I was really hoping something like this would happen with a post on the outstanding Filipino Voices website last January entitled, The Vice Presidency As a Sword of Damocles. In what I believe to be a brilliant and laudable political move, SENATOR FRANCIS “KIKO” PANGILINAN has just announced his intention to run for the Vice Presidency in the 2010 national elections. He was flanked by his wife, Megastar SHARON CUNETA (who is now a likely shoe-in to become Second Lady if the hordes of loyal Sharonians have anything to say about it) when he made known his plans at Get-Out-Vote Rock Concert. The move suggests a savvy appreciation of the huge potential for a 2010 youth vote with that sector now accounting for reportedly 60% of the electorate. Whoever gets them registered and involved, as Kiko now intends, will reap huge benefits unavailable to the less imaginative. Kudos to Kiko for a move that has political ambition writ in the large letters of Statesmanship and Democracy, a rare combination in these demoralized times!
A curious feature of the 1987 Constitution is that the President and Vice President are not elected as a team or ticket, like they are in the United States, but instead, run in simultaneous but separate elections for the two posts. Therefore, it is always possible for the people to elect a President with an opposition Vice President that could replace him or her in case something goes wrong, in effect placing a Sword of Damocles over the throne in the Palace in case Damocles rules unjustly. This makes the Vice Presidency a worthy and separate goal of lofty, or craven, political ambition. Who would make a good fiscalizing vice president in 2010?
In 1998 Joseph Estrada beat Jose de Venecia for President, but his running mate, Edgardo Angara lost to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for Vice President. Of course, we know what happened soon after that when Erap was impeached and virtually acquitted, yet said Vice President was sworn in as President by someone wearing the official uniform of the Chief Justice of SCoRP, but who had no conceivable personal or official business being there on that particularly bright Saturday in January 2001. But the legality of the Edsa Dos transition is a separate issue, and is in some sense a smaller point of significance than the demonstration of the vice presidency’s full potential for “regime change.” In 2004, the other side of the coin showed and the people (or was it Garci) elected Gloria and Noli together.
This larger point is that the electorate can hedge its bet on the President by choosing a Vice President who may not be inclined to just sit back as a Spare Tire, but may be determined to act as a super-fiscalizer to the President with his or her own Bully Pulpit. Although the Vice President would not have the resources or immediate command of the executive as the elected President, nonetheless he or she could pose a threat, or perhaps a check and balance to the President.
Article VII The Executive Dept
Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in the President of the Philippines.Section 2. No person may be elected President unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of age on the day of the election, and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding such election.
Section 3. There shall be a Vice-President who shall have the same qualifications and term of office and be elected with, and in the same manner, as the President. He may be removed from office in the same manner as the President.
The Vice-President may be appointed as a Member of the Cabinet. Such appointment requires no confirmation.
Section 4. The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date, six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any re-election. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time.
No Vice-President shall serve for more than two successive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of the service for the full term for which he was elected.
…
It is well worth noticing also that the possibility of serving for more than six years as President can only be attained under the 1987 charter by first becoming the Vice President and somehow succeeding to the higher office through death, resignation, permanent disability or impeachment, conviction and removal from office of the President. This feat has already been achieved by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, with disastrous effects. But the larger point is that it can be done again, intentionally.
Considering the large number of presidentiables already semaphoring their intentions to run for President, perhaps some of them ought to look with more imaginative eyes at the Vice Presidency and the unique possibilities of that office. The younger or less winnable candidates for the Presidency might find it profitable to aim a little lower, though it is likely the crowd for that office will grow and the race for veep even more competitive. The reason being that whether a vice president behaves in opposition to the President or not, another rule of thumb seems to be that the Vice President is an automatic top contender for President in the next election cycle.
The big, portentous question now is: who might he run with??
Popularity: 1% [?]
So what’s the slogan — “Elect me as VP so I can be President with EDSA Three”?
What about “Elect me VP and I’ll tear down the VFP… errrr.. VFA.”
UP n grad,
The lesson of the civil rights movement in America in the last century was to get out the vote by helping constituencies likely to be sympathetic to a cause or candidate get registered and active in the political process. With the youth sector estimated to be 57% to 60% of the electorate next year, those who are focusing on it like a laser beam (Chiz, now Kiko) are on the right track in my opinion.
And sure, just to show you that I am fair minded by appreciating the good in any candidate, I have vehemently disagreed with Kiko on his positions on RP US relations. Still do. So what?
Enough politics already! Pleeez lang!!! Politics is no-brainer.
It’s all about money, money, money, money! Deal with it! No matter how you look at your crystal ball ….
