To effect Change, we must change the structure by Rey dM Arquiza

Tatay's break as a writer. Bicol Post May 02, 2008 edition

According to the gospel of the technocrats in the 70’s’,

“To effect change, we have to change the structure. . . .”

Change as used in this context means a process of introducing something in order to achieve a goal or objective. Oftentimes, as used in government, change is synonymous to either progress or development. While progress had been attained by using various approaches or ‘blueprint’, development must follow some principles.

According to “Peoples Development Agenda, Council for People’s Agenda, 1990, development should/must:

1. focus on and generate peoples participation;

2. be attuned to the demands of the people’s over-all struggle;

3. be based on theory that is tested, validated, and relevant;

4. be integrated in approach;

5. lead to the empowerment of the people;

6. sustain the natural environment as a socio-economic base.

With the intention of effecting positive change in order to catch-up with globalization, there is a need to re-structure our government. The executive, legislative, and judiciary branch of the government must be totally restructured not only to keep up with the rapidly changing time but to trim down the bloated bureaucracy.

Accordingly, we must start by eliminating costly election campaigns because it remains the dominant factor of corruptions in the country. Massive elections funds breed blind loyalty resulting to patronage politics. With large funds allocated to election campaigns, the politicians, once elected, forget their duties and responsibilities to the people who elected them. Their loyalty automatically shifts to the party, to the financiers of such campaigns- businessmen, contractors, transnational companies and foreign powers.

Our current political system, due to lack of political will, is helpless in enforcing electoral laws, in eliminating election frauds due to questionable integrity of the members of electoral constitutional body. If we cannot limit election spending, then it thus follows that we also cannot limit corruption in the government. This is not to say that

corruption emanate from the commission, it goes without saying that corrupt government officials were allowed to run and once proclaimed, continue their usual practices.

Institutionalized corruption is the root of current evils of our society. If we can eradicate corruption, there will be no insurgency or criminality because the government can give the people the necessary social justice, the equal opportunity to earn a living, the equal application of laws and lastly the election of credible leaders. Funds intended for education, social services, health care, country-wide developments, construction and rehabilitations of infrastructures, upgrading the equipments of military and police units will reach the intended beneficiaries. Problems on peace and order like insurgency and criminality is only a byproduct of the social inequalities felt by our people.

If we cannot limit election spending, the least we can do is to limit public officials running for office. Setting rigid standards for individual who wish to run for public office must be done. Conside-ring not only the campaign expenses of every aspiring public officials, but the costly legislative sessions of the House of Representatives and the unproductive committee hearings of the Senate ‘in aid of legislation’, the platform itself is self defeating.

The most logical step is to convert the present presidential-bicameral into a presidential-unicameral with modifica-tions suited to the Filipino people. Let us consider the following options in trans-forming the present presidential bicameral into a presidential-unicameral:

1. As a start, the central government must strengthen autonomy of every region. This means that the national leadership must grant to every region in the country the right to genuine self determination in prioritizing their actual needs. There is no need to enact more laws. We need only to amend and implement the present Local Government Code;

2. Each region, through a unique selection process shall choose a Governor General to represent each autonomous region in the national government. Consequently, the President, instead of courting, listening, giving audience, and issuing instructions to eighty or so Governors, can devote his/her time to say, about fifteen Governor Generals. The Governor General, for purposes of Regional Defense must also be designated as Regional Deputy Commander-in-Chief of all armed and police units within their respective territory. This will prevent over-centralization of the might of the military and the police under the central government. Military adventurism will be effectively controlled.

3.- To simplify as well as speed-up legislative process, each region must select a Regional Speaker from all the Congressmen in the region so instead of holding a session for no less than two hundred District and Sectoral Representatives, the House of Representatives- which will now be called National Parliament, will need only fifteen or so members to hold/conclude a session. Televisions should not be permitted in the National parliament. This will surely translate to legislative efficiency. It would also be beneficial both to the respective District Representatives (DR) and to their constituents. Each DR, by undertaking frequent and longer consultations, can tackle issues at his/her home turf. Imagine the time and cost to be saved by eliminating useless travel time from/to his/her district to House of Representatives.

