He did say that he wanted a Federal-Parliamentary System with a directly-elected ceremonial president having some strong reserve powers... And he unfortunately quite erroneously labelled it as the "French System."

Unfortunately, France is neither Federal nor is it Parliamentary.

France is a Unitary Semi-Presidential Republic which, in fact, many political scientists and French commentators themselves categorize as having a Presidential System with a system similar to that of PERU. (Peru has a "Prime Minister" alongside a President, but obviously, the real power is with the President and not the Prime Minister. Peru's system was similar to MARCOS' post-Martial Law 1981 amendment system)

So here's the story. France used to have a Parliamentary System, except that like present-day Italy, they had a system that focused inordinately on having excessive representation of so many diverse groups (too many small little parties) and a system that required that all of their concerns be listened to instead of consolidated rationally. Unlike the British and the Commonwealth-based Westminster Parliamentary System which focuses on having strong and effective Cabinet-led government, where Cabinet led by the Prime Minister would be a focused group that works on delivering governance to the people, the system in France (as in Italy) was that of an Assembly-type parliamentary system.

There are two kinds of parliamentary systems: Cabinet Government parliamentary systems versus Assembly Government parliamentary systems. Cabinet Government parliamentary systems are what exist in the UK and in the rest of the Commonwealth. Spain also has a Cabinet Government parliamentary system. Variations of the Assembly Government parliamentary system exist mostly on the European Continent with varying degrees of success, with highly successful and more disciplined ones in Scandinavia and Northern European countries, while Italy unfortunately suffers from the chaos of shifting coalitions resulting from its excessively small minimum threshold in allowing party-list parties to be given seats. As a result, Italy and others like it have fragile governments formed not by parties enjoying a majority of seats, but by parties who merely enjoy a plurality of seats and are forced to form coalitions with numerous small little parties in exchange for concessions.

France had a similar problem of such chaos before thanks to the Assembly-type parliamentary system they had prior to the current Firth Republic and this ended up becoming extremely evident with the indecision and chaos during the Algerian Crisis in in the 1950's.

Only WWII hero General Charles de Gaulle had the gravitas with which to put some order where there was chaos and indecision. With that, De Gaulle set up a new Republic --- the Fifth Republic --- this time being a Semi-Presidential System with De Gaulle - as President - on top. No more would the previous indecision of the squabbling and bickering Assembly-style of parliamentary government be hobbled by the lack of a supreme leader.

De Gaulle, like most of the leaders in other parts of the world at the time, had been subliminally influenced by the post-WWII emergence of the USA as a new major power. His act of setting up a system with a Strong President saw parallels in the moves of numerous African leaders who had previously inherited parliamentary systems from their British colonizers to shift towards Presidential Systems because at that time, the Presidentialist USA was seen to be the most powerful country.

When countries moved towards the Presidential System, it was not because of the results of serious study in comparative government, assessing the advantages versus disadvantages of doing so. It was simply because the USA - after World War II - had become the pre-eminent superpower: the country almost everyone wanted to be like.

Because of the France's unfortunate use of the Assembly-variety of parliamentary government, their experience of parliamentarism was not as good as the experience of countries who had learned to use the Westminster form of the parliamentary system. To the French, shifting to the strong-president "Semi-Presidentialist" form that De Gaulle set up made them someone more similar to the new emerging power: the USA. It was also slightly better than what they had. Unfortunately, not as good as if they had decided to go with a "Cabinet-variety" of the parliamentary system.

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So France is NOT A PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM.

It used to be parliamentary before Charles de Gaulle took over. That was in the 1950's. Today, I've seen a few French newspaper and magazine articles refer to France as having a presidential system. Some of them don't even use "semi-presidentialism" to describe it anymore. For all intents and purposes, France has a PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM, and to refer to France as a parliamentary system is a big mistake.

However, I concede that the French system is formally and technically still a Semi-Presidential System.

And a Semi-Presidential System is a necessary TEMPORARY STEP (a span of at most 3 years) during the transition from the current Presidential System towards a FULL PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM.

After all, the shift cannot be abrupt. We are talking not just of a shift from the presidential to the parliamentary system. WE are also talking about the shift from the unitary model of territorial administration to federalism. As such, there will be a need for a gradualist transition which must be overseen and guided by a strong and "disinterested" leader.

This "strong and disinterested" leader (who really does want to retire because he's old) is none other that President Duterte himself.

Instead of just stepping down, it would be much better if right after the shift to the federal-parliamentary system is ratified in the upcoming constitutional reforms, Duterte remains as president, but starts to gradually give more executive powers to the new Parliament and turn his role as president into a more ceremonial one.

His powers as president will not be made stronger. They will in fact gradually lessen as he transfers certain executive duties to what will be the newly formed parliament and its team of leaders who will assume new roles as Prime Minister (for the leader of the majority party) and his Cabinet (senior or competent members of parliament within his party). As President transitioning towards a ceremonial role, he will be MENTORING the Prime Minister, and having his members of the Presidential Cabinet mentor the parliamentary Cabinet. (They already have something like this under LEDAC --- Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council)

And by the end of his first term, it would be wise to have him run again for a second term, in order to finish the whole transition process from unitary-presidential towards federal-parliamentary.

During those in-between stages where the Philippines has decided to shed off its unitary-presidential system, but has not yet quite shifted over to the federal-parliamentary system, indeed having a transitional/interim SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM makes sense.

Not a system akin to that of Marcos' post martial law semi-presidential system. We need a system that will be formally "Parliamentary" on paper, but granted special residual powers as a temporary interim measure while the transition is going on. And this temporary state of "semi-presidentialism" will have a specific schedule with specific milestones. By this year, the power-ratio will be so-and-so. By that year, the Parliamentary Majority led by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet shall have 70% of all executive power, and 30% shall remain in the Office of the President... And by X year, the Prime Minister and his cabinet will have 95% of all powers, while the Office of the President of the Republic shall be purely ceremonial but having strong reserve powers that will reflect 5% of all executive powers that can be wielded, but all prestige, all pomp and circumstance shall now be accorded to the President of the Republic, while the Prime Minister and his Cabinet will be considered "working executives."

Such a gradualist scheme could help in reducing the shock and stress of such a big change and in the meantime, it could allow us to ask help from friendly countries who use parliamentary systems to mentor our politicians so that our legislators and other politicians can effectively transition towards the new system.

So as a TEMPORARY TRANSITIONAL stage, the French "semi-presidential" system is ok... But only as an interim means of finally arriving at a full PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM where the Office of the President constantly cedes power from his Office to the Parliament..

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When Tatay Digong said that he wanted a system which would have a directly-elected CEREMONIAL PRESIDENT who would have strong reserve powers, but would leave most of the day-to-day running of government affairs over to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet and the general Parliament, he should have been advised instead to make use of the LABEL "The SINGAPORE SYSTEM."

Because this is what Singapore has. Singapore has a directly-elected CEREMONIAL President as Head of State who holds some strong reserve powers

Singapore has a FULL PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM and this is the kind of system that we need if we want to have stability, efficiency, accountability, and faster progress. (Since we will be "Federal-Parliamentary", then ultimately, we will resemble Malaysia, Australia, Canada, India, Germany, and to a certain extent, Spain -- because Spain is Federal in all but name)

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source: https://www.facebook.com/orion.pd/posts/10157138193875524