BRUTAL Truth: Stop HOPING for Another "PNoy-Like President" Because the Parliamentary System will Produce MUCH BETTER Leaders

Let me get this straight, I'm not here to totally dismiss the good that the late Benigno Simeon "Ninoy" C. Aquino III did. I'll try to be least biased when I'm writing this to "give a shock" to those who tend to treat his term as a "magical time". However, I'm going to have to warn people about the problem of looking for "another Messiah leader". Yesterday was the would've been 66th birthday of Noynoy if he were alive. One can talk good about Noynoy's legacy. However, we need to realize that relying on Noynoy's term is a violation of the Mahathir Mohamad principle of "Never stop learning." We need to think that there's only one Noynoy and when he died, he died.

TV-5 reveals that Rep. Edgar Erice, a long-time friend of the late leader, also said the following:

Caloocan City 2nd District Rep. Edgar Erice made the remark in a social media post marking Aquino’s 66th birth anniversary. 

In the post, he compared economic indicators during Aquino’s term from 2010 to 2016 with current figures.

“I miss the Pnoy Philippines,” said Erice.

Erice said the country posted around 7% gross domestic product growth during Aquino’s presidency, compared with what he cited as 4.4% at present.

The lawmaker also pointed to social services and fiscal indicators. 

He said there was no classroom shortage during Aquino’s term, compared with what he described as a current deficit of about 165,000 classrooms.

He added that foreign debt increased from about P5.9 trillion during Aquino’s term to around P17.7 trillion, while the debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 51% to roughly 65%.

Erice also claimed the country was once considered among Southeast Asia’s most promising economies but has since lost that standing.

He contrasted what he described as a balanced national budget and reduced infrastructure corruption during Aquino’s administration with alleged governance issues today.

“We need a P-noy-like president in 2028,” added Erice.

Let's give Erice the benefit of the doubt while also addressing his mistakes. However, we need to consider the time passed between Noynoy, former president Rodrigo R. Duterte (and I'm still iffy over his ICC arrest if ever it was legal), and the current president, Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. If we use our common sense, we must confess that:

1. Noynoy inherited the global recovery period after the 2008 financial crisis. 
2. Noynoy had some underspending issues. The underspending would've been good if the Philippines were under a parliamentary system. If one must consider it, how many projects Noynoy procured in the last years of his term would be continued under the next term.
3. Noynoy would've probably multiplied the effect if he were a prime minister who kept surviving the Opposition grilling every week. That means Noynoy (and the Liberal Party) leading the government, would be forced to prove themselves every week. If they do well, the Philippines can have another term under his party, as long as they keep the confidence up.
4. From 2016-2022, while Duterte also made mistakes, we need to think about the global pandemic. What's the guarantee that Noynoy's term could handle the pandemic better? 
   
5. It took decades for figures like the late Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir to turn Singapore and Malaysia into tiger economies. However, Noynoy only had six years, and the Daang Matuwid (Straight Path) project isn't going to sustain itself once the term is over. The gamble becomes that Manuel "Mar" A. Roxas II must win in 2016 and Atty. Maria Leonor "Leni" Gerona-Robredo must win by 2022.
   

Instead, shift to the parliamentary system for better leaders (and don't give me the "But Marcos" argument again) 

That's why I have been an advocate for the parliamentary system for a long time. Even longtime Liberal Party supporter, Andrew James Masigan, said the following in Business World:

FEDERAL-PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT

As mentioned earlier, the Duterte administration plans to a shift our form of government from a Unitary-Presidential form to a Federal-Parliamentary form. To better appreciate how a Federal-Parliamentary system works, it s best to look at it in contrast to a Federal-Presidential system.

A Federal-Presidential system offers no change to the current system where the President is elected through a national election and heads the executive branch. He has no sway on the judicial or legislative branches except through party-line influence. The United States operates under a Federal-Presidential framework.

