FOR several weeks, I have been committing what may qualify as heresy in Philippine politics. I have argued that our problem is not merely finding better presidents. It is building institutions that do not require an extraordinary president merely to function.

Every six years, we search for another national savior. We select a face, invent a slogan, commission a jingle and persuade ourselves that this candidate will rise above the system that selected, financed and surrounded him.

Then Malacañang remains Malacañang.

The reformer discovers patronage. The populist discovers confidential funds. The strongman discovers that checks and balances are terribly inconvenient. The technocrat discovers Congress. And the people, having placed another messiah on the presidential billboard, wait six more years for the next miracle.

We keep replacing the chicken while preserving the coop and remain astonished that it lays the same rotten eggs.

The magnificent absurdity

A mature democracy should not need a national savior. It needs functioning institutions, genuine political parties, empowered local governments and citizens who hold officials accountable between elections — not merely replace the face on the billboard.

Yet here lies the absurdity: To escape presidentialism, we may first have to elect a president willing to reduce his own power.

We need a president who will use the enormous authority of his office to make that office less enormous; who will rally public support for constitutional reform, persuade Congress to surrender some privileges, strengthen local governments and transfer executive power to a parliamentary system where a failed prime minister can be removed without turning every crisis into a national soap opera.

In other words, the chicken must abolish the coop. Such a president would be rarer than honesty in a campaign advertisement. Power seldom volunteers for early retirement. Presidents do not enter Malacañang dreaming of becoming less important. Their allies did not spend fortunes electing them merely to create a system in which patronage becomes difficult, dynasties lose protection and political parties acquire principles.

So, must we wait for this miraculous creature? No.

Stop waiting for permission

Reform must stop waiting for Malacañang’s permission. A sympathetic president could accelerate change, rally public support and persuade Congress. But the movement cannot belong to him. Otherwise, reform rises and falls with one personality, and Filipinos resume their familiar search for another savior.

We must reverse the relationship. We do not wait for a president to create the movement. We create a movement that every president must confront.

If a reformer reaches Malacañang, the movement supports him. If he hesitates, it pressures him. If he suddenly discovers that concentrated presidential power is really quite comfortable — as presidents mysteriously tend to do — the movement proceeds without him. Or removes him.

That is institutional politics: The cause survives the leader. The movement must not become another afternoon of indignation — complete with banners, speeches, celebrity selfies and a return home before dinner. EDSA overthrew a dictator and restored democracy, a historic achievement. But succeeding upheavals taught us that changing the occupant does not necessarily change the architecture. We have repeatedly renovated the presidential bedroom while leaving the political house untouched.

The next movement must be less theatrical and more permanent. It needs members, local chapters, transparent accounts, civic education, expert working groups and specific demands understandable beyond academic conferences and Manila television studios.

It must reach villages, provinces, universities, professional associations, labor groups, farmers, businesses, overseas Filipinos and the vast middle class that complains brilliantly online but remains politically homeless.

A million people, a million pesos

Imagine one million Filipinos contributing one peso each — not because one million pesos can finance a national transformation, but because one million citizens making even a symbolic contribution become stakeholders rather than spectators.

Call it the Million People-Peso March.

The amount matters less than the principle. Reform must be owned by citizens, not financed by oligarchs expecting repayment through appointments, franchises, contracts or protection. A peso freely contributed is morally cleaner than a million donated with an invoice concealed behind it.

Membership should mean more than receiving messages and applauding slogans. Citizens must study the alternatives, argue over them and help decide the program. Parliamentary government and federalism should not be marketed as magical imported machinery. Neither manufactures angels. Both merely distribute power differently, locate responsibility more clearly and make failure easier to punish.

Federalism can move authority and resources away from imperial Manila. Parliamentarism can replace an incompetent government through a vote of no confidence without impeaching the entire nation. But these reforms will fail if old dynasties simply occupy new regional capitals and political butterflies continue changing parties whenever the flowers in Malacañang change color. Therefore, constitutional reform must travel with political reform.

