Senator Bam Aquino wants to make sure he will be elected
this coming 2019 mid terms elections.
Apparently he is aware that his constant criticisms/ attacks
against the Duterte administration will not make him a senator for another
terms that is why he entertains more of trying to bait the President party in
including him as one of its senatorial bets for the next election.
The Manila Times resident columnist Antonio P. Contreras in
his column today (March 20, 2018) titled “Bam Aquino, PDP-Laban and why a
parliamentary system will not work” has written an eloquent article explaining
the parliamentary system its current state in the Philippines. *
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| (photo credit to owner) |
For purposes of full understanding and truthfulness ,we have quoted in full the whole article written by Mr.
Contreras for the convenience and
knowledge of our reading public.
Bam Aquino, PDP-Laban and why a parliamentary system will
not work
WHEN an opposition Senator like Bam Aquino who has been
critical of the President since day one entertains the thought of joining the senatorial
ticket of PDP-Laban, the party of the President, and Senate President Koko
Pimentel doesn’t shoot down the idea, and in fact is open to it, then we know
that a parliamentary system, no matter how ideal in theory, will not work in
this country, at least for now.
If there is one thing on which a parliamentary system
stands on, it is the existence of mature, stable and ideologically defined
political parties. It is in fact referred to in political science as a system
of party rule, where the dominant political party in parliament is tasked to
form the government and elect from among its members the prime minister who
shall then appoint a cabinet also composed of elected members of parliament.
Should one party fail to get a clear majority, a coalition government is formed
by a combination of parties that will form the majority in parliament. *
Political parties are the life-blood of a parliamentary
system. A government sinks or swims on the basis of the support of a majority
party, or of a majority coalition in parliament. Parties are in turn organized
along ideological lines which offer voters stable and clearly articulated
alternative platforms for governance to choose from during elections. They
became the aggregators of political interests, and craft this into a menu of
policies reflecting their ideological orientations from the left to the right
which they offer to the electorate who then shall vote on the basis of such
policy platforms. Elections become kin to a marketplace, where voters acting as
consumers “buy” a party that they think reflects their own policy preferences.
Hence, in this system, whoever wins a majority in parliament has the mandate of
the majority of the people to pursue the policy trajectories which that party
offered during the elections.
Party discipline is strictly enforced, considering that a
breakdown in party unity can spell the fall of a government, which happens when
the prime minister is unable to pass a government legislation and loses a
confidence vote. This can trigger the dissolution of parliament, which will
then lead to early elections. The prospect for this is higher when the
government is an outcome of a coalition, where one party can bolt from the
majority to trigger a collapse of the coalition. However, whether the collapse
of government is brought upon by rebelling backbenchers from the ruling party,
or by a dissatisfied coalition partner, this is usually on a matter of public
policy differences. Dissolving parliament and calling for fresh elections,
while constitutive of a crisis moment, is nevertheless also a recuperative
mechanism as it allows for the electorate to once again decide on which party
to send back to parliament, with the policy issue that led to its dissolution
being the main campaign issue upon which they base their decisions. *
It is therefore vital in the success of a parliamentary
system, and anent to the existence of political parties that are ideologically
defined, that there should be an electorate which is also mature and which
decides on the basis of issues. This is an electorate that evaluates
politicians on the basis of what they stand for on crucial issues, scrutinizes
their voting records in parliament, and rewards or punishes them according to
those policy choices.
Aside from mature political parties and voters, the parliamentary
system also requires the presence of a healthy opposition that engages the
government on issues. The opposition in parliament becomes a shadow of the
government, with its own shadow cabinet. The head of the opposition in turn is
considered as the shadow prime minister. One of the most enduring institutions
of any parliamentary system is the question hour, when the prime minister and
his or her cabinet responds to inquiries from the opposition on matters of
public policy.
Unfortunately, an ideologically defined party system with
politicians imbued with party discipline is something that we do not have in
this country. Political parties in the Philippines are established not along
ideological lines, but along systems of affinities and a politics of patronage
and convenience. Nacionalistas are not necessarily nationalists, and Liberals
are not necessarily liberals. Thus, we end up with parties whose names are mere
acronyms denoting populist slogans but devoid of ideological coherence and
integrity. *
And this is aggravated by politicians who think of parties
as convenient labels to wear and carry during elections, which they can easily
drop and abandon. We are witness to the predictable migratory behavior of
elected politicians toward the direction of the party of whoever is elected
president. This literally dis-enables the existence of a healthy and robust
opposition. Supermajorities in Congress leave the opposition to either become a
motley of token resistance, or a cabal of fanatically adversarial minority of
legislators who no longer responsibly offer a critique and instead become
destructive and disruptive forces.
We see the anomaly of people belonging to the same
political party but on opposite sides of the aisle. We have LPs in the
supermajority, and then we have the likes of Lagman, Banguilat, Drilon and
Pangilinan in the ranks of the opposition.
Then we have the anomaly of Bam Aquino entertaining the
thought of joining PDP-Laban, and Koko Pimentel open to the idea.
The thing is, these political anomalies are allowed by
voters who simply do not care, and who vote politicians into office not on the
basis of their legislative records, but on the strength of their surnames and
affinities.
A system with weak political parties, undisciplined
politicians and an electorate that votes not on the basis of issues but on the
basis of personalities can lead to a parliament that can have the same
supermajorities for long periods of time without any accountability. Such
majority will cobble majorities not on the basis of policy convergences but on
the basis of patronage. *
There are people who argue that a parliamentary system will
usher in the forces that can lead to the maturation of our party system, our
politicians and our electorate. This is a tall order.
Report from Manila Times
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