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By Rene Q. Bas, Editor in Chief
DON’T blame President Gloria M. Arroyo.
As long as the discussion is confined to
politics in purely materialistic, social science terms, stop blaming
President Arroyo for the sudden disappearance of the political
balance of power among the three branches of government.
She and her allies—including those honorable
justices of the Supreme Court who voted to exalt her and Secretary
Romulo Neri’s executive privilege at the expense of the Senate’s
right to conduct an investigation of a government deal tainted with
bribery and overpricing attempts—have only been taking advantage
of rules, laws and Constitutional provisions that give the
Philippine presidency huge powers over the other two branches of
government and the entire width and breadth of the executive
department.
Yes, that situation chokes our republican
democracy, which can thrive for the common good only when the checks
and balances dynamic between the executive, the legislative and the
judicial departments work.
But don’t say it is GMA’s fault. The means
for her to exercise overarching control over the Congress, the
treasury, the local governments, the military and the police—and
to benefit from the decisions of the High Court—were all given to
her by the system, by laws and by our culture.
As analyst Juan T. Gatbonton writes (“See
Democratizing our imperial presidency”), the Philippine presidency
“has been accumulating near-monarchic majesty.”
Lack of accountability
The Filipino president does not have to behave
with a thought to being accountable to anybody (although many pages
of the law books and the Constitution are about accountability) as
long as he has a massive majority in Congress to ensure surviving
any impeachment effort.
The Philippine president can function completely
without regard to the fear of being held accountable to anybody—if
he holds the House majority. For impeachment by the House is the
only way to hold him liable and, after conviction in the Senate
acting as an impeachment court, mete out his punishment which is
dismissal from the presidency.
Otherwise, there is no way to make a Philippine
president answer to any accusation of misbehavior, graft and
corruption and other crimes. (See “Freed from accountability, a
one-term president has vast powers over bureaucracy and the
treasury.”)
This lack of accountability comes from the
removal of that basic tool of the citizenry to deny re-election to a
bad president. Our Constitution’s “no re-election” rule
deprives citizens of the power to check an incumbent president,
short of a people-power uprising.
Only through free, fair—and
frequent—elections can citizens retain final control over the
public agenda.
Influence on the courts
The Philippine president’s influence over the
courts, including the Supreme Court itself, comes both from our
culture’s deference to the virtue of utang-na-loob and the
Constitution’s granting the presidency the power to appoint High
Court justices without these having to be confirmed by the
Commission on Appointments.
As a result of the SC’s 9-6 vote in favor of
the Palace on the Neri v. Senate Committee on Accountability case,
Chief Justice Reynato Puno has been reported to now be worrying that
by next year all but two of the 15 justices would be President
Arroyo’s appointees. The only exceptions by then would only be
Chief Justice Puno himself, an appointee of President Fidel V.
Ramos, and Justice Antonio Carpio, an appointee of President Joseph
Estrada.
Power over brueaucracy
The Philippine president has power to appoint
bureaucrats down to assistant-director level, as well as officers of
public corporations. Recently retired Civil Service Commissioner
Karina David described how the Philippine president can politicize
what should be an apolitical government bureaucracy by being the
godfather of up to 10,000 or about half of the key government
positions. Even the World Bank has shaken its head over the power of
the president of the civil service.
Power of the budget secretary
Since the Marcos era, the president has had the
power to realign the budget. Present laws have allowed that practice
to continue, which has emasculated the Congress’ so-called power
of the purse.
Our Senior Reporter Efren Danao explains.
“Not one but two laws of martial law vintage
are gnawing away at the supposedly inherent power of Congress to
appropriate. Besides Presidential Decree 1177 that ostensibly seeks
to reform the budget process, another Marcos-era issuance, PD 1597,
contributes to the continuing erosion of Congress’ power of the
purse.
“PD 1177 grants Malacañang the power to cut
and realign items in the executive budget and provides for the
automatic appropriation of debt services. With this power, the
annual budget ceases to look like the one passed by Congress after
so much hard work. Malacañang can refuse to release funds for
projects it did not like, even if these are favored by congressmen
or senators. With its automatic appropriation, the payment of debts
often went higher than the amount pegged in the budget.
“PD 1597, on the other hand, gives the
President the authority to grant government employees allowances,
honoraria and other fringe benefits. Malacañang has interpreted PD
1597 to mean that it can increase the salaries of those in
government even without legislation.
