Faction resulting Corruption in the Philippine Presidential Form of Government: A way towards Federal-Parliamentary System.

Honey Grace D. Castillo

Democracy is the most ideal form of government known as the government of the people, for the people and by the people. This ideology arises after World War II which is the reign of the United States of America over the entire global community. The United States after having been colonized by the Great Britain, the latter developed the idea of democratization. Even though most of the allied as well as colonized countries of the U.S. like the Philippines under go to the process of democratization, most of them exhibited difficulties upon applying this western type of democracy in their own state. In the Philippine setting right after they gained their independence from United States on July 4, 1946 the presidential form of government of the colonizer was adopted. From the time of the first President Emilio Aguinaldo until the most recent President Benigno Aquino III, except the intervention of the former president soon to be Dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the presidential form of government took place in the Philippines. After the 1899 Malolos Constitution, the 1935 Commonwealth Constitution, and the authoritarian Constitution of 1973, the 1987 Constitution is the fourth major charter of the country. It revived the presidential system of the 1935 Constitution, which lasted until the declaration of martial law by President Marcos in September 1972 (Jrgen Rland, 2003). This simply shows that the presidential form of government is already an outmoded form of democracy. It was exercised for a very long period of time and yet the Philippines still facing lots of challenges of the said form of government. This paper aims to show the democratic deficiencies of the Philippines Presidential system of government and introduce the Federal-Parliamentary system to modify our government for the benefits of each and every Filipino. The paper is divided into two sub-parts: first, is to enumerate the perceivable criticism of the traditional Presidential system and second, is to introduce the advantages and benefits of the Federal-Parliamentary system to the Filipino citizens who are afraid to acquire charter change because of the doubt on the real intention of the political leaders who promoting it. Though Philippine presidential form of government used to promote the ideals of democracy such as separation of powers as well as check and balances among the three branches of government the executive, legislative and judiciary, this unitary form of government somehow ignores the real essence of democracy especially in the current event of the government situation. Therefore the Federal-Parliamentary system of government must be inform to every Filipino in order for them to decide what would
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be the most appropriate system of government for the Philippines considering its geographical mode, socioeconomic structures and political arrangement. The Philippine Presidential form of government The Philippine Presidential form of government is framed by the 1987 Constitution promulgated in the time of former President Corazon Aquino after the peaceful people power revolt of the thousand Filipinos along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in the year 1986. The said event is also known as the EDSA Revolution that completely obliterated the dictatorship of Marcos and restored the formal democracy on the Philippines. In order to draft a new constitution the former president and the mother of the Philippine democracy Corazon Aquino appointed 50 members of a Constitutional Commission in March 1986. The draft of the constitution was generally discussed in public hearings all over the country, and subsequently was ratified by the three-fourths majority vote by the electorate in a referendum in February 1987. According to the Jrgen Rland, a German Political Science professor, the key features of the presidential order, which, due to its colonial origin was mainly patterned along the American political system, were directly elected president, an executivelegislative relationship characterized by personal incompatibility and functional checks and balances, a bicameral Congress, and, deviating from the American model, a unitary state. However the unitary form of government where the power, authority and resources centralized to the national government lead by the only one person who is the president, such subsequent dilemma took place in the country. The unitary form of government also has negative features that make lots of conflict and gridlock among the president and congress. The restoration of free elections and formal democracy under the 1987 Constitution has not empowered citizens to check or mitigate our pervasive problems of mass poverty, unemployment, corruption, social inequality, injustice, rebellion, and the environment. Underdevelopment and population still force legions of Filipinos to migrate as our country lags farther behind our advanced neighbors in the region (Jose Abueva, 2005). Among the social problems stated by the well known U.P. Professor of Political Science and chairman of the Citizens Movement for a Federal Philippines (CMFP) Jose V. Abueva, I concentrate on the problem of corruption worsen by the presidential form of government. Corruption in its most simple definition is the dishonesty or improper behavior, as by person in a position of authority. Though it was always associated with money this practice may occur when the politicians who supposed to serve sincerely to the citizens deal with conspiracy among themselves. In the Philippine bureaucracy, the President of the Republic of the Philippines exercises executive power in the government. The executive powers vested upon the president like the control over executive departments, bureaus, and offices, power of appointment as well as power of removal,
