Are we headed for a new day of enlightened governance where institutions work in harmony and give flesh to a democracy of checks and balances?
Or will we be treated to governance marked by the political gridlock between a reformist executive and a legislature with the Speaker of the House dispensing patronage politics as mastered by tradpols and power brokers?
We ask these in the face of the haughty trial balloon let loose by subalterns of outgoing President Gloria Magapagal Arroyo: that she will be installed as Speaker after she handily wins the congressional seat for Pampanga’s 2nd district while 160 other Lakas-Kampi-CMD congressmen are re-elected.
Add to that number the sitting Cabinet members seeking seats in either the Senate or the House without being required to resign, thanks to that abomination of a Supreme Court decision that threw out the age old prohibition on civil servants using their positions to engage in partisan political activity.
With expectations that LP standard bearer Noynoy Aquino will win on May 10, Filipinos may end up having political adversaries separately heading the executive and legislative branches, with Arroyo appointees imperiously holding fort in the Supreme Court.
What we’ll have then is the legislative mill setting its activities at cross purposes with Malacanang.
A school of thought may posit that Aquino as President would have the edge given its control over the newly enacted P 1.5-T national budget.
Still, Arroyo as Speaker may very well still buy the loyalty of the larger majority of congressmen given Congress’s own huge budget and ability to make noise about the release of pork barrel allocations.
A legislature hostile to the Executive can also attempt to delay action on reforms initiated by an Aquino presidency.
Verily, at the very outset Aquino will be expected to exercise steely political will and prevent a potentially obstructionist Speaker from holding hold his young presidency hostage.
It ain’t all that gloomy, some may even say
What if Manny Villar scores the upset his henchmen claim he will.
With critics portraying the NP standard bearer as Gloria’s Trojan horse then you’ll probably have more of the status quo: an administration unwilling to be accountable for its actions and adept at the politics of obfuscation.
Imagine that: a President Villar, and a Speaker Arroyo.
How’s that for ‘a government of the people, for the people, and by the people’?
Postscript
A fourth, more dreadful scenario could actually be added here: the failure of elections.
I leave that for others to reflect on, for now,
Popularity: 1% [?]
Swarming the HOR with her minions, the anointed one will become Speaker.
Elected senators are expendable as the Senate is abolished.
A senator, a known horse trader, will become president and will easily bargain his throne.
Truly, the May 10 election is all about this moniker:
Gloria Magtatagal-Arroyo
The vote difference between the winner and the 2nd placer must exceed 2M.
Otherwise, I this nagging worry that no one will concede and there will be a long legal battle to manually recount ballots which will drag on and on and on.
Remember Joe de Venecia? Exit polls and early counts showed him being outvoted 2 to 1 and yet he was in a state of ‘there are many more votes to be counted…i can still win’..he conceded 18 (EIGHTEEN DAYS) later.
He was prolly waiting for votes from Maguindanao.
Excellent article, Ding. I especially like the Villarroyo photo, and the shudders it provokes. What does your gut (or knowledge) say about Mr. Villar? Is he just normal within the Filipino ethic of taking care of oneself, and doing that extraordinarily well; or is he a black-hearted crook? The distinction is material. If he is just good at what he does, but is not a black-hearted crook, the nation could benefit by his skills at the top. Indeed, a powerful man backed by a powerful house, with good aims, is exactly what the Philippines needs.
If Mr. Aquino loses, it is because he deserves to, not having the skill to orchestrate substance into his emotional head start, or counter the skilled marketing approach of Mr. Villar.
By the way, I think “the people” with the ability to band together, mainly those who are computer literate, ought to band together to form a forceful voice that speaks for the rest of “the people”, and work to do the things that government fails to do. The places to start: end nepotistic hiring practices that stifle capable ambition and enable mediocrity to thrive, and get the courts shaped up. Protest FOR more progressive laws and practices, not against people.
Joe
Joe the Villarroyo photo surfaced on Facebook last wek. To the anonymous creator goes the credit. :)
Maybe this is worth watching out for:
http://atmidfield.com/2010/02/16/coming-soon-the-aquino-villar-debate/
None of the more fundamental assumptions behind your projected scenarios is firmly built on factual or scientific grounds.
Since GMA runs for a congressional seat, it means that she first steps down as president-incumbent on Day 1 as a new member of the 15th House of Representatives.
Therefore, she cannot dispense patronage politics to the whole membership of so-called ‘committee on the whole’ since the membership is yet to be ‘sorted out’ as new as well as old members may yet get re-elected. It would then largely depend on the resulting ratio.
If a new president is elected, again, it is hard to deduce or merely conjecture that GMA will have any hold on that new Malacanang occupant and chances are, GMA would just be like any ordinary member of Congress.
On another yet, it is in fact healthy in a democracy if there is a kind of a ‘power struggle’ between Congress and the Executive rather than the former being the stamp pad of the latter.
What is it for you Ding?
Do your homework. Make a headcount of how many Arroyos are running of the House along with their Lakas Kampi/CMD party mates.
“Are we headed for a new day of enlightened governance where institutions work in harmony and give flesh to a democracy of checks and balances?”
LOL!
Grown totally cynical?
[Edited by Cocoy - this comment was deleted for use of inappropriate language and cursing.]
“Indeed, a powerful man backed by a powerful house, with good aims, is exactly what the Philippines needs.”-JoeAm
Spot on, Joe. But that is an oxymoron in this set-up described by Ding here. With their vaunted records and shady accomplishments how can one expects “good aims”? And why shudder, you like the guy, don’t you?
The Noynoy juggernaut is quite something else and remains unstoppable thru last week!!!
As Conrado deQuiros so eloquently wrote in 2009:
. . . . . Noynoy inherited the mantle when his mother died. History summons him to do it, there is no one else. He will rise to untold heights.
It is his destiny.
The third is completeness. Noynoy’s running for president completes the cycle that began when his mother ran for president in the snap elections. Who better to challenge the ideological daughter of Ferdie than the biological son of Cory? For let us be clear: This fight is more than an electoral fight, it is more than a fight between “presidentiables.” This fight is a fight between right and wrong, it is a fight against oppression and vileness. This fight is a fight against Arroyo just as Cory’s fight was against Marcos, whether Arroyo decides to step down, as Obama has bid her do, or extend her term, as her nature compels her to do.
Noynoy running for president will deliver us back to the beginning of things, or thrust us back to the time where myth and history meet or the place where life and legend intersect. The time or place of the great fight between Good and Evil: Between Cory and Marcos, between Obama and Bush, between the Fellowship of the Ring and the Eye of Mordor, between Luke Skywalker and the Evil Empire.
Use the Force, Noy.
juggernaut?
more like sputtering, anemic campaign.
de Quiros is turning out to be for Noynoy what Cerge and Lorelei were for Gloria.
Nash,
Ahahahaha . . . yes, exhilarating it ain’t . . .
Joe
Who is afraid of Gloria Arroyo? Those who are afraid of their own
shadows.
Afraid of GMA? Nah, Filipinos are itching to banish her.
I am afraid of GMA. And I am not afraid of my own shadow. Only a fool wold feel secure around her
MB,
Interesting,
sometimes I feel that way about Mr. Villar,
but figure it is my imagination getting the best of me.
I am also afraid of the huge spiders that roam hereabouts.
Joe
folks are afraid of conASS because they are afraid of
Dandingno, not Danding… the Ampatuans…no, not them, because of ….______.