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The Senate is having difficulty electing its
president. Manny Villar wants to retain his crown. So does Aquilino
Pimentel, previously also a Senate president.
Villar wants to win as Senate
president with the help of administration senators who number 10.
The opposition senators number 13, but they are not united. So you
have the situation of minority administration senators being able to
dictate what they want and getting the committees they want in
exchange for their vote for the Senate president. Sen. Panfilo
Lacson doesn’t want that. But what can he do? The Senate rules say
the Senate president must be elected by an absolute majority, 13
votes.
If Villar has got the 13, even if
some of those 13 come from the administration, he is the Senate
president.
The bickering over the Senate
presidency stems from a contest on another presidency, that of the
Philippines, in 2010 campaigning for which begins in two years.
Villar wants to be president.
Lacson wants to be president. So do newly elected Senators Loren
Legarda and Chiz Escudero and incumbents Mar Roxas and Dick Gordon.
That’s six senators wanting to
be president. Add to that the names of nonsenators like
Vice-President Noli de Castro, Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte
Jr. and tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan. That makes eight.
With eight running for president,
the country will end up with a minority president—a chief
executive not elected by the majority of voters.
Gloria Arroyo is a minority
President. She got only 40 percent of the votes cast for president
in 2004. Joseph Estrada was a minority President. He took 40 percent
of the vote in 1998. Fidel Ramos was a minority President. He made
barely 24 percent in 1992.
The last time a presidential
winner garnered majority of the votes cast, he was ousted. That was
Ferdinand Marcos. In the 1986 official count, the strongman
chalked up 53.6 percent of the vote. Housewife Corazon Aquino got 46
percent.
Aquino ended up being the
President, thanks to People Power. She quickly declared a
revolutionary government to stop those protesting her power grab.
Cory is to blame why since 1992,
we have had minority presidents. Through her 1987 Constitution, she
abolished the two-party system and installed the confusing
multiparty system (which benefits mainly the communists). She also
abolished the party inspector system that guaranteed an honest count
of votes at the precinct level. The result has been massive cheating
every election since then. So much for Cory being the mother of
democracy.
Before Cory started her political
reengineering, Philippine elections since 1945 had been contested by
just two major parties, the Nacionalista Party, founded in 1907, and
the Liberal Party in 1945. They took turns supplying Philippine
presidents.
To winnow the possible
presidents, the NP and the LP fielded the best men and women
candidates for senators during midterm elections. The topnotchers in
those elections usually challenged the incumbent president.
The two-party ensured three
things—quality senators, quality presidents and a more honest
count.
Remove the two-party system and
you get exactly the opposite—poor-quality senators, poor-quality
presidents and a fraudulent count.
Meanwhile, that so many people
want to run for president is amazing. President Arroyo has
repeatedly said the Philippines is one of the most difficult
countries to manage and its presidency is one of the most difficult
jobs in the world.
Indeed, in the last 30 years, the
Philippines has been the slowest growing economy per capita, in
Asia. It also has one of the worst income disparities in the world.
About two percent of the population owns 70 percent of the national
wealth.
One thing good about the 2010
presidential elections. Nearly all those dreaming of being or with
declared intentions to be president will have a track record of
competence and experience. However, none of them is an
economist—unlike GMA.
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