It’s now the end of what has been in some respects a rather surreal week – the elections have, contrary to most expectations, been concluded more-or-less successfully, at least in form if not in substance, and there is a growing mood that it is time to move on and make the best of it. That much is good, I suppose, but what’s disturbing to me is how quickly things have seemed to return to the same dull and unsatisfying normality. Whether you are satisfied with the outcome of the elections or not, they have presented the country an opportunity to improve, which so far and shockingly soon after the event the country seems all-too-willing to squander. Squander the opportunity at your own hazard, because whether you are satisfied with the outcome of the elections or not, the real tasks facing the country going forward are clear, entirely inescapable, and can be summed up in four simple points:
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 that 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 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 and redouble our efforts. Point One we have already begun to address anew, and there will certainly be more to follow; what I would like to accomplish with this post is to provide, as objectively as possible, a conversation starter for Point Two, changing the system of government. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to discuss the topic recently on Sentro ng Katotohanan, and while I have a certain opinion on the Parliamentary vs. Presidential question that is less important at this point than simply trying to remove the misconceptions and ulterior motives that have poisoned most discussions about it in this country. For people to have a productive debate, they need to know what they’re talking about; so in the interest of public information, I’ve distilled our recent discussions into a handy comparative chart of the two systems:
| Presidential System | Parliamentary System |
| The head of government is selected separately from the legislature. The head of government (the President) is elected separately from the legislature. In the U.S., for example, the President is chosen by the Electoral College, whose members are elected by the people. As a practical matter, the President is elected by direct vote – the names of the presidential candidates are the ones on the ballot, not the names of the representatives to the Electoral College – but technically, the President is elected by indirect vote. The Electoral College system is unique to the U.S., and is designed for the main purpose of preventing a minority President (i.e., one who has received less than a majority of the popular vote, as is common in the Philippines) from taking office. It is not, however, completely foolproof for a variety of reasons, although it has generally worked well. | The head of government is selected by the legislature, and is a representative of a legislative district. The head of government (usually called the Prime Minister) is a member of Parliament, representing his home legislative district. He is also the leader of his political party, or a leader of a party in a coalition. He earns his position as PM by virtue of his party’s (or coalition’s) having gained a majority in Parliament through legislative elections, which are of course based on a direct vote of the people. The selection of the PM in a Parliamentary system is slightly less-direct than the selection of a President. As a rule, the voters know who the prospective PM will be and can take that knowledge into consideration when voting for their parliamentary representatives, but the choice of PM is always done by the Parliament and always occurs after the elections. Two things help to prevent the “people’s will” from being thwarted in terms of their choice for head of government in a Parliamentary system. First, the PM is also a representative; if he is not elected to Parliament by his home district, he cannot serve as party leader nor as PM. Second, the structure of the Parliamentary system overall makes it much easier to remove an unpopular or unsuitable PM from office than in a Presidential system. |
| The head of government serves a fixed term of office. The term of office for the President is fixed, and has a definite starting and ending date. | The head of government serves an indefinite term of office. A PM stays in office as long as he continues to have majority support in the legislature. If the PM loses majority support, then he must resign. In parliamentary systems, there is generally a time limit or maximum number of years a Parliament and PM can serve before new elections must be held. Elections can be held at earlier times, however, for two reasons: 1. The PM can call for early elections. The results of these elections will determine who the majority party in Parliament will be. Generally this is done when the PM and his party are enjoying wide public support, so that the time limit on their term in office can be renewed. 2. Any member of Parliament (including the PM) can call for a vote of confidence to be taken among the members of Parliament to determine if the PM continues to have majority support in the legislature. If the PM wins a vote of confidence, this means he continues to have majority support and can continue to govern. If the prime minister loses a vote of confidence, this means he has lost majority support and must resign. New parliamentary elections will be held to determine who the new majority party will be. |
| There is separation of powers among the branches of government. Separation of powers is designed to build institutional conflict into the system to prevent concentration of power and governmental tyranny, and to encourage broad-based compromise. This is known as the checks & balances system. In the US system, an individual cannot hold office in two branches of government at the same time. This adds a dimension of personal conflict to the institutional conflict. On the other hand, it tends to increase the unity of policy in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government, though those might still conflict to some degree. There is the possibility of a divided government, with different political parties controlling different branches of the government. This results in partisan conflict. | There is fusion of powers among the branches of government. In a parliamentary system, the executive and legislative powers of the government are both concentrated in the Parliament. The system is designed to enhance governmental efficiency and majority rule. Dual office holding is allowed. An individual can be, and virtually always is, a member of Parliament and a member of the PM’s cabinet at the same time. There is no possibility of a divided government, and in general the decisions of Parliament cannot be limited by the other branches of government. |
