The Philippine election system is flawed and produces mostly dishonest and selfish government leaders. It is flawed not only in the sense that the counting of votes is conducive to rampant manipulation. Our present system also essentially requires every candidate to spend an unreasonably huge amount of money for the campaign.
Thus, first in the mind of newly elected politicians is how to recover those election expenses. After recovering the “investments” through the illicit and immoral use of their newly acquired power, they work to similarly generate funds for the next elections. By this time, they would have lost all their scruples. Once they have saved enough to ensure reelection, stealing would have become a habit. They then go on to acquire more and more, in order to continuously satisfy a luxurious lifestyle that, by then, has become part of their social and political status.
Since almost all of our political leaders go through this route of political spending, cheating and stealing, we continuously suffer from corrupt leadership. After all, what can we expect of a nation led mostly by thieves and cheats?
As most of our politicians are irreversibly corrupt, they are rich only in rhetoric and promises but utterly poor in delivery. Worst, there is no longer a government institution we can trust. Even the Supreme Court, for good reason, is now widely perceived to have been corrupted by power and money. Clearly, our present system has miserably failed our people. If we allow our present political leaders to continue with their merry but corrupt ways they will bring us to the gutter. That is, if we are not yet there.
Our nation does not lack competent and honest men, but because we have a corrupt election system, we find it impossible to elect even a few good men.
It is, therefore, only through a direct exercise of our sovereign right as a people that we can break the chains that tie us to a flawed and destructive political system—by instituting an interim government through extraconstitutional measure. Such an initiative is legitimate, and it is our only remaining road to freedom. As the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 when it decided on the legitimacy of the Cory administration, “it is an inherent right of the people to cast out their rulers, change their policy or effect radical reforms in their system of government or institution by force or a general uprising when the legal and constitutional methods of making change have proved inadequate or are so obstructed as to be available.”
It is treason not to do anything about our country’s continuing journey to destruction.
GUILLERMO G. CUNANAN, gerrycunanan@gmail.com