A Federal-Parliamentary system , on the other hand, encourages people to vote according to political parties. Here, the citizens elect their Members of Parliament (their representatives), most often, based on the ideology of the party they belong to, not on their personalities. The party with the most number of elected representatives is declared “the parliament.” The parliament elects its Prime Minister (PM) from among themselves. The PM, in turn, selects the members of his Cabinet (his ministers) from among the member of the parliament.

There are multiple advantages to this. First, the system does away with expensive and divisive presidential elections. It puts an end to the vicious cycle of presidential candidates resorting to corruption and incurring political debts just to raise funds for their campaign.

Even the poor can run for office so long as they are capable. This is because elections are funded by the party. In a federal-parliamentary system, we do away with people who win on the back of guns goons and gold.

Moreover, since the members of parliament selects the Prime Minister, they can easily remove him through a vote of no-confidence should he fail to fulfill his mandate. We do away with the tedious process of impeachment. And since the ministers are selected from the Parliament, no one gets a free ticket to the Cabinet just because they are friends with the President or nominated by a political ally. The ministers all have mandates and are accountable not only to the PM but to their constituents.

The parliament is a unicameral legislative body. Thus, bills can be made into law faster and cheaper.

A parliamentary system is one where a “shadow Cabinet” exists. A shadow Cabinet is the corresponding, non-official Cabinet composed of members of the opposition. Each Cabinet minister has a shadow equivalent who is mandated to scrutinize every policy done by the official minister. The shadow minister may offer alternative policies which can be adopted if it is deemed superior.

In the end, the systems allows policies to be better thought out with appropriate safeguards to protect the interest of the people.

Among the seven wealthiest democracies (the G7 nations), only US and France follow a presidential system. the rest subscribe to a parliamentary system.

The intentions of charter change is good. Done right, it could be a game changer for the nation.

We can't keep saying, "We just need to pray or have a campaign for leaders like Mahathir or LKY." That's just absurd because the one brutally simple truth in psychology is "Systems shape behavior." Expecting for a LKY or a Mahathir under the 1987 obsolete, barely updated constitution is like expecting your PC to work wonders under an operating system that could no longer handle updates! Come on, even these words by Maria Corazon "Cory" Cojuangco-Aquino tell us that she never intended the constitution to be the "forever constitution":

You must define and protect our individual freedoms and rights; you must decide how our different institutions of state will relate to each other. Do not be distracted by political debates and matters of policy that do not belong within your constitution-making exercise. You are here appointed, by the people’s wish, to write a constitution; you are not here as elected politicians.

Bear in mind that you shall be pondering, debating and writing a constitution not only for our contemporaries with their present concerns, but also for succeeding generations of Filipinos whose first concerns we cannot presume to know beforehand. Future Filipinos must always be free to decide how to address these concerns as they arise. Even the wisest cures for present maladies should not be imposed on succeeding generations that will have their own unique problems and priorities.

True and long-lived constitutions, a wise justice has told me, should be broad enough to be able to meet every exigency we cannot foretell and specific enough to stoutly protect the essentials of a true democracy; in short, open-ended documents that will always be relevant. Remember that constitutional changes are not safe or easy to come by. Our first attempt at constitutional revision was followed by a dictatorship. And this, our second endeavor, was preceded by a revolution.

Future Filipinos and their legislatures and Supreme Courts can best assess and address the challenges they will meet if they enjoy the widest latitude of thought and action. In writing a constitution have the fullest confidence that the wisdom of our race is exhausted in us. Our race has grown in wisdom over time. I believe it will continue to do so.

Yours is indeed no easy task. On the other hand, depending on the result, yours will be no small glory. Our people have suffered much. 

This is what Filipinos need to think. Yes, we can have a democratic constitutional reform. I don't really trust Pulse Asia because a survey is usually done by a sample size. How many respondents were there anyway vs. the total population of the Philippines? Using these words of Cory, I want to remind people that while constitutional reform can be risky, its risk isn't any different than investing in the stock market. Together, we can actually make a difference for better leaders.