Charter change, but for only one reason

If the move for Charter change were for changing the form of government to a unitary parliamentary one, then we should all support it as a long-awaited game-changing development. We can then have a responsive government answerable to the people at any time. The United Kingdom, Israel, Singapore, and many progressive countries have changed the lives of their people for the better much faster than we have, with our 75 years of presidential rule. Maintaining two houses of Congress is costly and politically divisive.

The presidential system is corruption-laden; it has inbred and perpetuated family dynasties in government in almost all areas of power and influence. Pick any province, city, and municipality and you’d find that the same families pass on to each other, generation after generation, the political mantle of the locality. The political control goes all the way up to choosing the country’s president, with that political hold and patronage moving in a vicious circle.

A unitary parliamentary type of government makes possible an assemblage of varied parties in the body, elected by provinces and districts. The mandate to run the executive government will come from that assemblage, with the mandate of leadership that can be changed overnight if the assembly finds a lack of confidence in it, as dictated by public clamor for change. Countries with a parliamentary form of government, including the Scandinavian nations, had quick changes in leadership and developed faster economically since the parliamentary form is responsive and works for the general interest and needs of the people.

We should support a constitutional convention but only to have a unitary parliamentary government, and be able to elect its members to give us the best and the brightest. But if the Charter change proponents in Congress, now dominated by family dynasties, want to name themselves as the constituent assembly, then it would just be a huge waste of time and public funds.

Marvel K. Tan,

Quezon City