Saturday, July 03, 2004 Stage set for shift to parliamentary government
MANILA -- President Arroyo and her allies have begun the process for a shift from a US-style presidential system to a "parliamentary-federal form of government," saying this would set the stage for faster progress.
"The problem of the presidential form is the legislative and the executive are separate so they are conflicting by nature," Arroyo told reporters.
"In the parliamentary form of government, they are one. The decision of the executive presumes already that the legislative is part of the decision-making, therefore the laws will move faster," she said.
She also cited the popular uprisings that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and scandal-tainted president Joseph Estrada in 1989 as examples, saying that in a parliamentary form of government, there were mechanisms for removing an unpopular leader.
"We are the only presidential form of government in Southeast Asia. It is a system of the 20th century," Arroyo said.
The Philippines has a US-style of government with a president and two chambers of Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. This requires bills pushed by the administration to go through a lengthy legislative process in both houses.
Arroyo's spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement that "the shift to a parliamentary-federal form of government is a platform and legacy commitment of the president and it will be done."
The planning, preparation and transition stages of the shift will all be undertaken within the six-year term of Arroyo, he added.
"The exact timeframe will be worked out with Congress within the president's term. But the political process is already in motion," he added.
He also said Arroyo favors the calling of a Constitutional Convention to amend the Constitution, which will set the stage for the shift to a parliamentary form of government.
House Speaker Jose de Venecia, a key ally of Arroyo, said in a television interview that the moves to shift to a parliamentary and federal system could begin by August.
"We should be able to complete everything by 2010," during Arroyo's six-year term, said de Venecia, a longtime proponent of shifting to a parliamentary form of government.
"If we have constituent assembly and we have political will, then we can have a parliamentary system beginning in 2007," de Venecia added.
He denied that changing the form of government would divert attention from Arroyo's other reform measures including creating millions of jobs and providing electrical and water services to thousands of remote villages.
De Venecia said having only one legislative chamber would speed things up.
"Within a timeframe of six years, we can act on all these measures, in the economic area, the political area, in the constitutional area and in the social action front. We should be able to attend to all of these at the same time." (AFP)/With JMR
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