Quote of the day

A citizenry that has had a hand in electing its national leadership since 1935 can’t be asked to willingly give up that right, and rightly so. No democratic people have ever given up the right to directly elect their chief executive in exchange for indirect selection by members of a legislature.

If no free people on earth have ever given up the presidential system to replace it with a parliamentary one—though parliaments have been abandoned for the presidential system—then it is unreasonable to first propose, then demand, and then attempt, to make the public abdicate that right to a bunch of politicians. Such a thing only happens when dictatorships are established and all elections of whatever kind become meaningless rituals.

Most of all, they ignored a fundamental reality in politics: you cannot have everything. Absolute victory and total surrender are the goals of warfare, not politics. Only when the present proponents of constitutional change shall have realized this, will the time be ripe for the setting aside of past differences. Only then can a frank, but mutually respectful and productive, debate resume. But not before.

- from Manuel L. Quezon III, in today's PDI article "Parameters"