Malacañang’s omnipresence

WHILE WAITING for the final cast of contenders in the 2016 political extravaganza, I invite voters to seriously rethink the rationality and practicality of a government framework in which the delivery of public services—from revenue collection to traffic management to urban housing and even to the anticorruption portfolio—all intersect in Malacañang.

Every Filipino with common sense intact knows that the president’s strong influence in all matters of government is the very life source of political patronage. This is a bitter lesson learned from the Marcos dictatorship and the five presidencies that came after (two of those presidents also trekked the path of plunder. Every Filipino knows first-hand how destructive patronage politics has been for the country. Flip through the pages of this newspaper and the evidence will reveal itself.

The challenge, therefore, is to find ways to reconfigure executive authority in order to minimize, if not remove, Malacañang’s hovering presence in the overall administration of government. There are two ways to accomplish this and the first is constitutional reform.

South Korea’s executive structure in its constitution is worth emulating here. Article 66 (4) of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea explicitly provides: “Executive power shall be vested in the Executive Branch headed by the President.” The other members of the executive branch are the prime minister (Article 86) and the Supreme Council (Article 88).

The State Council is composed of the president, the prime minister, and at least 15 other members. It is mandated to deliberate on important policies that fall within the power of the executive such as “budgets, settlement of accounts, basic plans for disposal of state properties, contracts incurring financial obligation on the State, and other important financial matters; demarcation of jurisdiction between Executive Ministries; evaluation and analysis of the administration of State affairs; formulation and coordination of important policies of each Executive Ministry,” to name a few.

The most notable difference in the South Korean model is that executive power is vested on an institution, not a person. Under this framework, the exercise of executive authority is enhanced by the intrinsic collective and consultative underpinnings of its collegial structure.

Correspondingly, the most profound impact of adopting such a constitutional arrangement is the diminution of the alter-ego principle inherent in our executive configuration—a feature that has given rise to the much despised “pleasuring the president doctrine.”

Creative legalists in the executive ranks have traditionally asserted this rule to mean that they hold their posts at the complete sufferance of their boss (aka padrino), thus transforming this legal notion into a chronically abused excuse to cling a little bit more to one’s office. And in most cases, much to the displeasure of the public.

But the most objectionable aspect of this “privilege” is that it allows Cabinet secretaries and other officials of similar stature to deflect demands of accountability. Indeed, most often than not, the prerogative of pleasuring the president is used to bury irregularities in some offices within the executive branch.

The indiscriminate use of this rule is an absolute travesty because a public office is a public trust: All public officials, including the president, serve at our pleasure above all else!

The second way is structural reform through legislation. Congress can help relieve Malacañang’s chokehold on government administration by institutionalizing the involvement of the community in the various offices in the executive branch.

In other countries, nongovernment sectors play an increasingly important role in designing and executing policies and services. The fact is some public goods are best delivered by decentralized specialist agencies that are managed by public servants with the appropriate specialized skills.

An example here is disaster risk reduction and management, which, recent experiences show, is a highly complex undertaking. The concerns are not limited to having an evacuation plan and ensuring the timely delivery of relief goods. The more pressing matters range from recalibrating how homes and buildings are designed and built to make them more resilient, to possibly altering or modifying the topography of flood-prone areas to create new waterways, catchments, even wetlands.

Sadly, the Malacañang-centric model still prevails in the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council as organized under Republic Act No. 10121. Section 5 fills this body with 34 members who all have institutional links to the Palace. Only five slots are reserved for the private sector.

Compare this model to the Victoria State Emergency Service in Australia, which is governed by a board of directors accountable to Victoria’s state government and run by an executive management team. Board members and managers all possess a wealth of experience in emergency services, finance and business. This office even has a director for emergency management planning and communications, the incumbent of which is touted to have “over 15 years of marketing and communications experience and over eight years in emergency management planning.”

The organizational difference between these two government agencies is painfully obvious. And it does not bode well for Filipinos when disaster risk reduction and management are left to officials whose minds are ever dominated by politicking (i.e., being at the beck and call of their padrino).

In sum, a “presidentiable” who concedes that Malacañang’s omnipresence has severely stifled political and economic development is a true reformer. One who will also consider the reforms outlined here to stem a president’s increasing dominance in state affairs is a genuine revolutionary.

Therefore, as we contend with the harsh reality that the management of our government has not departed far from the Marcos mold, it will be helpful to keep this anomaly in mind when evaluating those aspiring for the presidency in 2016. The fate of the country will quite literally be in the hands of the one who will win.

Michael Henry Ll. Yusingco, a practicing lawyer, is the author of the book “Rethinking the Bangsamoro Perspective.” He conducts research on current issues in state-building, decentralization and constitutionalism.