| The numerical minority in the government has permanent relevance. Because of the separation of powers of the different branches of government, the numerical minority has many opportunities to exert their influence. On the one hand, this is a benefit because it forces the majority party to compromise and moderate their actions to serve the largest possible part of the population, which is important when the difference in strength between the majority and minority is rather small. On the other hand, it can quickly lead to gridlock and harm government efficiency through the minority’s ability to obstruct government actions. | The numerical minority in the government has temporary irrelevance. Because of the fusion of legislative and executive powers in the Parliament, the minority parties have very little opportunity to influence government policy. On the one hand, this is a benefit to government efficiency because government actions can proceed smoothly with no obstruction. On the other hand, it can lead to a condition of “democratic dictatorship” wherein a very small majority can rule unchecked. Also, districts which elect minority representatives to Parliament may find themselves functionally under-represented, simply because their representative has no opportunity to pursue initiatives on their behalf if those ideas differ from those of the majority party. |
| The positions of head of government and head of state are held by one person. The position of head of state is the ceremonial, symbolic leader of the country, and the President serves as both head of state and head of government. In business terms, this is analogous to the CEO of a company also serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors. While this does provide a certain unity of leadership for the country, it also creates a conflict in the person of the President who is at the same time supposed to be the non-partisan, symbolic representative and leader of all the people, and is also a member and leader of a particular political party. In this way the choice of President is unavoidably based as much on personality as it is on political positions. This is not necessarily bad, especially when the President is representing a very strong majority party and is universally respected as a competent leader by supporters and non-supporters alike; however, these ideal conditions are fairly rare, and it is more likely that conflict and voter dissatisfaction will play a greater role in the President’s legacy. | The positions of head of government and head of state are held by two different persons. In parliamentary democracies that still have a monarchy, the king or queen is the head of state. In parliamentary democracies that do not have a monarchy, the head of state (usually called the President) is elected separately from the Parliament, usually by direct vote of the people. The term of the President is almost always fixed, and generally scheduled to overlap parliamentary elections to ensure continuity of national leadership. The head of state in a parliamentary system has limited but important powers, such as the power to dissolve Parliament and call for new elections, and usually serves as Commander-in-Chief of the nation’s armed forces. He does not, however, take part in legislative action, nor the day-to-day executive duties of running the government. While he may be a member or leader of a particular political party, that is irrelevant to his position as President. |
These two systems form the fundamental building blocks of every democracy in the world, and so by default the choice for the Philippines must be one or the other. Both have good and bad points, and I personally believe one is a more practical solution than the other, but I won’t get into that right now; after all, the choice is not mine to make – the best I can hope to accomplish is to help everyone else make the most informed choice they can.
Next time: A Unitary System or a Federal System?
| About: Ben: It takes approximately two tons of ore to produce a single ounce of pure gold. At first glance all one sees is a big pile of dirt, but the gold is in there if one is willing to apply patience, hard work, and a great deal of heat and pressure. The Philippines, in a manner of speaking, is my big pile of dirt. |
It’s great that we finally kicked off this exploration of a possible new form of government for the Philippines. It comes at a time when fear mongering about an Arroyo dictatorship is no longer relevant. This recent election had accentuated more strongly than ever the utter lack of any focus on issues and policies and concentrated more on moronic personality intrigue, song-and-dance campaigns, and pathetic emo politics.
A parliamentary system seems to be one where there is a stronger connection/representation of politics and interests at the local level at the debate on the policies and legislation at the national level. More importantly, political parties stand a better chance of actually meaning something beyond being mere election winning machines.
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The perpetual argument against a Parliamentary form of government is this:
1. The majority of the people elected in Congress are rich/elitist
2. Very few are truly loved by the people
Ergo, the same elitist brand of leadership will remain in power regardless of the style.
Any counter-arguments?
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BenK Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 8:35 am
Certainly. That argument against the system is irrelevant. If the ‘people who tend to make up the system’ is the common denominator, then the argument must logically be based on the details of the systems themselves. Any system can be corrupted by the electorates’ being lazy dumbasses and habitually sending the wrong people to serve in it — that’s an entirely separate problem. So think of it this way, you are given a choice:
A. Elected people suck, system is dysfunctional.
B. Elected people suck, system is coherent and functional.
And you have no choice “none of the above”, which do you choose?
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ChinoF Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 8:52 am
1. I think the idea of a parliament or ruling group of “elders” is that they are the true elite of the country. Note, elite as opposed to elitist. They should be in Aristotle’s definition aristocrats, the best minds that the country can produce. That is opposed to the oligarchs, the worst minds who occupy that same kind of group rule as the aristocrats. Right now, we’re under oligarchy instead of aristocracy – business owners and landed families who are the worst of minds rule the country. Yet a change to parliamentary system, taking away the popular vote from the people, will help in changing the worst of minds with better minds.
2. Being loved by the people is not necessarily a valid trait of a good leader. He only needs to be respected by his constituents enough that they will follow him in doing the right way. A spoiler or panderer may be loved by the people, but this kind of leader only creates problems. Changing the system will help in moving the constituents to vote not based on personality, but on platform and the practical intentions of the candidates. People will be formed to adjust their thinking according to the new system.
I think the real argument Da Pinoy will have against parliamentary form is this… Marcos tried it. So it has a bad taste thanks to the Marcos experience. Sadly, that is an ignorant opinion. What Marcos tried wasn’t even parliamentary… it was presidential using parliamentary terms, like ministry and prime minister. Thus, there should be no reason to call parliamentary a totally bad idea.
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Dr. José Rizal II Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 9:16 am
FreeSince09:
Contrary to the often mistaken but common notion that “the same elitist brand of leadership will remain in power regardless of the style”, the real fact is that if you change the game, the game-play changes too.
Let’s accept the fact that the dysfunctions inherent to the current presidential system have a lot to do with “the wrong people getting elected.”
Well, let’s look at why the wrong people get elected and why the results are dismal:
1. The current system supports name-recall and popularity of personalities over ideals/principles and “what-you-stand-for.” Voters explicitly select NAMES OF PEOPLE to become their leader. Since Filipinos are not a thinking people and are too lazy to due their own due-diligence on candidates, Filipinos tend to go for name-recall and popularity to help them choose.
2. Since name-recall and personality-popularity is the name of the game in the current system, Filipinos who “have name-recall” and/or popularity turn themselves into politicians, never mind that many of them are just not capable or qualified to do a good job.
3. The current system discourages competent people from becoming active players in the system if they are up against people with name-recall/popularity. Less people with competence therefore get attracted to public service.
But consider what would happen if you suddenly shifted over to a system that no longer puts a premium on name-recall, by coming up with a system that emphasizes PARTIES, not persons or individual candidates:
1. Since individual candidates would be less important per se and parties will be of greater importance, elections will cease to be popularity-contests but will instead feature contests between which party has a better platform and plan-of-governance than the others.
2. Realize that in a Parliamentary System, you cannot choose who you want to be Prime Minister by “writing, checking, or shading” a prospective Prime Minister’s name on a ballot. Instead, prospective Prime Ministers just happen to be the leaders of the different political parties. Now it is obvious that parties usually will pick “the best person in their party” to be their own party leader. That’s a given. Your deliverables as party leader are to lead your party in spearheading discussions and debates on issues, ensuring that your party’s elected members of parliament deliver on their promises to their constituencies, and thus ensure that in the next general election, your party can win a majority. If you don’t win a majority, as party leader, it is also your job to find meaningful ways to form working coalitions with other parties in order to ensure that you can better voice our your party’s concerns with “like-minded” parties and get resolutions and legislation passed in your party’s favor.
3. Looking at number 2, it is therefore clear that just any actor/celebrity/pretty-face/son-of-a-famous-person is not going to be a good party leader automatically. In other words, a Parliamentary System’s intra-party focus causes it to be an extremely MERITOCRATIC system where the best people rise to the top of their parties. In other words, only the best, and most competent people end up becoming leaders of their parties, and thus, only competent and capable people can ever become Prime Minister in case their parties gain majority, or if their parties successfully broker coalitions with other parties to form a working majority, where their party has the plurality within said coalition.
4. When the system gets shifted to one where name-recall and popularity is LESS IMPORTANT, then all politicians are more likely to focus more on getting the job done as opposed to “being popular.”
5. Parliamentary Systems can be tweaked differently so that some countries do not even feature the names of candidates on their ballots, but instead feature strictly the names of the parties that are contending for a seat in a particular constituency. Again, that feature drastically lessens the personality-aspect of elections. And considering that Filipinos are by default a highly personality-centric people, by shifting to a system that is significantly LESS personality-based in favor of one that is more party-policy-platform-centric can do a lot of wonders in reforming the juvenile and petty Filipino mind so that it acts “less Pinoy” and becomes more “civilized” and mature.