“In March 2007, President Arroyo issued
Administrative Order 144 granting government employees a 10-percent
hike in pay and a P1,000 increase in the monthly allowances for
soldiers and policemen. It is noteworthy that before she issued the
EO, the 2007 national budget pending before a bicameral committee
had also recommended the same increase in pay and allowances. The EO
appropriated P10.3 billion for the pay and allowances hike for 2007.
“Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. defended
the legality of AO 144, saying it is authorized under PD 1597.
“President Arroyo is not the first president
after Marcos to invoke PD 1597. President Fidel V. Ramos invoked it
to increase the monthly allowance of those in government by P500,
and by President Joseph Estrada in 1999 to increase the subsistence
allowance for uniformed personnel.”
Power over LGUs
The Philippine president is not only the final
chief of every executive department official of the land.
Presidential supervision and control of governors, mayors and
barangay chiefs is through the Secretary of the Interior and Local
Governments.
But the president of this country also has the
power to withhold the money all LGUs need for their
operation—especially the poor provinces and towns.
Political power is exercised in this case not
from the barrel of a gun but through the DBM and the banks. LGUs not
friendly or outrightly opposed to the politics of the occupant of
Malacañang can be deprived of their rightful share of the Internal
Revenue Allocation.
Pimentel on presidency
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. is
the “father of the Local Government Code.”
Our columnist Julius Fortuna recorded
Pimentel’s recent discourse on the presidency. He had just
returned in February from Mexico attending a conference on ideal
government structures for Third World countries when Pimentel gave
these insights.
“In our experience, weak political parties,
weak judicial structures and weak legislatures have all contributed
to the emerging phenomenon of an imperial presidency. This
characterization of the presidency as imperial means that in the
context of the political structure now obtaining, the President
overwhelms the other two co-equal branches, the legislature and the
judiciary.
“Weak political parties fail to act as a sieve
against the surfacing of mediocre personalities contending for the
presidency. Instead of insuring that only the best and the brightest
should have the opportunity to serve as the president of the nation,
they cater to the passions of the day and abet the election of the
person who can best deliver patronage benefits.
“The weak parties also produce weak members of
the legislature who tend to gratify the base wishes of their
constituents rather than work for the good of the nation.
“Negatively, the cumulative effect of the
weaknesses adverted to makes the president not only primus inter
pares among the supposedly co-equal branches of government but the
dominant force in the entire political spectrum of the country.
“And positively, the constitutional power of
appointment the president has over the major functionaries of
government from the Cabinet ministers or secretaries as we call them
back home to the ambassadors, to the officials of constitutional
bodies like the Ombudsman and the Commission on Human Rights, to
military officers from the rank of colonel to the top police
officers and to the directors of government-owned corporations makes
him or her a superpower in the political firmament of the nation.
“On paper, the legislature is vested with the
power to check presidential appointments but because of the
weaknesses earlier adverted to by and large the president gets to
appoint his or her personal supporters to choice positions in the
political arm of the government or even to judicial seats.
“Because the president is the dominant force
in the nation’s political spectrum, he or she determines which
bloc or coalition of blocs becomes the majority party in the
legislature. Whoever is president, in fact, becomes a magnet that
draws lawmakers from whatever party to his or her political party or
coalition which thus becomes the majority of the ruling party.
“The fact that the president has the power to
create the majority in the legislature is bolstered mainly by his or
her power over the purse. This is true even if under our
Constitution, it is the legislature that enacts a national budget.
The money, thus, appropriated may, however, only be disbursed by
authority of the president. In our case now as opposition members of
the Senate, we find the releases of funds for projects that we
recommend difficult to come by. It was not so before the present
administration.
“The President is the Commander-in-Chief of
all armed forces of our country and whenever it becomes necessary,
he or she may call out the armed forces to prevent or suppress
lawless violence, invasion or rebellion.
“In the recent past, the president had called
out the armed forces to the capital city of Manila ostensibly to
suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion even if actually
nonexistent. And when concerned citizens contest such calls, the
judiciary felt reluctant to censure her move especially when at the
time of the decision was forthcoming, the soldiers were made to
return to the barracks.
“The President has full powers to restructure
the executive department that under the Constitution is under her
“control and supervision.” In general, that means that she may
reassign or reduce the personnel of the various cabinet departments
and realign their budgets. The incumbent has even tinkered with the
legal functions of certain offices attached to certain departments
by transferring them to other offices.
“The tendency, however, in the country today
is for the delivery especially of major services to be done only
upon orders of the President and her underlings in the Cabinet who
hold office in Manila.
“I suppose that the problems we face in the
country today are not merely due to the presidential form of
government. It has also to do with the kind of people that we elect
to be our leaders. Somebody has said that a people deserve the
government that they elect.”
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