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We offer today this space to Sen. Aquilino Pimentel who has just
come from Mexico to attend a conference on ideal government
structures for Third World countries. His insights on our theory and
practice of presidential form—its gridlocks, its weak institutions
and political parties—should form part of the debate when we
decide to reexamine our Constitution.
“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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