Lately, if one were studious in monitoring the news from the Philippines, one would notice the very noisy political squabbling going around among the ruling elites. The core issue of the squabble is about the political legitimacy of the Arroyo presidency, which the opposition argued and proven rather convincingly to be a sham since the president cheated on the last election. However, the real trigger point that further deteriorates the political climate was the stratospheric oil price couple with the implementation of E-VAT, which put pressure on the cost of living of the majority of the Filipinos. Though the oil price increases were not the president’s fault neither was the near bankrupt fiscal situation, Filipinos nevertheless “blame” a perceived corrupt and “illegitimate” president for their misery. As a result, rallies and protests became a daily staple in this country and it is beginning to affect the economic situation in the country by projecting an image of instability that could easily descend into anarchy. As a result, businesses shun making investments until some semblance of stability and predictability is in place. This brings me to everyone’s question in mind, when will this all end? Well, setting aside the question of legitimacy of the sitting president, the current political turmoil can be attributed to the present’s ruling class own doing when they started EDSA 2 some 4 years ago. Again, setting aside the judgment on the previous president’s case, EDSA 2 enabled the disenfranchised faction of the ruling elite to ignore elections and instead opt for people power revolutions as a means of regime change and enthroning themselves in the position of power instead of waiting for the next election. Their justification is contained in the oft quoted phrase, “ 6 years is too short for a good president while it is too long for a bad one.” As a result, it has become a fanatical obsession of opposition politicians to hunt for a “smoking gun” of corruption or wrong doing of the incumbent president, using this as a basis for impeaching a president and if all else fail, launch a people’s power to topple it. It used to be that the Philippine economic boom – bust cycle closely follows the electoral cycle itself. Economic activity is recovering and improving quickly at the start of a president’s term culminating a peak during the mid terms and went on a steady decline until the next elections as investors adopted a wait and see attitude on the emerging economic policy of the next administration. However, with the prospect of having EDSA’s every now and then, that pattern of certainty, that cycle is ominously broken. Why would businesses hesitate with every regime change? Regime changes occur rather frequently in a democracy, so why the cautious attitude? Well, the answer lies in the political realities of the post – Marcos era. Politics has sunk to the level of vindictiveness and umasked greed with the faction in power threatening the economic interest of the deposed factions in the form of legal harassments and threat of seizure. It is no wonder that the disenfranchised faction would always seek to protect their interest by overthrowing antagonistic regimes. Furthermore, policy invariably changes with each regime changes causing serious losses among investors hence the caution. The proposed remedy floated by the politicians to solve the perennial politicking is to shift to a parliamentary form of government, which according to them would give the country stability that it hoped for by giving power to the person that could wield the most votes in parliament. As justification, they again use the phrase as well as pointing to the fact that it’s rather wealthy ASEAN neighbors are all parliamentary government with the exception of Indonesia. The proposal suffers serious flaws. First of all, none of the country’s neighbors could be considered as democratic in its truest sense. There is a limited democracy. The success of the Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, and Singapore could be attributed to the iron – clad rule of their political leaders. Oppositions are muted if not allowed little expressions but they were able to impose order and galvanize the populace towards economic growth. Clearly, its not the parliamentary system that makes it work rather it is the leadership and the iron clad policy on dissent that keep disruptive politicking in check. Second, politicking is not the problem per se that stagnate economic growth rather it is the consistency of policy implementation and the respect for rule of law and private property that is stifling growth. European countries are all parliamentary governments and they are as noisy as the Philippines could be (just look at Italy and France) but these countries were able to grow nonetheless simply because the economy is divorced from politicking. Certainty and predictability as well as legal protection make such divorce possible. Third, political allegiances are fickle and party loyalty is inexistent in Philippine politics. Destabilizing regime changes would become more frequent and “legitimate” under the new set – up, i.e., one doesn’t need people power to affect change but simple gather enough numbers. Fourth, parliamentary politics is about the number’s game. What assurances do we have against having a “bad egg” in the helm? In the present system, we could be assured that the “bad egg” only stays for 6 years. In a parliamentary system, the “bad egg” stays indefinitely as long as the numbers. It is not about the system, it’s the leadership and the culture of the ruling elite that is the plaque of the Philippines. To reestablish stability, it is imperative that the ruling elites “respect” basic property rights as well as contractual obligations, good or bad and not change them when another comes to power. In this way, the economy would become independent of politics. Lastly, though it may sound distasteful to me since I don’t support the present regime, let’s wait the next election to affect a change and not trying to circumvent it.
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