WITHOUT realizing it, administration congressmen and members of Lakas-CMD party, in pushing for Charter change and a parliamentary form of government, are showing very clearly to the people why we should not change the Constitution to have a parliamentary government.
A parliamentary/unicameral government is run by the political party in power as if it is a dictatorship or a monarchy. There is no system of checks and balances as we now have in a presidential/bicameral government. The members of Parliament are also Cabinet members, and have influence over the Supreme Court and the judiciary. In other words, they can do pretty much what they want and there is nothing the people can do to stop them, except mount a revolution or a coup d'état. If the majority party can do what it is now doing in a bicameral government in rushing headlong into Cha-cha, imagine what it will do in a parliamentary government.
And the CHACHA propenents say na hindi raw bagay ang presidential system sa Pilipinas because of it's checks and balances. It causes "gridlock" raw, they say.
HAW HAW HAW. With the current crop of corrupt politicians we have in Arroyo's ruling majority, changing the constitution to give them more UNCHECKED POWER is the worse thing we can do right now.
The last time we did that, we got Marcos.
Neal Cruz offers a suggestion:
The US Constitution is still the same one that its founding fathers wrote. It has been amended several times, but it has not been changed even once. And America is now the richest and most powerful nation in the world, with a bicameral Congress like we have.
So let's amend our Constitution provision by provision, and the people can vote yes or no for each one. Changing the whole Charter at once mixes the good provisions with the bad ones, and the people have to vote for or against all in the plebiscite. In voting for the good provisions, they are forced to vote also for the bad ones.
And let's have a Cha-cha after the current politicians are out of office.
WORD!
UDPATE: More on "gridlock"
Gridlock? One congressman after another led by Speaker Jose de Venecia blames the Senate for legislative gridlock or delay in passage of legislation.
This is definitely incorrect. Proof — the budget. Since it received the General Appropriations bill last July, it is still pending in the House up to now, or a lapse of more than six months. After transmission to the Senate, the Senate usually passes it in one month to six weeks. So the delay is in the House, not in the Senate.
What congressmen are really complaining about is the non-passage of local bills by the Senate. But here, the situation is the reality that most of these local bills are just for show, not necessary and without any source of funds.
If not for the Senate, every congressman would like to have a university, a medical center or specialty hospital and a tourism zone in his district. In addition, every congressman wants to have a high school in every big barangay in his district.
In some cases, they want to separate their districts and make it a province. In many cases, they divide municipalities or even barangays, for purely political reasons.
If the Senate allowed 3,000 or so local bills to pass annually, the financial and political implications would be serious, if not disastrous.
In a unicameral parliamentary system, that will happen.
Manong Ernie, kaya nila hindi pa ipinapasa yang 2006 budget na yan ay dahil gusto nila ng Re-enacted budget.
What's so bad about a re-enacted budget? Read this.
More from JB Baylon:
By the way, in debating whether the form of parliament we will have is British or French, the proponents fail to tell us something: that both the British and French parliaments have TWO, and not ONE, chambers. Of course they do not tell us that, because they are dying to have a single house. A single house, you see, is more prone to the control of whoever wishes to control it. So think about it: if, in a bicameral Congress like ours we could not impeach a President, all the more how could we expect members of a unicameral Parliament to impeach one of their own?
Good point.
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