4.- Members of the Senate is altogether another matter. Imagine the fund allocated to each Senator. Sum it up then divide with the number of bills it had passed. What the people get is the astronomical cost and delays of laws enacted by the Senate because there is a tendency among Senators to devote their time and efforts on Committee hearings ‘in aid of legislation’. Such functions can either be referred to proper courts or panel of constitutional watchdogs. It is imperative that for more economical and expeditious enactment of laws, dissolution of Senate is not a bad alternative. Their oversight function must be turned-over to Judiciary or to any competent body created for such purpose. Other functions and useless committees that has duplications in the National Parliament should be disbanded to avoid unwanted drain of public funds.

5.- The Judiciary Branch, which is a co-equal branch of our government needs to be expanded. Each Autonomous Region must create the Office of the Regional Executive Judge (OREJ) complete with the required personnel.

Using the same infrastructures or physical facilities, the judiciary may double its personnel to be able to conduct double or triple court session in any given day. This will surely un-clogged the mountainous cases now pending in our trial courts. The OREJ, which is planned to perform part of the functions of Court of Appeal can decide or review cases prior to elevation to any superior Court. The OREJ may also help decide on cases that remain undecided for more than ten years to help Regional Trial Courts unclogged their dockets.

6. The Executive Branch must also be modified. The President, being the head of State and Commander-in-Chief of all Armed & Police Forces in the country must turn-over the day to day handling of domestic affairs of the country to the Vice President.

The Vice President, instead of being just a spare of the Chief Executive, will act as Chief Operating Officer and head of all Cabinet Officials except the Executive Secretary, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of Interior & National Defense, Security Advisor, and the Secretary General of NEDA which will be under the Office of the President.. All other offices and agencies under the Office of the President (OP) will be trimmed down.

7. For simplicity and effecient application of unity of command, the Department of National Defense (DND and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) should be merge into a single entity to be called Department of Interior and Defense (DID), maintaining the Offices of Chief of Staff, DND and Director General, PNP. The function concerning local government must be turned over to the newly formed League of Governor Generals (LGG).

Individually, the primary function of the Governor General is to make representations to the Office of the President & Office of the Vice President on matters relating to his/her region. Collectively, as a group, they will act as Advisory Board on Domestic Affairs to the Office of the President..

Another group that can assist the President in formulating policies is the Presidential Council on International Affairs to be composed of past Chief Justices, Presidents, Senate Presidents, and Speakers of the House.

8. A central headquarters to serve as national liaison office of all governments departments, bureaus, agencies, government owned and controlled corporations and other entities shall be established under one roof. The Batasan could be an ideal location once the National Parliament had transferred to the Senate building.

PROPOSED MECHANICS OF ELECTION:

With the foremost objective of maximizing the performance of all elected and appointed officials of the government while at the same time reducing the cost of running the government, it is necessary to institute reforms. Suggested process and manner of Selection/ Election of Government Officials as follows:

A.- resort back to two-party system;

B.- divide the country into five electoral district as follows:

B.1- Northern Luzon- Region 1, 2,

CAR

B.2- Central Luzon- NCR & Region 3

B.3- Southern Luzon- Region 4 & 5

B.4- Visayas- Region 6, 7, 8 & 9

B.5- Mindanao- Region 10, 11, 12, & ARMM

C.- Only four candidates per electoral district will be considered by Presidential Screening Board. Said candidates shall be endorsed by their respective political party. The four aspirants per electoral district are required to pass rigid requirements to be set by Presidential Screening Board (PSB). PSB will be composed of incumbent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as Chairman. The Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Executive Secretary, the heads of Constitutional Commissions and the Chairperson of Commission of Appointment as members.

c.1- The PSB will be headed by the Chief Justice who will vote only in case of tie. Whoever got the highest two votes per electoral district will be considered as qualified aspirants for said electoral district.

c.2- All qualified aspirants from the five electoral districts will be voted jointly by League of Governor Generals and League of Regional Speakers of National Parliament. The Chief Justice will preside on the proceeding and will be entitled to a vote.

. c.3- Whoever got the three highest votes among the qualified aspirants will be allowed to file his/her candidacy. The three aspirants will then be voted directly by the people.