= = = = = =
As for BenK’s challenge to you, I would answer B.
That’s because even if the elected people suck, having a system that is coherent and functional can actually:
1. force those elected people who suck to suck less
2. have an orderly means with which to replace those who suck with those who suck less
3. operate faster and more efficiently so that if the elected people who suck come up with programs whose results suck, the results that suck are revealed much faster so that corrective action can be taken much faster as well in order to REPLACE those results that suck with better results that no longer suck in record time.
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manila paper Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Fantastic explanation!
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jethernandez Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Hymen!!! Halleluyah Dyesus!!!
Excellent!!! @ JR2
benign0 Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 9:31 am
Already put well by JR2 and jumping off from ChinoF’s real elite as opposed to the merely elitist. The social class of the leaders in our government is not the real issue. The real issue is in how the system facilitates a holding of these politicians to account and mitigating the effect of our cultural beholdenness to pedigree and personality politics. A parliamentary system comes across as a stronger framework for brokering ideas rather than personalities in the exercise of representing the will of the constituency.
As BenK pointed out, there is not much we can do about the quality of our politicians. Indeed, as had so many times been demonstrated by one becredentialled bozo or another, even the most highly-educated of our “experts” suck. Look no further than all these Establishment bloggers who supported everything that the Yellow Army stood for. They are all highly-educated. And yet they SUCK.
So it comes down to the best system to mitigate the suckiness of Pinoy politicians. Reduce the effect of personality and give ideas and issues a fighting chance in Pinoy politics. A parliamentary system seems to be the way to go in that regard.
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EXCELLENT POST. Now if only someone can find a way to explain this to the Starbucks masa and the Wowowee set. Left in the hands of mass media:
Parliamentary = Prime Minister Gloria Arroyo
Parliamentary = Marcos-style dictatorship
That’s all.
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BenK Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Note that I did call out the media as one of the four Big Problems that needs to be solved. Everything you see here is just a little example of how people can do their part to change that.
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Dr. José Rizal II Reply:
May 14th, 2010 at 10:23 am
What Marcos did was NOT a parliamentary system. It was a Presidential System that used Parliamentary terminology.
What exactly was Prime Minister Cesar Virata?
He was nothing but Marcos’ EXECUTIVE SECRETARY!
Marcos simply replaced the word “Secretary” with “Minister” and “Department” with “Ministry.”
In essence, Marcos put up a unicameral and one-Party Presidential System using Parliamentary terminology. There was nothing “parliamentary” about it, because “Prime Minister” Cesar Virata was not the one who called the shots.
President Ferdinand Marcos called the shots… He was President, and he was the top man who called the shots.
Since he called the shots, his system was Presidential, not Parliamentary.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
As for Gloria Arroyo, why does it always have to be about her? Mar Roxas, last I checked is still the leader of the Liberal Party… If the system shifts, and he and the Liberal Party win a majority of all seats in Parliament, then Mar Roxas CAN BECOME the Prime Minister.
The problem with Pinoys is that they think only GMA can become Prime Minister. Well, right now, she can easily do that, because only her party truly cared about winning seats in Congress, which will eventually become the Parliament.
If other parties decide they want to compete, then they will have to field good candidates for the local districts (or constituencies in a parliamentary setting), and that will mean that whichever party wins the majority of seats will have its leader become Prime Minister.
It doesn’t have to be GMA only.
Those who don’t like GMA only need to vote for anyone other than the Lakas-Kampi-CMD candidate for Congress in their own districts. Simple as pie.
If another party takes majority, then that party’s leader becomes Prime Minister.
It’s a paradigm shift that requires a lot more cerebral activity for Pinoy brains. But as people get more used to it, they’ll get used to thinking more along these lines and thinking more about issues and policies.
= = = = = = = = = = =
One main thing that cannot be denied is how India’s masses almost totally resemble the Pinoy masses in terms of worshipping showbiz stars and athletes. Pinoys are crazy about our artistas and basketbolistas and boxers, etc… Indians are crazy about their Bollywood stars and Cricketeers.
But notice that never has India ended up with a Bollywood Star or Cricket Champion ever becoming (or even get in the running for) PRIME MINISTER.
The system has a lot to do with the results. Lousy System = Lousy Results. Better System = Better Results.
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It’s nice learning a lot about these two types of government from your discussion. =)
I hope you can discuss the federal system too and compare it with parliamentary and presidential system.