ALTHOUGH opinion polls show that most people do not care for the parliamentary system (of which they know nothing), its promoters push on without relenting.
There is the administration-financed Constitutional Consultative Commission to draw up proposed amendments for Congress, if it wishes, to adopt.
Right away, there was a fight: Someone asked why the chairman proposed only two types of government, parliamentary and parliamentary-federal. What about other forms of government, such as the presidential?
The bias is clear.
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Parliamentary system promoters such as Speaker Joe de Venecia and former President Fidel Ramos have consistently blamed the presidential system for the country’s poor economic progress.
They cite the parliamentary system as a cure-all. All by itself it can do away with the nation’s ills. No more corruption. Clean elections. No more squatters. Much less dependence on instant noodles as a staple. A sea of jobs.
Why, there is the no-confidence vote to oust an incompetent prime minister in one day. No need for people power or a military putsch.
But if the prime minister wants to hang on and loosens the purse strings, cajoles, threatens, and does the 100 and one things needed to hold on to the legislators’ votes, that no-confidence vote will end up in the garbage pile, the same as the presidential system’s impeachment attempts.
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Maybe the thing more pressing than changing the Charter and adopting the parliamentary system is a solution to election frauds.
There should be a commission to uproot all the causes of election frauds and present Congress with an all-new system: An honest method of counting votes and just as important, an efficient method of recounting votes, making this possible in days and weeks, not the usual years.
If this commission succeeds, then there need be no repeat of the political crisis that has plagued the nation for over a year.
