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Our 1987 Constitution limits a president to only one term of six
years.
This limitation was supposed to keep presidents
from ruling for life, as the late Ferdinand Marcos was about to do.
Temptation to bad governance
But six years with no re-election tempts a
president to ignore the tenets of good governance and make the most
of what he has for himself—to hell with public accountability,
opinion polls and exhortations from the churches.
And it harms Philippine republican democracy by
taking away from the citizenry a valuable means to check presidents
and their ruling parties. That ability to check was available to
them under the 1935 Constitution. It is possessed by American voters
whose presidential system we Filipinos, whether we admit it or not,
wish we had. That means is the possibility of voting against a bad
president seeking re-election.
Our present system’s no re-election rule makes
citizens helpless for six years against a president they do not
trust and respect.
A president who knows he has six years to
indulge himself with the powers of his office can ignore public
opinion without fear of losing anything—except being charged with
criminal wrongdoing at the end of his term.
But he can easily arrange for his and his
confederates’ safety by using his overarching powers over the
government’s bureaucracy and treasury.
The only recourse for the people is impeachment.
But an elected president supported by a big majority in the House of
Representatives—and steeled by a deformed conscience that will not
shrink from ensuring his command of the majority by hook or by
crook—will never get impeached, given all the powers available to
him.
Only through free, fair—and
frequent—elections can citizens retain final control over the
public agenda. This is no longer possible in the Philippines under
our 1987 Constitution.
Powers over the bureaucracy
Under the Constitution, the Philippine president
has power to appoint bureaucrats down to assistant-director level,
as well as officers of public corporations, whose financial
resources are formidable.
While the American president can only appoint at
most 800 bureaucrats, and the British prime minister only 200, the
Philippine president—according to the valedictory speech of the
much-admired Karina Constantino-David, speaking at the Makati
Business Club virtually on the eve of her retirement as Civil
Service Commissioner—appointed half of the 6,000 managerial
positions in the government, which, she said, leads to a “messy
equation.” The World Bank estimates the Philippine president has
power to appoint 4,800 top to middle-level bureau heads and
assistants.
Karina Constantino-David said career-level
employees of the government such as undersecretaries, assistant
secretaries and directors are the ones most vulnerable to political
pressures. Definitely, she said, the “high-level positions in the
government are being controlled by political padrinos or politicians
themselves” and these are of course wielding power derived from
the president.
All in all, she said, the president is allowed
to appoint at least 10,000 people to fill government positions.
Powers over govt money
The Philippine president has control of
government money—whether it is the share of a province, city or
town of the Internal Revenue Allotment or the pork barrel budgeted
for every congressman and senator, in addition to calamity funds and
various development funds such as that now being spent to solve the
rice crisis.
This control over the purse strings make it
possible for a president to command unbeatable majorities in the
House of Representatives, enforce the obeisance of governors, mayors
and barangay leaders and—despite a president’s
unpopularity—continue to have a substantial number of
citizen-loyalists to come forward and hold pro-administration
rallies especially when the president comes to town.
Governors and mayors who do not kowtow to the
president most often do not get their allocations on time and in
full. Especially for poor local government units, the IRA allocation
is the only source of funds.
In Camarines Sur, the opposition mayor of the
fourth-class town of San Fernando told The Manila Times that he has
not received a centavo of the town’s IRA since the year began.
The law of course requires the Malacañang
Department of Budget and Management to release IRA funds in full to
all local government units regardless of the political affiliation
of their political leaders.
The mayor is retired Army Captain Fermin Mabulo,
34, who got elected as a part of the Magdaló political group of
former Navy Lieutenant Antonio Trillanes 4th who had run and won
(with the United Opposition) a Senate seat. Mabulo, with then-Lt.
Trillanes, was an Oakwood Mutiny participant.
Mayor Mabulo told The Times the municipal
treasurer thinks the release of the IRA will come next month. One
whole quarter’s delay is apparently normal.
San Fernando, Camarines Sur’s experience, is
normal for opposition bailiwicks. But not for the cities of Manila,
Makati and Pasay—all governed by oppositionists.
The cities ruled by Mayor Alfredo Lim of Manila,
Mayor Jejomar Binay of Makati (who is also the president of the
United Opposition) and Mayor Peewee Trinidad of Pasay have all been
getting their IRA in full and on time, the treasurers of these
cities told The Times.
Power over pork barrel
But the pork barrel—or the Priority
Development Assistance Fund, which used to be called the Countrywide
Development Fund—is not being given by Malacañang to Senator
Trillanes. Trillanes had applied for his full P200-million pork
barrel or PDAF share in 2007. He named specific hospitals he was
giving shares of the money to. He talked to the DBM executives and
applied for the funds. Until now, no money has been released, so for
2008 he has not bothered to file for his PDAF allocation.
Sen. Mar Roxas, president of the Liberal Party,
is not one of the favored senators who are getting their PDAF from
the Palace. Senator Lacson does not get any because he has rejected
the pork barrel system and wants it abolished anyway.
Senator Chiz Escudero told The Times: “No, I
have not been able to use the CDF [PDAF] that should go to my
district in Sorsogon since the tile in 2005 that we in the
opposition filed the impeachment case in the Lower House. This is no
longer surprising to me and to my fellow opposition lawmakers. What
is most disheartening about this policy is that the administration
doesn’t seem to realize that they have some supporters among the
constituents of elected opposition congressmen and senators. These
members of our constituencies suffer the consequences of the PDAF
withheld.”
Administration spokesmen, however, reply to this
by claiming that the money is sent directly to the towns and
provinces of the opposition lawmakers. If this is the case, then the
administration could be violating the law. For the pork barrel funds
are specifically allotted to every individual congressman and
senator.
Congress’ power of the purse
The power given by law to presidents to
“realign the budget” also gives tremendous power that veritably
does away with the Constitutionally enshrined principle of the
“power of the purse” granted to Congress.
Although some rules do limit the realignments
that a president can do, the fact that he can shift money around,
contrary to what the actual appropriations measure says because that
was the will of the lawmakers who deliberated and debated the
provisions of the law, the president is in reality the true ruler of
the country’s coffers.
-- Rhaydz Barcia, Rommel Lontayao, Jason Cruz Luna and
Katrina Mennen Valdez
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