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budgetary power, and veto power are the influence that consequently turns into corruption. Despite the fact that our bureaucracy was designed for the democratic institution which shows independence and equality over other department, in the presidential form of government the supremacy perhaps belong to the president. The democratic institution like political parties, the deficit in accountability is one of the major problems. Even though Philippines perform the multi-party system to represent different groups and sectors of the country, sometimes the faction or the alliances of the politicians are more apparent than the execution of their obligation to their people. In this government we can notice that condition of the formation of a strong party system is insufficient because most of the elected officials use to go to the party of the incumbent president in order to get favorable effect upon them. The executive power to appoint cabinet members might also result to a rapid corruption. In this case the president may appoint his own cabinet members, and usually this circumstance only beneficial to his friends and other people he may know in few regions. Typically this event may result to appointment of close friends which the president has utang na loob or debt of gratitude as one of the administrative values of the Filipinos. Sometimes the president mostly appoints the people come in single region like in National Capital Region being the capital of the country. In this set-up corruption is as express as in the express ways, because no boundary will be draw when they all sit in one table. As suggested by Rland, the president must at least take into consideration the regional, linguistic, ethnic, and religious divisions of the country. Philippine cabinets thus habitually include representative from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao as well as from the major religious communities apart from the Catholic majority, also Protestant and Muslims (Jrgen Rland, 2003). With this proposal the government power will be equally distributed over the country and not concentrated only in one region. Furthermore the budgetary power of the president which provides him with superior patronage power is also method of creating a strong faction. Presidential control over the pork barrel of the legislative bodies will be the grounds to change party affiliation after elections and bandwagoning on the party of the president. Most of the members of the congress as well as senate exercise this action to receive their larger pork barrel for their district and to be part of the next line up the presidential bet for the coming elections. Those are the criticisms of the presidential form of government that always come up into a massive corruption because of centralized power to only one person. This event is already witnessed in the back to back term of former President Erap Estrada and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Although they were most recent presidents who were accused of corruption, I believe that every president done the same thing because their superiority as the president of one country.
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The proposed Federal-Parliamentary System The Federal-Parliamentary system is also a democratic government. This system of government is strongly campaign by the Citizens Movement for a Federal Philippines (CMFP) focused on changing the traditional presidential system to a parliamentary system and from unitary system to federal system. The said movement believes that unitary-presidential system has contributed to the aggravation of the peoples condition and problem while benefiting the ruling class, elite or oligarchy. One of the designer of this system is the former Senator Aquilino Nene Pimentel and recommended by previous President Arroyo during her term. The main objective of the CMFP is to inform the people about our worsening problems and their root causes, and what changes and basic reforms are needed to bring about good governance and social transformation towards the vision of the Good society (Jose Abueva, 2005). The group wanted to have a national dialogue to build consensus on Charter change for good governance and they seriously proposed amendments and revision of the 1987 Constitution. The CMFP already draft Constitution for a federal Republic of the Philippines with a Parliamentary Government. The structural characteristics of federal system of government according to Professor Ronald Watts (2002:8) are: two orders of government (federal and regional), constitutional sharing of the executive and legislative powers, sharing of revenue sources between the two orders of government, designated representation of distinct regional opinions within federal decision-making institutions usually guaranteed by the specific structure of the federal Second Chamber (Senate), a supreme written constitution that is not unilaterally modifiable but requires the consent of a large proportion of federation members, an arbitration mechanism to resolve intergovernmental disputes, and procedures and institutions designed to facilitate intergovernmental collaboration in cases of shared domains or inevitable overlapping of responsibilities. (Jose Abueva, 2005) The said structural characteristics of federal system are definitely applicable in the Philippine situation it may promote good governance for the common good of every Filipinos. This may promote cooperation, mutual support, and adjustments in the relations between federal government and state. With greatly improved governance in a federal parliamentary democracy, gradually we shall be better able to develop greater human and institutional capabilities for good governance. Upon studying the advantages of the proposed Federal-Parliamentary system of government, I believed that it was the right time to have a constitutional convention to for the considerable revision of our 1987 Constitution and change our political system into a more suitable type of government that will bring back the real essence of democracy.

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References

Philippine 1987 Constitution

Abueva, Jose V., 2005. Some Advantages of Federalism and Parliamentary

Government for the Philippines. pp. 1- 19

Carlos, Clarita R., et al. 2010. Democratic Deficits in the Philippines: What is to
be Done?, Center for Political and Democratic Reform. Inc., University of the

Philippines Diliman. Rland, Jrgen. 2003. Constitutional Debates in the Philippines: From

Presedentialism to Parliamentarianism? Asian Survey Vol. 43 No. 3 (May-June

2003), pp. 461 484, University of California Press. The American Heritage School Dictionary, American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc. pp. 211

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