I'm certainly glad that Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan is out of the job as the head of the constitutional amendments, if he's too stubborn ot see the reality. This blog post doesn't seek to discredit anything good Kiko has done. I don't like the idea of Senator Robin Padilla as the head either. Instead, I'm going to try to enlighten every spectrum by discussing the Broken Windows Theory. What is the Broken Windows Theory? We need to look into it first. This Criminal Justice Know How article by Kelly M. Glenn gives this introduction:
The Broken Window Theory was coined by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982 and greatly impacted police work in the decades to follow. The Broken Windows Theory uses the basic metaphor of a broken window to demonstrate how crime and disorder tend to flourish in environments where small problems go unaddressed. As the environment falls into neglect and disrepair, people responsible for crime and disorder interpret the lack of care for the environment as permission to use and abuse it without repercussions.
The Broken Windows Theory, like any theory, is always subject to criticism and revision. For instance, this Very Well Mind article by Rachael Green presents this criticism that can be used to modify the theory:
Criticism of the Broken Window Theory
While the idea that one broken window leads to many sounds plausible, later research on the topic failed to find a connection. “The theory oversimplifies the causes of crime by focusing primarily on visible signs of disorder,” Tzall said. “It neglects underlying social and economic factors, such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of education, which are known to be important contributors to criminal behavior.”
When researchers account for those underlying factors, the connection between disordered environments and crime rates disappears.2
In a report published in 2016,3 the NYPD itself found that its “quality-of-life” policing—another term for broken windows policing—had no impact on the city’s crime rate. Between 2010 and 2015, the number of “quality-of-life” summons issued by the NYPD for things like open containers, public urination, and riding bicycles on the sidewalk dropped by about 33%.
While the broken windows theory would theorize that serious crimes would spike when the police stopped cracking down on those minor offenses, violent crimes and property crimes actually decreased during that same time period.
“Policing based on broken windows theory has never been shown to work,” said Kimberly Vered Shashoua, LCSW, a therapist who works with marginalized teens and young adults. “Criminalizing unhoused people, low socioeconomic status households, and others who create this type of ‘crime’ doesn't get to the root of the problem,”
Not only have policing efforts that focus on things like graffiti or panhandling failed to have any impact on violent crime, they have often been used to target marginalized communities. “The theory's implementation can lead to biased policing practices as law enforcement officers can concentrate their efforts on low-income neighborhoods or communities predominantly populated by minority groups,” Tzall said.
That biased policing happens, in part, because there’s no objective measure of disordered environments so there’s a lot of room for implicit bias and discrimination to influence decision-making about which neighborhoods to target in crackdowns.
Studies show that neighborhoods where residents are predominantly Black or Latino are perceived as more disorderly and prone to crime than neighborhoods where residents are mostly white, even when police-recorded crime rates and physical signs of physical deterioration in the environment were the same.
Moreover, many of the behaviors that are used by police and researchers as signs of disorder are influenced by racial and class bias. Drinking and hanging out are both legal activities that are viewed as orderly when they happen in private spaces like a home or bar, for example. But those who socialize and drink in parks or on stoops outside their building are viewed as disorderly and charged with loitering and public drunkenness.
To add further, Green also says in her same article:
How to Create Positive Environments to Foster Safety, Health, and Well-Being
Ultimately, reducing crime requires addressing the root causes of poverty and social inequality that lead to crime. But taking care of public spaces and neighborhoods to keep them clean and enjoyable can still have a positive impact on the communities who live in and use them.
“Positive environments provide opportunities for meaningful interactions and collaboration among community members,” Tzall said. “Access to green spaces, recreational facilities, mental health resources, and community services contribute to physical, mental, and emotional health,” said Tzall.
By creating more positive environments, we can encourage healthier lifestyle choices—like adding protected bike lanes to encourage people to ride bikes—and prosocial behavior—like adding basketball courts in parks to encourage people to meet and play a game with their neighbors.
At the individual level, Tzall suggests people “can initiate or participate in community projects, volunteer for local organizations, support inclusive initiatives, engage in dialogue with neighbors, and collaborate with local authorities or community leaders.” Create positive environments by taking the initiative to pick up litter when you see it, participate in tree planting initiatives, collaborate with your neighbors to establish a community garden, or volunteer with a local organization to advocate for better public spaces and resources.
This goes forward to analyzing the current 1987 Constitution of the Philippines with an evolving view of the Broken Windows Theory
Section 2. The President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust. All other public officers and employees may be removed from office as provided by law, but not by impeachment.
This means that we tend to ignore epic moments of fail when a politician, under the presidential system, that should've caused people to lose confidence in the leader of the nation. For example, some might say that they have lost confidence in Sara's leadership. There may be moments now where President Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. has already shown moments that can make anyone lose leadership. True, the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines has provisions. The question isn't the absence of provisions but the lack thereof.
However, the parliamentary system uses the vote of no confidence. The Britannica Dictionary describes it as:
: a formal vote by which people (such as the members of a legislature) indicate that they do not support a leader, government, etc.
This means that all it takes is an event that causes people to lack support. In a parliamentary system, one doesn't wait for someone to do a crime. All it takes is an event where somebody in a position gets into epic moments comparable to former Philippine president, Joseph Marcel Ejercito, aka Joseph Estrada's moments of, making really questionable answers, like it was in the 1990s. In fact, Andrew James Masigan says the following about the parliamentary system 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.
If politicians in general are afraid of getting voted out because of failure to do their mandates, such as sleeping on the job or refusing to apologize for a diplomatic fallout (like the late Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" C. Aquino III with Hong Kong)--the vote of no confidence offers voting out as a penalty, even if the Member of Parliament isn't necessarily criminally charged. It might not be 100% perfect, but it certainly is a real threat. Why stick to a solution that only works less than 50% of the time when the new solution only works more than 50% of the time? I would rather adopt a series of better solutions all the time, than to wait for the non-existent "perfect solution".
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