Hey Renato Pacifico, why not pay the SHARONIANS a visit and spend some time with them. They would really love to have your company, which always sounds like this:
Pretty please?
It’s amazing how you manage to troll through many of the Filipino Voices articles with such zeal. It must take a lot of effort to be a vile human being.
The 60% youth component of the whole voting population is truly a Skinnerian inducement by itself and the takers are more precisely, the vicious opportunists skilled in opportunism.
There is nothing in our collective memory of a Vice President who acted true to form as – fiscalizer or the president’s check and balance, hell none.
I cannot in conscience go for a kiko unless the indelible ink in our collective memory can be erased since he figured, more prominently, in adopting to the “noted” political stratagem to shove aside the observations of anomaly during the canvassing of votes.
Sometimes, people can skillfully project sadly devastatingly good image before the camera and it is their way to ‘political stardom’. Well-intentioned leadership is certainly another issue.
But Primer, did not Gloria Macapagal Arroyo resign as DSWD secretary under Erap after the revelations of Chavit in October, 2001? And did not the vice president then become the president, a scant two months later?!
Surely this development is in our “collective memory” of what a vice president can and ought to do.
Indeed, was not the Vice Presidency the launching ground for Erap’s historic 1998 bid and victory?
Remember, it was only in the 1987 Constitution that the Presidency and Vice Presidency were ELECTORALLY decoupled.
This is a structural change that is vastly under-appreciated as to its political and indeed fiscalizing potential.
The 1987 charter allows the Vice Presidency to be OPPOSITION, according to the people’s will. They took advantage of that when they made Gloria the Veep in 1998 after putting Erap in Malacanang Palace!
They will again in 2010, I bet.
Correction, I mean October 2000 when Chavit revealed an alleged assassination attempt on him by Erap’s men. Then Cardinal Sin called for Erap to resign in early November a week later GMA did resign and a week after that, in mid November Manny Villar transmitted the historic impeachment complaint against Erap to the SEnate for trial. In very large measure, the availability of a Vice President who had topped the Senate race in 1995 went a long way towards the acceptability of removing the president.
The Veep is Sword of Damocles!
Primer,
Wala namang okay na politiko sayo eh. Skinnerian schimmerian opportunerian, government is just trash to you.
in philippine history, was there ever ” a good fiscalizing vice president “?
History tends to point to Emmanuel Pelaez as someone who might have at least tried to be one, but I’m not old enough to know.
DJB,
This is really interesting. Hope to see more people getting involved in the debates on the Vice Presidency. I also hope that more of our countrymen realize the imporatance of participating in our counrty’s electoral system–join the discussions; get registered, vote and protect your votes. And do not just “leave” your elected officials once they’re sworn into office–ensure that they perform and govern well.
Just wondering. Did resident grammarian DJB purposely spell it shoe-in in lieu of commonly used shoo-in, which originated as a racetrack term, with naughty reference to Pangilinan’s now plus-size wife?
A race horse so fast that you can merely shoo it across the finish line rather than having to urge it on with stronger measures is a “shoo-in”: an easy winner. It is particularly unfortunate when this expression is misspelled “shoe-in” because to “shoehorn” something in is to squeeze it in with great difficulty.
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/shoe-in.html
Just a bit of humor. HiHiHi.
Dear DJB,
Senator Pangilinan also said he is “inclined to do a repeat of what he did in 2007″– run INDEPENDENT in 2010… for VP!
Quixotic or astute?
That also casts your question “who might he run with?” in a whole different light! Does that mean he’s running independent sans presidential running-mate? Or will he pick a presidential candidate from left-of-field? Another maverick maybe?
It will be interesting…
The US POTUS/VPOTUS joint team ensures consistency in the President’s agenda.
The RP POTUS/VPOTUS disjointed team ensures inconsistency in this insane piece of real estate made up of 7,100 islands during high tide.
So it’s Manny-Kiko. with the latter and his wife acting as deodorant for Manny. Must have be a brainstorm by Joker
a vice president is absolutely “nothing” without the president’s backing. how can the former “fiscalize” the latter? unless given a decent portfolio by the chief executive, a veep has no soap box, let alone a bully pulpit, to influence anything. he can have a #2 carplate and attend ceremonial functions and that’s about it. no power, no influence, no voice, but plenty of time for politicking. kiko must be dreaming “running” as independent. and then what? pay homage to the elected president to wangle a “real” job?
Folks that want to continue to get DJB’s comments about this blogthread may want to post their comments at:
http://philippinecommentary.blogspot.com/2009/05/kudos-to-kiko.html
Reason : see DJB’s open letter to Nick.