Interest Representation and Charter Change
In democratic systems whether under presidential or parliamentary models of government, the representation of various social interests is typically done through political parties contesting positions of authority through an electoral system. In our country’s long history of formal elections, one disturbing fact stands out. Up to now most of the elective positions, particularly in Congress, have been dominated by long established, traditional political clans or newly emergent political families. I submit that this is an indictment of our formal electoral democracy because the persistence and resilience of a political oligarchy also means that key economic and political resources continue to be largely controlled by a few families who can then translate these assets to enormous advantages during election time. It also means that major political parties continue to be controlled by powerful families and interest groups. What it means further is that the poor and the disadvantaged have very little effective means of representing their direct interests. Oftentimes, they end up being manipulated by elite parties and personalities; denied any effective participation in the formal governmental processes, they are forced to explore and engage in extra-legal processes inviting in turn the iron fist of government.

How are social interests to be officially represented? Again in democratic systems, the convenient system agreed upon is through an electoral system which, however, should be competitive and credible, with guarantees for the full exercise of political and civil rights. Lacking such an electoral system, the credibility and legitimacy of elected officials are bound to be challenged as dramatically demonstrated by Mrs. Arroyo’s continuing crisis.

Does the proposed shift to a parliamentary system address this problem at all and if so, how? I’m afraid that the proposed charter change to parliamentarism considers this a non-problem and in fact treats indecisively a partial recognition of this problem made by the 1987 constitution under a presidential system. I am referring to the party list system mandated by the present constitution which at least recognizes the need to formally represent through duly recognized parties the interests of the poor and disadvantaged. Unfortunately, the existing party list law is full of encumbrances which has severely constrained the ability of these parties to represent effectively the interests of their constituents. For instance, the current party list law leads to a severe fragmentation of parties arising from the relatively low threshold of votes required (2 percent of total votes cast for the party list) and the numerous parties allowed to run (66 parties in the 2004 elections!). Consequently, the maximum number of congressional seats allowed by the current party list law (50 seats) has not even been remotely filled up by the winning parties. In the 2004 elections, the 16 party list organizations which managed to get the minimum threshold vote of 2 percent could only fill up 25 seats or only 50 percent of the maximum allowed them. To strengthen the party list representation for the marginalized and disadvantaged sectors of society, one reform in the existing law worth addressing is the raising of the minimum threshold for congressional representation from 2 to 3 percent of the votes cast (preventing party fragmentation and strengthening their electoral mandate) and at the same time doing away with the maximum limit of 3 representatives for each winning party list and allotting votes on a system of strict proportionality. This worthwhile reform does not need a revision of the constitution and exemplifies a more productive and less divisive alternative approach to our problems which simply focuses on the enactment of specific legislation to meet new problems and the decisive enforcement of existing relevant laws.

Political Accountability and Charter Change
The second major issue that needs to be addressed by presidential or parliamentary systems is the accountability of elected officials. In mature working democracies, this process of accountability has normally been done through regular, credible elections which pass judgment on whether to reelect or reject candidates for public office. A complementary mechanism has been the use of the power and authority of intergovernmental offices as some sort of “check and balance” upon the performance
of public officials. This can be done through the judicial system and special agencies such as the Ombudsman, Commission on Audit, Human Rights Commission, or in the classic check and balance relationship between the executive and legislature in presidential systems.

As we all know, the accountability mechanisms in the Philippines either through elections or intergovernmental agencies have performed miserably because these have been weakly institutionalized and deeply politicized with the officials in command oftentimes lacking in professionalism and extremely vulnerable to political pressures. It is no wonder then that these weak mechanisms of official accountability have provoked social forms of accountability such as mass demonstrations and militant mobilizations expressing the people’s frustrations and desire for transparent forms of responsibility. Moreover, the weakness of legal forms of accountability can also politicize the military and provoke military intervention in governmental affairs.

The accountability problem assumes a new dimension in a proposed shift to a parliamentary system because in addition to the electoral process, the legislature (Parliament) through its political parties will serve as the main arena for working out accountability processes. With the fusion of executive and legislative powers and functions in the Parliament, accountability processes will be determined to a large extent by the level of discipline and professionalism of political parties as they interact with each other. Unfortunately, we also have a tradition of weakly institutionalized pseudo- political parties built around personalities rather than programmatic principles and this does not augur well at least for the transformative stages of any shift to parliamentarism. In fact, the proposed shift to a parliamentary system is such an ambitious if not a reckless undertaking considering the fact that, if I’m not mistaken, there has been no case so far of a presidential system shifting to parliamentarism.