Build the alternative now

The movement should demand a genuine Political Party Development and Financing Act — the reform long advocated by CDP president and congressman Rufus Rodriguez. Parties must represent programs rather than temporary boarding houses for ambitious personalities. Political turncoatism must carry consequences. Donations and campaign spending must be transparent. Legitimate parties should receive regulated public support so that elections are not private auctions disguised as democracy.

We should also strengthen anti-dynasty rules, local autonomy, citizen participation and safeguards against the capture of regions by provincial warlords. Otherwise, we will decentralize corruption and congratulate ourselves for bringing government closer to the thieves.

The constitutional route remains preferable: Congress acting as a constituent assembly, an elected constitutional convention or a properly organized people’s initiative. Each route has defects because every route passes through institutions guarded by those who benefit from the present arrangement.

That is precisely why organization must come first. Without a disciplined citizens’ movement, constitutional reform becomes an elite negotiation over who receives which chair. With one, even reluctant politicians must listen. The objective is not to overthrow democracy through a coup, a revolutionary government or another uniformed shortcut. We have already spent enough of our history searching for benevolent strongmen and discovering, rather late, the adjective was imaginary.

The democratic revolution must precede the constitutional one: educate, organize, finance and mobilize citizens until reform can no longer be dismissed as a hobby of professors, retired politicians and newspaper columnists.

Make the president optional

Perhaps one day we will elect an extraordinary president courageous enough to reform the office that made him powerful. But after a lifetime of Philippine politics, I would rather not stake the Republic on another miracle. A sound system should help good leaders succeed without allowing bad ones to tow the entire country into the swamp.

So, yes, to escape the presidency, we may first elect a president. But we must not wait for him, worship him or make him the proprietor of reform.

The movement must already exist before he arrives. It must support him when he advances reform, confront him when he retreats and survive him when he leaves.

For nearly a century, we have asked who will save the Philippines. Perhaps the revolutionary question is simpler: When will Filipinos stop waiting to be saved?

Build the movement. Change the rules. Abolish the coop. Then the president becomes optional.

FOR much of my political life, I believed Philippine democracy’s central problem was leadership. I supported Cory Aquino, worked for her, even pushed for Jovito Salonga, who lost to Fidel Ramos. I later worked with Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Like many Filipinos, I thought the formula was simple enough: elect the right president, surround him with competent people, curb corruption, strengthen the bureaucracy, reform the economy — and perhaps the republic would finally turn the corner.

I no longer believe that.

After more than half a century watching Philippine politics — as activist, organizer, government functionary, constitutional reform advocate, and now aging columnist — I have reached a more uncomfortable conclusion.

Our problem is not simply that we keep choosing the wrong president. Our system keeps producing the wrong incentives. We change the driver, refuse to inspect the vehicle, and every six years, when it lands in the same ditch, begin searching for another driver.

The six-year messiah

The Philippine presidency has become more than a constitutional office. It has become the repository of national hope. Every election resembles a secular revival, with candidates arriving as bearers of salvation.

We elect one human being and expect him or her to — repair agriculture, create jobs, minimize corruption (particularly his/her own), discipline the bureaucracy, modernize infrastructure, reform education, confront China, satisfy America, reduce poverty, and preferably fix Metro Manila traffic before lunch.

Then we give the president six years, no reelection, little institutional continuity and often no durable governing coalition. We are then astonished that public policy sometimes develops the institutional memory of a goldfish.

Each incoming administration discovers that its predecessor apparently knew nothing. Programs are renamed, priorities rearranged, officials replaced. Yesterday’s enemies become today’s allies, yesterday’s allies rediscover misplaced principles. And another six-year experiment upon 115 million Filipinos begins.

Malacañang as political sun

The deeper problem is structural. Our system concentrates enormous political expectations — and enormous patronage — around one individual. Malacañang consequently becomes the sun around which much of Philippine politics revolves.

Legislators require executive cooperation for budgets and projects. Local politicians cultivate access to national resources. Business interests seek favorable government policies. Political clans negotiate alliances with whoever controls the executive machinery.

The president therefore gradually becomes something our ancestors would have recognized immediately: the supreme patron.

We changed the titles, not the political instinct. The datu, gobernadorcillo and cacique dispensed favors and power. Today’s political patron does the same — with appointments, projects, access, and influence.