Whoever got the highest vote will be proclaimed the President, the second highest as Vice President, and the third placer will be proclaimed Speaker of National Parliament.

D.- The election of District and Sectoral Representatives, and members of Youth Council shall be held simultaneously with the presidential election. After proclaiming the winners in each congressional district, all regions shall elect among the District and Sectoral representatives a Regional Speaker (RS), a Deputy Regional Speaker (DRS), and a Regional Speaker Pro tempore (RSP). The RS will be the Chief Representative of the region to the National Parliament while the DRS will serve as his/her alternate. The RSP shall preside on all sessions of the Regional Parliament.

E.- The Regional Speaker and Deputy Regional Speaker are the only represent-atives required to attend sessions of National Parliament, but they can be accompanied by not more than two representatives from their region to discuss or answer questions regarding any resolution he/she is sponsoring. The Regional Sectoral Representatives and Chairs of Regional Youth Councils shall also be duly represented in the National Parliament.

F.- The Deputy Speaker, the Speaker Pro tempore, the Majority Leader, and the Minority Leader of National Parliament shall be selected among the Regional Speakers. Each Regional Parliament will be considered a single voting block. It will be designated numerically as Regional Voting Block 1-15. A 3/4 votes of all Regional Speakers is enough to unseat the Deputy Speaker and Speaker Pro tempore. All Deputy Regional Speakers shall automatically serve as Committee Chair on any of the committee on the National Parliament.

Considering that we have an existing set of laws regarding our political structure, before the upper echelon of government leaders can be modified, there is a need to re-structure political system in the grass root level.

1. We can start by amending our current local government code by simply recognizing Purok/Sitio/Zone (P/S/Z) as the lowest unit of the government instead of the barangay. Election of P/S/Z Officers shall be jointly supervised by personnel from DILG, COMELEC, and their authorized Deputy. As the election will cover only small number of voters, no costly campaign/election fund is necessary. Poll irregularity will also be eliminated. There is no need to spend billions of pesos to automation of counting votes.

2.Local legislative function should be left to Youth and Sectoral Councils (YSC). Anyway, the youth are the ultimate beneficiary of the laws to be enacted. Said YSC will form part as member and support staffs of the Office of District Representatives;

3. In the next scheduled local election, the government can save much by replacing incumbent officials as follows:

a.- Members of Sangguniang Barangay shall be replaced by P/S/Z Chairs upon the expiration of their term. All P/S/Z Chairs shall select among themselves who will be the Barangay Captain (BC) and Deputy Barangay Captain (DBC) who will be called Barangay Lieutenant. The rest will serve as Member, Barangay Peace, Order, and Development Board (BPODB);

b.- Members of Sangguniang Pambayan/Panglunsod shall be replaced by Barangay Captains (BC) from the municipality or city concerned upon the expiry of their term. All BC shall select among themselves who will be the

Municipal or City Mayor and Vice Mayor. The rest will serve as Member, Municipal/City Peace, Order, & Development Board (MPODB) while simultaneously serving as BC of their respective Barangay; The Barangay

Lieutenant will assume the post of BC in case the BC was elected as Mayor or Vice Mayor.

c.- Members of Sangguniang Panlalawigan shall be replaced by all Municipal/ City Mayors (M/CM). All M/CM will select between and among themselves a Lieutenant Governor and a Vice Lieutenant Governor. The rest will serve as Member, Provincial Peace, Order, & Development Board (PPODB while simultaneously acting as Mayor of their respective municipality/city;

d.- All Lieutenant Governors in the region will select among themselves a Governor General and a Deputy Governor General on a rotation basis.

The Governor General will represent the Region in the National Government while the Deputy Governor General will serve as Presiding Officer on all sessions/meetings of League of Governors in the region.

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The preceding article is an original concept written and proposed by Rey dM Arquiza, Bel-Air St., Baldovino District, Daet, Camarines Norte, Chairman of Interim Committee for Growth and Development of Purok 1, Camambugan, Daet, Camarines Norte and the Principal Proponent for the conversion of said Purok 1 of Camambugan as a new Barangay of Daet, Camarines Norte.