamentary system, a strong case can be made to support the conclusion that the presidential system has not worked well for us. Economically, our country has not advanced as much and as fast as our neighbors of Asia did in a far shorter period of time. Their progress and modernity under the parliamentary system was way beyond what we have accomplished in more than a hundred years under the presidential system.”
Enrile further said that Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan are good examples. After World War II, choosing parliamentary government for their political system, these countries moved steadily forward at faster pace. In our case, we plodded sluggishly during the last century while our neighbors rapidly developed to overtake us and left us behind.
What caused us to be left so far behind? Perhaps, our political system was far less efficient, resilient and innovative than theirs were, Enrile concluded.
Lee Kwan Yew, during his visit to the Philippines in 1992, said that “the Philippines has chosen the most difficult political system to operate, with its checks and balances and gridlock between the executive and the legislature. If this were the system chosen by South Korea, Hong Kong, or we ourselves, we would not have attained the status that we have now.”
Lee, the first prime minister of Singapore, led Singapore to cross over from the Third World to the First World.
It may be argued that there would be a revolving-door kind of leadership under a parliamentary-federal system of government when a vote of lack of confidence by the parliament could mean the ouster of a prime minister. But, my gulay, it is less expensive than what we have now when it takes no less than P5 billion to win the presidency. This is why a party in power can easily use government funds to have its candidate win the elections.
Graft and corruption in government is actually a vicious cycle under a presidential system of government. Big businesses contribute to a winning candidate. They do so not because they like the face of the candidate, but because they expect payback when they want their contracts signed.
This is why we should shift to another system of government rather than have Imperial Manila rule over 101 million Filipinos.
As for the push for a federal structure, the President should form a group that could study it.
First of all, having a federal system of government dividing the country into several states cannot be achieved since our roots as a national is tribal. We belong to different tribes.
How can the Visayas, for example, be formed into several states when the Warays of Eastern Visayas (Samar and Leyte provinces) have dialects that are different from those of the Cebuanos of Cebu and Bohol? Likewise, there are the Ilongos of the Panay and Negros provinces, who do not exactly love the Cebuanos; the former think they are superior than the Cebuanos.
In Mindanao, the Muslims are divided into the Maranaos of Lanao provinces, the Maguindanaons of Cotabato, the Tausogs of Sulu. There are also the indigenous tribes to contend with. And dialect is just one problem.
Throughout the archipelago, there are provinces that are more affluent than others. Thus, the problem of separating them into states under a federal system becomes a big problem. In Mindanao alone, among the most poverty-stricken Filipinos are in Muslim provinces. That’s one root of the problem.
Lest I am misunderstood, I’m all for a parliamentary-federal system of government if only to abolish the unitary presidential system we now have.
But I think we should do it through Con-Con instead of ConAss since changing the Constitution should be done by those outside of Congress. This would bring us real, meaningful and lasting change.