Vice President vs. President: A system failure
AFTER four decades of seeing our elected presidents and vice presidents trying to knock each other out, pointing accusing fingers, discrediting each other’s efforts in national programs all for purely political reasons, we can no longer ignore the fact that ours is a system failure.
The resignation of Vice President Sara Duterte from her cabinet posts was nothing new. That did not shock anyone and is regarded merely as just another political power cycle. Ho-hum.
No one saw it as a dramatic unprecedented move on her part because she definitely was not the first to bolt a heralded political tandem. There were Salvador Laurel, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Arroyo, Teofisto Guingona Jr., Jejomar Binay and Leni Robredo. Most resigned their cabinet posts over disagreements on policies with their presidents.
Each time a vice president resigned a post, no alarm signals were raised. Instead, voters found a new source of entertainment in politics – what both presidents and vice presidents were up to after a split! It’s the “Pass the popcorn” mode for all.
When will this juggling of political powers end?
This and the mangling and exploitation of the party-list system and multi-party system, unabated rise in corruption in government with no accountability, manipulated election returns, a reactive constitution towards governance, etc. tell us in no unmistakable terms that unless and until a full rewriting of the present constitution, ours is a system failure.
At the very least, we need to revert to a two-party system for effective fiscalization, bloc voting for president and vice president, a single regional representation in legislature, motu propio determination of culpability by the Ombudsman, limitation of party-list representation, etc.
We already have a situation where the citizenry will forever be pushed back and exploited by affluent and corrupt politicians obsessed with political power.
And here we are, stunted by perceived baseless threats of a takeover or invasion by China forgetting that we have a failed system to correct with a constitutional convention, not a constituent assembly, not a fake People’s Initiative.
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