On a Philippine Parliament Essay Example

let us consider the British Parliament which is the model institution of parliaments around the world (Rose 131).A parliament is a form of government where the legislative or law-making branch and the executive or law-implementing branch are merged into one. The people of the state vote for representatives to sit in the Parliament as Members of Parliament or MPs. These MPs then vote for a Prime Minister among themselves to serve as the head of government. To form his Cabinet, the Prime Minister chooses some members of parliament to head government offices as Ministers. The Prime Minister together with the Cabinet Ministers thus forms the Executive Branch of government.

How then is a parliament flawed by the merging of the legislative and executive branches? Presumably, the Prime Minister will come from the majority party in the Parliament. The same goes for the Cabinet Ministers because it is after all a game of politics. Given that they belong to the same political party, it is safe to assume that they share common ideologies. Therefore, this can render the parliament, especially the minority, useless because whatever the Prime Minister desires and proposes to the Parliament has a big chance of being supported by the majority in the Parliament.Richard Rose summed this idea up when he wrote the following about the British Parliament: In terms of effective power, Parliament is not so impressive because its influence on policy is strictly limited.

The Prime Minister can be sure that the government proposal will be promptly voted on in Parliament, for the executive drafts legislation and controls amendments. Furthermore, the government controls the power of the purse: the budget it prepares

is debated in Parliament but rarely altered. (Emphasis mine)(Rose 148) The current setup of a bicameral congress works similarly in the sense that what the majority wants is achieved.However, today’s system has a separate Executive branch in the form of the President who may or may not belong to the same political party of the majority in congress. The possibility of having someone in the Executive branch to oppose the majority in congress somewhat prevents a majority from abusing its power.

This, of course, happens in an ideal setting. The flaw of a Parliament is that it can give free rein to whomever sits as the head of government since the check and balance system is in effect eliminated. There will be no one who will be able to effectively curb the ruling party if it exercises excesses in its power.Having a parliament might in effect result into a quasi-dictatorship since what the Executive says goes.

Advocates of shifting to a parliamentary setup might still insist that a form of check and balance still exists in such a way that the Parliament can have a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister in order to remove him from office. The Prime Minister can also dissolve the Parliament and call for new elections given certain conditions. In fact, these situations are indeed possible – in a Parliament that is responsive to public opinion.Just recently, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that he will step down because he has already lost the confidence of the Parliament and the British People. In the Philippine setting, this can be very unlikely. Judging by what happened to the impeachment

complaints against Mrs.

Arroyo, a Philippine Parliament will most likely not heed the popular call for an unwanted leader to step down. Therefore, there is a chance that checks and balances won’t be exercised, thus making the parliament flawed. (Esposo, par. 5) The Nature of FilipinosOne negative trait of Filipinos is that of being gossip-mongers.

We seem to care so much about what is happening with someone else. It is not surprising to learn that your neighbors know certain things about you even if you do not share these with them. Yet, despite this being nosy, a lot of Filipinos right now do not care about this issue about politics, charter change and shifting to a parliamentary system of government. I asked ten of my peers whether they honestly cared about these issues at the moment.

The honest answer of 8 of them was not surprising at all.They said they did not care. When asked why, their answers differed. Two of them said that they were more worried about school and meeting the deadlines. Four of them said that they would rather enjoy themselves than worry themselves with this “politics stuff”. The other two somewhat amused me when they said that they would rather go out with their girlfriends than worry about politics.

These points of view came from teenagers from the AB economic strata. To get a rather different view, I interviewed our family driver to get a sense of what the ordinary Filipino thinks.When I asked Kuya Jun, our family driver, the same question, he said that he did care at first but his interest waned after realizing that all these debates were

just tales full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. He explained to me that he was more worried about the rising prices of gasoline and other basic necessities such as food and education. He also told me that he would be more interested if the politicians started talking about how these economic problems would be solved by their proposal to change the present constitution. (Alvarado)From these interviews with different people and from reading the newspapers everyday, I realized two things.

The first is that as of now, only the businessmen and other adults from the richer economic strata really do care about a shift to a parliamentary system. This is primarily because they are worried about how such a change in the government can affect their businesses. This led me to my second realization. I figured that maybe the government should worry itself first with letting the citizens know and feel that the government is really working for them before they worry about shifting to a parliamentary system.In this way, the people will be more confident to make their voices be heard. Apathy is one thing which makes the government and our society have problems like these.

Filipino Government Officials Philippine politics is undoubtedly a very dirty game. I know this for a fact because my great-grandfather, grandfather and uncle are politicians in our hometown in Aurora, Isabela. My grandfather was a mayor for 20 years and so was my great-grandfather. My uncle could’ve won as mayor too if he hadn’t become a victim of cheating in the elections.

