it is rather unfortunate that our politician-parliamentarists and
the peddlers of constitutional change have maliciously shrouded the
real merits and the prospective benefits of a parliamentarian
democracy. jose de venecia and his cohorts have stooped so low as to
swerve their campaign propaganda into the realms of false
presuppositions, preposterous prophesies, and shrewd maneuverings.
we MAY, but CANNOT, and WILL not experience a complete overhaul of
our inefficient democratic institutions once charter change is
instituted. the assurance of a reinvigorated democracy is a tacit lie
that the recent surge of parliamentarism has given rise to. they claim,
and with such masterful eloquence and seeming adeptness, that once
charter change eventuates into a parliamentarian shift, the gridlocks
inherent in a presidential system of government would accede to the
smooth functionings of a government where there is "fusion of powers"
[revisit your old polsci textbooks, will ye?].
conrado de quiros presents a more realistic viewpoint as he posits
that "our society is corrupt not because of our brand of national
leaders; RATHER and to the contrary, our leaders are corrupt because
our society has been corrupted and is in decay". see, the reason why
significant legislation and much-needed statutes do not get through is
that our political parties are not thoroughly infused with ideologues
that would delineate say, the liberals from the conservatives for
example. the administration and opposition factions, respectively, are aligned under a prominent political personality, not
necessarily under a common advocacy nor a shared vision of the
supposed-to-be state of affairs. de venecia is blind, or he pretends to
be one [which is worse] if he claims no knowledge of this entrenched
filipino political attribute. and mind you, this requisite is very
crucial for a parliamentary democracy to flourish and for it to realize
its maximum potential. In the alternative set-up that has been
proposed, nothing is more important as being given CHOICES for us to
articulate our political ideals and to vote according to what we deem
is constitutive of our political necessities.
what differentiates miriam santiago from jamby madrigal [jajaja-jamby!]? chiz
escudero from mike defensor? or rufus rodriguez from raul gonzales,
perhaps? apart from their shrewdness and double-facedness, NOTHING.
administration officials are called such because they are the mindless
pawns of La Gloria, whereas opposition politicians have strings attached to them and are controlled by their master puppeteer, Erap.
Ideally, these two opposing camps should have been differentiated by
their views on critical issues such as trade liberalization, support to
state industries, their WTO commitment, the amount or burden of tax
rates, and their priorities in revenue allocation.
do we even have the slightest semblance of intellectual discourses
and political advocacies separating the administration and opposition
camps?
unequivocally, the answer is NO.
the presidential system, with all its perceived flaws and
shortcomings, is the BETTER, much WISER choice. James Madison’s view on
the need for the "separation of powers" [ranney, 1995,hihi] in
government affairs, is a clause that protects an otherwise helpless
citizenry from the excesses of government officials wielding
near-absolute powers. sure, the fusion of powers argument might
guarantee [not even] the smoother passage of bills, but this can also
be an opening for unbridled and unchecked executive authority. and
given the collective ethos of pinoy legislators, this alone should scare us to our wits.
we DO NOT need a complete overhaul of the system, rather, there is a
greater urgency for us to rethink our societal leanings and to
re-assess the dynamics of our nation-state. a shift to another
governmental form can be likened to a surgical operation to a cancer
that has become malignant and incurable. for our purposes however,
there is enough reason to believe that ours is a curable ailment, whose
effects we can put a stop to, given the proper diagnosis, medication,
and [the] will to be cured.
we need sincere and comprehensive answers to the deep-seated
frailties of our nation as substitutes to the foolishly superficial and
callous responses that our politicians wish to employ.
my college professor once opined, in jest, that for the philippines
to leave behind its unglorious past, there is no other recourse but to
blow up the country into smithereens. and from the ruins, the filipino
will re-emerge and re-build his society.
it struck me as an unreasonable proposition back then.
but given the likes of de venecia and their distorted sense of filipino political reality, heck, i would gladly do the honors of blowing up this nation into oblivion.
