Essays on the Parliamentary Form of Government

Ateneo De Manila University

Charter change: electing our leaders and designing our government

Alma Ocampo Salvador
Charter change may be good for us if by undertaking it, basic structures and
institutions can be re-aligned towards objectives of efficiency and good
governance. During the administration of Fidel Ramos, anti-cha cha sentiments
were strongerfrom inside government, the Lakas party, civil society groups and
academe. Today, however, the demand for changing the charter resonates louder
much louder than previous arguments that maintained that a cha-cha would not
change our political landscape because new structures would not simply kick out
bad habits and old ways.
Fortunately, the reverse can be true. We, individuals are not sole agents of
change. In fact, structures that we install ourselves by putting in new laws
and policies can induce us to modify our behavior. Thus we realize why
Filipinos evolve as better and more disciplined motorists when they are in
America, Europe or Subic. Filipinos have obviously adapted to new rules of the
gameespecially when these rules are clear and are enforced. If the 1987
Constitution is to be viewed as a grand book of rules, then changing it by rearranging or creating new rules, such as rules of electing our leaders,
particularly our president and legislators and how they are positioned in
government, may be able to induce some forms of individual or perhaps cultural
transformations among members of society at large.
Bayani Fernando, former mayor of Marikina City has adopted this logic. Albeit
an extreme example to show the relationship between institutions and social
practices, the Marikina case may be used to a certain extent to examine
specific areas in Fernandos local management where he legitimized structural
and legislative overhauls in the city once inundated by floods, garbage and
crime. BFs governance style may be construed to stem from a management
position that new regulations can shape or even re-construct peoples attitudes
and behavior. For instance, new ordinances were put in place to change the
previous system of garbage collection and disposal. BF was certain that if
garbage collection were regularized and collected only when wrapped and
displayed during designated collection days, then residents would respond to
manage their garbage accordingly.
Charter change can be a process of re-arranging or modifying current structures
of government legitimized by constitutional rules. Let us consider amending
the rules of electing our president and our representatives, rules that
determine their terms, the structure of representation (like how many chambers
of congress and how they are to be arranged), or the rules that establish how
many parties can be allowed to participate during elections. While the system
of direct vote has institutionalized popular democracy particularly among the
poor, established a government based on independence and separation of the
three branches of government and installed democratic politics through multiparties, these specific constitutional rules have inadequately contributed to
an elevation of party and electoral politics and political stability for the
Philippine society.

Essays on the Parliamentary Form of Government

Ateneo De Manila University

To begin with, a direct election of the chief executive separate from

legislative elections does not provide incentives for our parties to mature in
issues and purpose. Five decades of experience since 1935, separation of powers
has not induced voters to take into consideration the party origin of their
presidential candidate who campaigned in isolation from legislative players. At
the congressional level, this has resulted in various practices where
presidential candidates anoint or adopt into his or her party, candidates
even if they have disparate party affiliations. On the other hand, creating a
senatorial line-up and ensuring that the turn out matches with the party of the
winning president has since been a wait and see game for the winning
presidential candidate. On the whole, direct vote and separation of powers
condition Filipino voters to randomly assign politicians in power based on
disorganized electoral choices.
When in power, direct elections of the chief executive separate from
legislative elections perpetuate divisive and confrontational instead of
cooperative executive and legislative politics. Direct and separate legislative
elections do not facilitate a weaving of executive and legislative agenda.
This structure instead tends to create a chasm in executive-legislative
dynamics due to law-making deadlocks, unstable rainbow coalitions, and party
coups. Under the Ramos and the Estrada administrations, the effect on congress
has been constant party defections to the administration party and consequently
an institutionalization of a patronage system emanating from the executive.
The current arrangement allows for a President to independently test the limits
of his or her office. Party control remains extraneous from the government and
by experience, the result has been a creation of a politically peripheral
administration party that takes upon tasks such as affirming executive action
or building electoral machinery instead of perfecting legislative agenda.
In the absence of a defined party based position on key issues, direct vote may
yield policies that can be perversely populist. (Consider why, for instance
jeepney owners and drivers are prevented from hiking fares while oil prices
soar?)
When combined with multiparty and majoritarian electoral systems, direct vote
can yield to a chief executive with plural instead of solid constituencies.
This combination of rules creates incentives for the president to never
endingly expand his or her electoral support by targeting small publics (such
as business groups, militaries, church and civil society) and to constantly
rely on survey politics as a barometer of his or her popularity. He or she
then tends to become vulnerable to fledgling popular support or worst to
negative public opinion. Owing to his or her fixed 6-year term, the chief
executive is unable to renew legislative confidence, and may in fact be removed
by either collective action (at EDSA) or by a nearly impossible impeachment
conviction.
Existing constitutional rules on electoral choice, its mechanics and the
arrangement of structures for governing (making and implementing laws) have
stifled the development of parties into parties of issues and of politics into

Essays on the Parliamentary Form of Government

Ateneo De Manila University

politics of accountability. In its place, what we have is the kind of politics

that capitalizes on unique personalities, an election that captures the weak in
imagination and that temporarily empowers by manipulation.
While it is true that individuals do create structures and are responsible for
institutionalizing practices, structures too play a role in reproducing
individual actions.