Where there’s a way

Rep. Jerry Treñas wants the Constitution amended so that P-Noy can run again. “This is the best time to change the Constitution,” he says, “because we may never have another chance to have a president who is proven not only as an honest and effective leader but also one who has no other ambition but to turn the Philippines into a great and progressive nation. We are sure that he will never abuse power. I think that we should not waste this opportunity.”

Treñas, of course, is not the first to say this, nor will he be the last. I don’t know that his proposal won’t find many sympathetic ears, particularly among the Liberal Party members who I suspect will make a big push for it over the next few months. But for a couple of reasons and not just one.

The first is the stated reason, which is to make P-Noy run again. He has, of course, repeatedly said he won’t, and there’s no reason to suppose he will turn his back on his word. Quite apart from that he takes pride in being a man of his word—certainly he wouldn’t want to do a Gloria who vowed not to run for president one Rizal Day but did anyway—he takes pride in his legacy, his mother leaving quietly after her term ended. But the Liberal Party has precious little choice. Its standard-bearer by universal reckoning cannot bear the standards. Maybe it figures P-Noy can be persuaded to change his mind by this show of universal acclaim.

Failing this, a change of constitution is eminently useful for one other purpose. That purpose is not the one Sonny Belmonte has been pitching for some time now, though only by way of an amendment and not a thoroughgoing constitutional overhaul. Which is to liberalize the rules on foreign investments, a thing that is happening anyway except that foreign investors are just using dummies. Opening up the economy, Belmonte says, will open up the country to enormous benefits. P-Noy has also not been supportive of it, but that’s another story.

That purpose is this: A constitutional change can give the LP a lease on life. In fact, it can make Roxas head of this country.

That is so specifically if the constitutional change turns the government into a parliamentary one.

Shifting to a parliamentary form of government has had a curious history in this country, curious largely being synonymous with shady. It has always been associated with presidents trying to extend their terms beyond those allowed by the Constitution.

It was Ferdinand Marcos’ first option to continue to rule past two presidential terms, mounting a constitutional convention in 1970 toward that end. Unfortunately for him, his efforts to bribe the delegates to his way of thinking were exposed by an honest man named Antonio Quintero. The convention dissolved a year later and Marcos went on to declare martial law, turning the government authoritarian instead. Though officially, he called it hybrid presidential and parliamentary, with himself as president and prime minister at the same time.

Fidel Ramos contemplated the same tack, making noises about the superiority of the parliamentary system over the presidential one. In theory, he had an ideological reason to do so, he was a professed social democrat after all, his party opting for “Christian-Muslim” in lieu of “Social” but with the same orientation. In practice, he had only a personal one; it was the only way he could extend his term. But fate, or Providence, or bad luck, in the form of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, got in his way, and overnight his plans vaporized faster than you could say “Philippines 2000.”

The LP doesn’t have that history hanging on its head, though it would if it were used to justify P-Noy running again. But it need not do so. It can always argue for a shift to a parliamentary system. That happens, and Roxas will have his crack at leading this country.

It is his only crack at doing so. I’ve said it from Day One after he lost his bid to become vice president from his commanding heights: The only way he can be head of the country is as prime minister.

He has something in common with Jose de Venecia in that respect. I said the same thing about De Venecia then: The only way he was going to become head of this country was as prime minister. That was because he ruled the ruling party. As Roxas does now. Roxas will not win in voting-at-large or open elections, one person one vote. But the LP wins the majority in parliamentary elections, and it can vote him in as prime minister.

What else is there for them? Roxas is popular only with the LP, and popular may be too excessive a word to use even with them. He is not popular, to put it kindly, with the populace, dooming him in open elections with each Filipino having one vote.

I believe him completely when he dismisses the idea of a Binay-Roxas tandem in 2016. At the very least, he has nothing to gain from it. Assuming, or presuming, he gets to win as vice president with Jojo Binay—when he couldn’t do it with P-Noy—he won’t have the run of Malacañang the way he has with P-Noy. At the very most, there’s the not very small matter of ego: His regard for Binay has always been inversely proportional to his regard for himself. Eat humble pie? Anything is possible in politics, but some are less possible than others.

Charter change is the only option that makes any sense for the survival of the LP. It won’t be easy, of course; even past advocates of Charter change would probably want to distance themselves from it. That is quite apart from the people themselves, whose only experience with parliamentary was with martial law’s unitary Interim Batasang Pambansa. I myself now only remember “IBP” as having the same acronym as “Ihaw Balot Plaza.” It won’t be easy, but well:

Where there’s a way, there’s a will.