The Constitution created modern institutions. Our political culture keeps trying to turn them back into personal relationships. This is why replacing one president with another rarely changes the underlying equation. A virtuous president may restrain the machinery. A competent president may operate it better. A corrupt president may exploit it shamelessly. But the machinery survives them all.

The problem is bigger than the president

This does not mean presidents do not matter. Of course they do. Some of our presidents have governed considerably better than others. Individual character, competence and judgment can determine whether institutions are strengthened or damaged.

But that is precisely the weakness of a system excessively dependent upon presidential personality. A republic should not require political genius every six years merely to function properly.

Consider the strange bargain we have created. We invest enormous political capital in electing one person, then spend six years debating whether that person is hero, villain, genius, incompetent, dictator, democrat, saint or sinner.

Meanwhile, the institutional questions remain remarkably constant. Why are political parties weak? Why is policymaking discontinuous? Why is political accountability blurred? Why does national power remain excessively centralized? Why must every major reform depend upon presidential sponsorship? We keep asking whether the captain is competent. Perhaps we should finally inspect the ship.

Why parliamentary govt makes more sense to me

I have therefore increasingly favored parliamentary government — not because parliamentarism is perfect, but because its incentives better address the institutional weaknesses we need to correct.

Under parliamentary government, executive authority emerges from the legislature. A prime minister governs because a parliamentary majority supports a governing program.

Lose that confidence and government can change. There is no constitutional requirement to endure six years of paralysis merely because the calendar has not expired. Conversely, successful governments can continue beyond an arbitrary six-year limit.

More importantly, political parties must govern. Parliamentary government will not magically manufacture principled parties. But it gives politicians a powerful incentive to build coherent ones.

Voters begin choosing not merely personalities but competing governing teams and programs. Ministers must defend policies before parliament. The opposition becomes institutionalized rather than merely waiting outside the kulambo for its next turn.

Responsibility becomes harder to escape. If government succeeds, the governing coalition receives the credit. If it fails, it cannot endlessly blame an unfortunate Cabinet secretary, bureaucrat, or previous administration. That is institutional accountability — considerably more useful than another campaign jingle.

And why federalism belongs beside it

Parliamentary reform alone is insufficient. The other great distortion of Philippine governance is excessive centralization. For someone from Mindanao, this has never been an academic question. Too many decisions affecting communities hundreds of kilometers from Manila still travel through departments, agencies and political calculations concentrated in the capital. Money flows upward. Permission flows downward.

Politicians learn ambition’s true geography: the road to Manila, not the barangay. Badly designed federalism will not baptize away corruption; it may merely promote provincial fiefdoms into regional kingdoms, with larger budgets, grander stationery and more impressive family seals.

That is why federalism, parliamentarism and political party reform must reinforce one another. Federalism without genuine parties could strengthen dynasties. Parliamentarism without functioning parties could rearrange the same politicians inside a different chamber. Party reform without changing presidential patronage could leave those parties orbiting Malacañang. There are no constitutional miracles.

Only better or worse incentives.

But who will change the system?

Here, however, my friends at Marangal produce their strongest argument. Fine, they say. Perhaps the presidential system is the problem. But who will change it? Surely we must first elect a good, competent president who can lead us toward a federal-parliamentary system.

Perfectly logical — until one notices the trap.

Apparently, the cure for our dependence on presidents is wonderfully simple: Find another president to depend on. Ridiculous! For nearly a century, reformers, populists, technocrats, strongmen and assorted political messiahs have auditioned as The One. Every six years, we discover our savior; six years later, we resume the search.

And now, to escape presidentialism, we apparently need — what else? — the perfect president. (Perhaps, the anti-fed-parl Sara, the sure winner, kuno!)

First, Sara (or whoever) wins under the existing system; then defies those who put her there, surrender the enormous powers she just acquired, and dismantle the political machinery that made her president.

Brilliant strategy! And stupid!

We spent nearly a century replacing chickens while preserving the same coop. After all these magnificent experiments, perhaps we might consider one revolutionary possibility: the problem is the damned henhouse.

Next week, I will examine the egg because perhaps we have been asking the wrong question all along.