Good analysis, but...

I disagree with Randy David on one point:

In her last State of the Nation Address, President Macapagal-Arroyo appeared to be guided by some version of this theory when she said that the nation's political system has lagged behind its economic system. She argued that our political problems are the outcomes of an outmoded presidential and unitary system of government. We may change leaders, she says, but if we don't change the system, the outcomes will be the same. She paints herself as a victim, and blames the system for the dysfunctions of her administration. To her, the solution is simple: change the form of government to a federal parliamentary government.

This shift in perspective from persons to systems is not entirely wrong, and indeed, it is time we focused on systemic change. But Ms Arroyo's analysis is flawed in at least two ways. First, she does not really tell us what changes have taken place in our economic life that would support the claim of an impending economic take-off. Second, she explains the crisis of her presidency merely as the result of a stalemate between executive and legislative powers, of the gridlock between the two houses of Congress, and of the tendency to use people power to oust a president who has fallen out of favor.

These gridlocks may be real, but to project them as the causes of Ms Arroyo's failure as a leader is to tax the imagination. What have they got to do with the practices that have become the emblems of her presidency-the massive and organized electoral fraud, the conversion of public funds into campaign largesse, the deployment of the military and the police for partisan politics, and the distribution of choice positions in the public bureaucracy as political rewards?

Uhmmm... what "gridlock"? Hawak at kontrolado ni Arroyo ang Kongreso -- where her allies have the majority in both the House and the Senate.