Filipino form of government may change

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 20

Filipino form of government may change

By 1

VIJITHA YAPA

L in Manila

Less than a year since veering towards a Parliamentary system of government, Filipino leaders are beginning to wonder whether it is the best form of government. President Marcos, who rules under martial law, is also the Prime Minister. It is in many ways the strangest Parliamentary form of government' in the world. The Parliament, or the Batasang Pambansa, can pass bills but the President still has the power of veto and can issue Presidential decrees. When members were elected to the Batasang Pambansa in the April 7 election this year, the press said that the need for Presidential decrees would cease. But Presidential decrees have ranged from regulating of leaf tobacco to traffic regulations in Manila since then.

The new controversy has arisen after two assemblymen proposed that the country return to the Presi-

dential system since the Parliamentary system is “unsuitable to Philippine conditions, temperament and political traditions." Soon after this, a powerful lobby led by the Defence Minister, Mr Juan Ponce Enrile, and the information Minister, Mr Francisco Tatad, urged President Marcos to convert the Batasang Pambansa into a Constituent Assembly “at the earliest possible time” to propose amendments to the Constitution.

This latter resolution further said that the Constitution needs to be reexamined to keep it up-to-date to the times. An assemblyman, Mr Salvador Larel, says that when the people ratified the 1973 Constitution, the nation was still in a crisis period. He says that therefore it was not possible to come up with a true people’s sentiment on many constitutional issues, mainly the form of government.

Mr Laurel says that what is needed is a “truly independent legislature to propose the restoration of the Presidential system.”

But there have been strong protests to this. Another assemblyman, Mr Jose Tumbokan, says, “It is premature at this stage . . . any advocacy for us to backslide to the Presidential system should be stopped.” He says that the Philippines is “still in infancy in the effort to evolve a Parliamentary system and effect a smooth transition from Presidential to Parliamentary systems.” What is strange about this whole debate is that the merits of the Parliamentary system and the defects of the Presidential system had been fully ventilated during a constitutional convention which preceded the April, 1978, elections. The new type of government, which tried to merge both systems, was adopted by an overwhelming majority. A scandal involving misuse of funds on a Peso 86.5 M (SI2M) highway pro-

ject, said to be due to lack of an adequate expenditures’ monitoring system, has prompted the debate. An assemblyman, Mr Ruben Canoy, says there is no system of checks and balance because of the fusion of the legislative and executive branches of the Government, making it more susceptible to graft. Mr Teodoro F. Valencia, a veteran journalist who is an ardent supporter of President Marcos, says in his column, “Over a cup of coffee” in the “Daily Express,” “If we must go back to ‘normal’ it should be the old one — which happens to be the Presidential system. Another argument for the Presidential system is that it may take us a generation to educate our people to Parliamentary ways. After 50 years of American rule, we did not quite grasp the Presidential way either. It is not that it never worked but, I suspect, we, did not know how to make it work.” He reveals, “The truth is that when the Constitution

of 1978 was finally approved, the President himself was not sold on the Parliamentary system. But

martial law had already set in and there was no more time to reconvene the Constitutional Convention to make a change to a Presidential system. So everybody let it go at that — with reservations.”

The ordinary people I have spoken to, ranging from bus drivers to teachers, are not worried whether the system is Presidential or Parliamentary. “The last exercise in elections, when frauds were openly committed, has made Filipinos become resigned to some type of rule where the way is being prepared for perpetuation of the Marcos dynasty,” a university professor told “The Press.” President Marcos says the move to revert to a Presidential system is “untimeh.”

but Filipinos know that such a move would not have been mooted in the first place if President Marcos was not for it. What he has up his sleeve is now the guessing game in the Philippines.