He was even ambushed by gunmen during the campaign period.Fortunately, he survived. (That story, however,

belongs to another paper and thus, I will not expound on it here. ) Election violence and election fraud are just some proofs of how corrupted our government officials are. One might even jest that Philippine elections will not be complete if there will be no charges of election fraud and cheating filed by opponents against each other. Some of these charges even continue way into the term of the incumbent official.

To cite an example, some mayors in Laguna were recently suspended because of election related cases even if they are in the last year of their current terms.Such election related cases are not restricted to the local government. Even officials in the national level are not immune to this plague. Take the President for example.

Up to now, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is still hounded left and right by protesters who passionately claim that she cheated during the elections. Their staunch objections stem from the wiretapped phone conversations of COMELEC Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano where a voice eerily similar to that of the President’s was heard talking to Virgilio Garcillano and inquiring if she was already assured of winning in Marawi and Lanao del Sur by up to a million votes.This scandal, dubbed the “Gloria-gate” or “Garci-gate” scandal, gradually grew bigger and bigger. Protesters started lining the streets to demand the ouster of Mrs. Arroyo. Unfortunately, some of these protests became violent when they were dispersed by the police in accordance with the now defunct CPR or Calibrated Preemptive Response policy of Malacanang.

Some congressmen from the minority also filed impeachment complaints against the President. These, however, were promptly junked by the majority who were the

allies of the President. This brings me to my next point. Cheating in the elections is not the only plague in Philippine politics.Our officials can be described as being too political.

What I mean by this is that politicians tend to stick to political parties or groups from which they can benefit from. Take note, they stick to political parties and seldom with political ideologies. There have been several politicians who have shifted from one political party to another especially during an election year because they know that that party has a better chance of winning than their current party. An example would be former President Fidel Ramos who founded LAKAS after losing in his bid to be the presidential candidate of his former party, LDP.

This kind of politician can be described by a very Filipino term: balimbing. Balimbing actually is a round fruit which constantly rolls from one side to another. Former Senate President Jovito Salonga perfectly described this in a television interview a few months ago as “politics of personality and not of principle. ” This being “too political” also manifests itself in another way. As soon as politicians assume their seats, they seem to start thinking about the next elections and how they will win it again. How do we see this? Notice the different infrastructural projects you see along the streets.

It will not be surprising for us Filipinos to see a huge billboard beside the project showing the details of the project in small fonts accompanied by the words, “A priority project of (name of politician)” in a dominant font right beside a big portrait of the smiling politician. All politicians,

from the President to the local councilor, do this. Some mayors even go further by engraving their names on everyday objects found in their constituencies. For instance, Antipolo City’s plant pots along the roads sport the acronym ACG which means “Antipolo City, Go! Incidentally, the mayor of Antipolo City is Angelito C.

Gatlabayan. Interesting, isn’t it? These acts somehow give the impression that politicians implement projects not for service but for political gain. As a citizen of this country and as a future voter, this issue worries me. It makes me think if my vote will make a difference.

Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile said in an interview something which is uncomfortably evident: “Our leaders are more preoccupied with appearing to be popular and democratic without doing the reforms that are needed. ” (qtd.In Tordesillas 18) If we change our form of government but retain the same people, what difference will it make? Refutation This issue I am writing about is, of course, a very sensitive issue and it will come as no surprise when people actually contest what I am trying to say with this paper. Those people who staunchly advocate a shift to a parliament say that the current presidential system is not suitable for our country anymore because of the check and balance system it has. This is only one reason which they advocate a shift to a parliamentary system.

I have talked about this and refuted it early on in this paper. Pro charter change people also offer several reasons for a shift to a parliament. These reasons range from a lot of things. One of their arguments is that a presidential system

is very unstable in the Philippine context, especially in recent years, since it has caused several popular uprisings which caused instability in government.

To this, I ask if a parliament will indeed solve this instability and if it will, I would like to know how they plan to do it.Another reason the pro cha-cha proponents argue with is that through a Parliamentary system, we can be sure that the leader of the government will be capable of leading because he or she will be a veteran leader and not just a movie star who won because of popularity. (Personal interview) This was what one of my uncles said when I asked him about his view regarding a parliamentary system. To this argument, I again ask a question.

Isn’t a democracy like the one we have here in the Philippines really geared toward heeding the voice of the majority?Why then must we curb this right of Filipino citizens to directly choose who will be their leader? Conclusion The presidential system we have right now is neither entirely perfect nor entirely flawed. The proposed parliamentary system is also neither entirely bad nor entirely good. There is indeed a possibility that the Philippines will have a parliament in the future. This situation however is still not appropriate at this time. Shifting to a parliamentary system will not be the much-needed panacea for our country.

As I said above, what difference will it make if we change the system but retain the people running the current system? A shift to a parliamentary system is not what the Philippines needs right now. What we need is a paradigm shift. All Filipinos,

whether politicians or ordinary citizens, must begin to understand that in order for us to surpass the current problems of our country, we must first care about our country. If we achieve this very important paradigm shift, a brighter future for the country will become more achievable.