Competing Claims of Presidentialism and Parliamentarism
Let me now focus on the main criticisms against the presidential system and examine how the shift to a parliamentary system is expected to address these problems. There are basically two major issues raised against the presidential system: first, that it is susceptible to legislative gridlocks especially when you have divided governments where the legislature is controlled by a party different from that of the president. Secondly, that it is difficult to get rid of bad presidents given their fixed terms of office and that protracted confrontations between the executive and the legislature can provoke either military interventions or direct people’s uprisings or a combination of both.

To understand better the proper context of these claims, we have to take into account the way that presidential and parliamentary systems combine with specific electoral systems which also help explain the nature of political parties in these systems. In the Philippine experience, the problem of legislative gridlock in the face of divided governments has been largely tempered by the greater power and control of resources enjoyed by the president over the legislature. Moreover, the weakness of political parties in the country also means that the president largely succeeds in reconstructing and realigning party loyalties in her favor even if initially her formal party is in the minority. This has been true for all presidents elected with minority party support in the Congress.

The proponents of parliamentarism argue that legislative gridlocks will be avoided with the fusion of executive and legislative powers and with the leader of the majority party or coalition automatically becoming the head of government. Again this assumes that the parliament is constituted of largely well-disciplined parties and with a level of party fragmentation (number of effective parties) and polarization (ideological distance between parties) that is fairly manageable. As seen in our current electoral system which combines plurality single member constituencies and party-list proportional representation systems, there is a great likelihood that under a parliamentary system with the same electoral system we shall also have numerous parties (high fragmentation) with relatively high ideological polarization (with the ideologically-oriented parties under the party list system) and uncertain levels of party discipline. In short, under these conditions the Prime Minister and her cabinet may be representing not so much a single majority party but a coalition of diverse parties where necessary interparty negotiations on key policies could be difficult and protracted.

The second major criticism against presidential systems focuses on the problem of getting rid of bad presidents because of their fixed terms and the difficulty of the impeachment process. In another sense, however, this provides the president with a level of stability that helps insulate the office from highly partisan, immediate pressures and also a predictable time horizon with which to plan and implement policy. For advocates of parliamentarism, this problem is largely avoided through the mechanism of the “vote of confidence” procedure under which inept prime ministers and their cabinet can be forced to resign or call for special elections before the legal end of their mandated term of office. However, this will not work when the majority party or coalition stands united; or in situations of unstable coalition parties, the “vote of confidence” mechanism can be abused and could also lead to political instability.
Efficacy of Institutional Change

We now know from the vast literature on institutions (and that includes constitution-making) that the efficacy of institutional changes can only be understood when such processes are seen in the context of their complex interactions with the historical and socio-economic environment and with other institutions, both formal and informal. What this means is that we should be extremely careful in attributing any causal effect to any single institution such as a presidential or parliamentary system independently of its interaction with other institutions and structures in society. Consider for instance a socio-economic environment where poverty, unemployment and severe class inequalities are deeply rooted, where armed revolutionary or separatist movements continue to thrive, where the military is highly politicized, and where a tradition of civil society militancy exists and one can appreciate how our most cherished assumptions and expectations about either presidentialism or parliamentarism are bound to be modified in the real world.

Drawing on the comparative political evidence worldwide on presidentialism and parliamentarism, we can in fact say that: “Neither logic nor empirical evidence sustains the conclusion that parliamentary systems in and of themselves outperform presidential systems,”1 as aptly put by a recent major work on comparative democratic systems. What this means is that we should be extremely careful in attributing any causal effect to any single institution such as a presidential or parliamentary system independently of its interaction with other institutions and structures in society. In concrete terms, it would thus be misleading to simply say that the presidential system is the cause of our political crisis or that the parliamentary system is the magic bullet that will cure all our political and economic problems.

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1Seymour Martin Lipset and Jason M. Lakin, The Democratic Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), p. 45.
* A briefing paper read before a forum on Charter Change hosted by Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, and Gabriela Women’s Party at the Batasan, House of Representatives, 1 February 2006. Other speakers included Fr. Joaquin Bernas of Ateneo de Manila Univeristy and Atty. Neri Colmenares of Codal.
** Currently professor of comparative politics at the International Christian University of Tokyo; Formerly professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines; Political Analyst, Member, Board of Directors, Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG).