The parliamentary government

The parliamentary government Featured

Lito Monico C. Lorenzana
LML Polettiques
26 December 2024
Comments:DISQUS_COMMENTS
RODRIGO Duterte won the presidency riding on the slogan "Pagbabago." His campaign centered on "federalism," a concept dear to the neglected people from the margins, milking this polarizing catchphrase — Manila imperialism! — the overly centralized political authority lodged in the capital region. Parliamentary government is a key complement to federalism. Duterte was an advocate but with a twist — he wanted a strong presidency, often referring to the French model erroneously as something desirable for the Filipinos. His framework for this feature was historical nostalgia for pre-Hispanic times "...when the bond between social classes, maharlika and maginoo (the nobles) to the freemen and slaves was balanced on the "padrino/patron relationship. This buttressed his conviction of a strong father figure for the presidency, but inconsistent with a parliamentary system.

Yet he initiated a shift to a federal-parliamentary from a unitary presidential regime, declaring that the latter was the root cause of all major problems plaguing Philippine governance. His persona as a filthy-mouthed, uncouth, misogynistic, strong-armed leader fired the citizenry's imagination, naively impressed by such vulgarity, as was his reputation as a "can do" local government chief executive, boasting of his accomplishment as mayor of a city, he "eliminated" crime and arrested Davao City's slide toward a narco-state. He would do the same for the country once elected president. And the Filipinos believed him!

And we gave him carte blanche for his "tokhang, war on drugs," tolerating the deadly consequences of human rights violations — the overhyped extrajudicial killings (EJK). Now that he no longer holds the reins of power, recent Senate and House hearings revealed a different narrative. That the Deegong's regime from 2016-2022, abetted by the "Davao Mafia," an unwarranted pejorative label, some of whom were elevated to senatorial posts, was beset with corruption, bribery and proliferation of illegal drugs, and doused by spilled blood equal to if not surpassing the martial law regime of the father of his erstwhile ally BBM. This comparative saga of the twin evil dynasties — the Marcoses and the Dutertes will not be discussed at this point. It deserves several articles starting next week, ushering in the year 2025.

This column instead will reprint, with a few minor alterations, my analysis of systemic structural defects and the necessity to dismantle this American legacy of a perverted unitary-presidential government.

A unicameral (one body) parliament

First, as a rejoinder to the gridlock springing from the rivalry of the executive and the legislature, particularly the Senate that deemed itself co-equal with the president, the parliamentary system has done away with the American construct of three independent branches of government ("Federalism-Cha-cha! going nowhere?" TMT, July 25, 2018).

In a parliamentary government, the legislative and the executive powers are fused and vested in a unicameral parliament, and the head of the government is the prime minister (PM), with his cabinet recruited from among the members of parliament (MPs). The American republican concept of the fictional independence of the three branches of government — the executive, legislative and judiciary — is drastically modified in parliament.

The president is the head of state (HOS) and is elected from among the MPs. Upon taking his oath, he ceases to be an MP and member of any political party. Serving a term of five years, the HOS is meant to be the unifying symbol of the Filipino nation (similar to the UK's monarch). Powers granted by the Constitution are largely ceremonial. The president (head of state) is not meant to compete with the PM (head of government).

A unicameral parliament is composed of elected members (MPs) from the parliamentary districts plus those chosen by the political party on the basis of "proportional representation" according to the percentage of votes each party obtained in the preceding election.

The members chosen (in a party list) by the political parties shall constitute 30 percent of the total number of MPs, and these seats are reserved solely for the "less privileged" (party-list), farmers, fisherfolk, workers, etc. Party-lists, under our anomalous 1987 Constitution, are not meant to run separately and outside of or independent of a nationally accredited party. The current Senate and House of Representatives are both replaced by the parliament.

A parliamentary government is also called a "party government" because of the pivotal role of political parties in parliamentary elections, governance and public administration. This means that Congress should now pass the "Political Party Development Act," long archived since the Aquino III administration.

The imperatives of real political parties

Currently, our political parties are personal factions and alliances of politicians, united mainly for elections and patronage; their mass memberships are nebulous at best and are not guided by the sustainable and exclusive serious platform of government that differentiates them from one another. Thus, those elected under such parties are not responsible and accountable for their performance in and out of office.

For these reasons, members and those elected leaders have no loyalty to their parties and migrate to the political party of the winning president. This spectacle is known as the "political butterfly."

As proposed by the Centrists (CD), any elective official who leaves his political party before the end of the term shall forfeit his seat and will be replaced by his political party.

A mechanism to replace a prime minister is for parliament to withdraw its confidence and by electing a successor by a majority vote of all its members. This "vote of no confidence" is a much easier process of replacing a head of government in a parliamentary system than the current impeachment process.

Political parties — what we have

Parliamentary government can't exist without real political parties that are ideologically differentiated. What we have is this phenomenon, almost exclusively Filipino, known as the "political butterfly syndrome." In this context, switching political parties is akin to chameleons changing their skin color perfunctorily. This is descriptive of a paucity of ideological perspectives and politicians bereft of a moral compass anchored on patent expediency.

Almost all of the political parties in the Philippines are structured in a manner that hews closely to the centuries-old patronage system. The patron (in this case, the sitting president) who provides the funds makes almost all of the party decisions, especially with regard to those slated to run for elective positions; the central/executive committees are usually manned by their allies and subalterns; and there are no real offices and party activities year-round except during election periods.

Invariably, political parties do not have a uniquely consistent set of beliefs that distinguishes one from the other; at most, they proffer slogans and motherhood statements that pass for political doctrines. Their political agenda is predictably directed toward the preservation of elective members' prerogatives, ensuring the continued accumulation of pelf and privileges for themselves, their families, and their allies.

Individual programs and family interests, perforce, have precedence over that of a political party's collective appreciation of society's needs. And once they are gifted the privilege to govern, public policies are instituted on the fly, emanating from the framework of traditional political practices; their comprehension of national issues is seen subjectively through the prism of personal and family interests, thus perpetuating the existing flawed political institutions.

To be continued on Jan. 1, 2025000
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