Alleba Politics

Before, during and now, after the election period, one of the hottest issues is the proposed Charter Change. Most administration legislators, led by House Speaker Jose de Venecia, are keen on making this current administration a transition government with the new Charter Change and a parliamentary, federal government taking effect by 2007.

While I quite agree and am hoping for a federal system, with the hope of having a decentralized government and along with it, decentralized progress and defvelopment. I am not comfortable with the idea of having a parliamentary system. Based on the outcomes of both the Erap Impeachment Trial and the Congressional Canvass of the recent presidential and vice-presidential elections, most, if not all, of our legislators vote not on the basis of their principles and certainly not for the greater good of the greatest number of people. Party lines still play a big part in the way legislative work is done in this country. The overwhelming amount of “politicking” and grandstanding occuring in the Philippine Congress would be a great impediment to a successful parliament. With the slightest unpleasant-ness between the legislators and their appointed prime minister/president (whatever the case may be), the head of the state may be ejected and replaced by the legislators with one from their ranks who is willing to defer to their whims. This leads to a precarious situation, threatening the all-important checks and balance system between the executive and legislative branches of the government.

Although the current system has its own problems–incompetent personalities getting elected, centralization of development and power within Metro Manila, etc—I do not believe that the real problems lies within the system. That corruption and politicking is systemized in the Philippines, is not a structural problem but a cultural one. Our system is not built upon the principles of dishonesty and individualism. Rather, we have been so accustomed to the flaws of the people running it and the people within it that we have become part of the systematic decay of the government. It is the behavior and the choices of the people in power and our own behavior that lead to its decay.

The solution, I think, is not in changing the system, the structure of our government, but rather in evaluating our values, changing our behavior and affecting this change upon other people. The poor, the masa, the desperate are not to be wholly blamed for their actions. It is not enough to know that what we are doing is right and good. This country will not made by a few individuals acting out what is right and good, it is made by a nation acting together for what is right and good. Our individual choices and actions mean little if we are not willing to extend beyond ourselves and press these choices upon others. After all, there is power in numbers.

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