Too much power in the presidency

In our national elections the center of attention is always the candidates for the highest official of the land. There are usual aspirants for senators and congressmen. There are also personalities vying for local posts such as governors, mayors, and councilors. But the people's interest gravitates always towards the presidential aspirants, whose persona is subjected to analysis and whose work experience is viewed from all angles to gauge their fitness or lack of it to the job they are seeking for.

From these there eventually emerge portraits of each candidate. Some of these may be caricatures depicting negative traits and shortcoming. Some may be glad pictorials portraying positive qualities. It's what makes them that dictate what kind of portrait comes out because there are clusters of supporters for every presidentiable, who try to outdo each other in promoting their candidate.

That's why every presidential election always divides the country into as many political sectors as there are candidates. And rivalry is usually intense resulting in some cases in prolonged animosity even after election season. Violence sometimes occurs between opposing groups and lives are at times lost all in the name of politics.

What's in the Philippine socio-cultural setting that drives people into near fanatical advocacy of certain political parties or of their candidates? Is it because in a developing country like the Philippines politics is linked with the economy? Is it because political power begets economic power or vice versa? If so, how is this possible?

This is possible because governance in this country is highly centralized. Whoever sits as president sits as the most powerful person in the country. His office may be only one of the tripod of power centers – executive, legislative and judicial. But in actuality that office controls the other two centers or branches.

 Get your memory refreshed by events involving the present executive office, or Malacañang. When President Aquino wanted to teach the Chief Justice a lesson possibly for a decision inimical to the interest of his (the president's) family, what did he do but engineer the fellow's impeachment? The process is normally a tedious one because a favorable vote in the Lower House had to be secured. However, most of the congressmen seemed to have been beholden to the president for one reason or another and getting that vote was no problem. As for the senators who conducted the trial, why would it be difficult to secure a conviction when these people, too, were at the beck and call of Malacañang?

Then recently when the question of Grace Poe's eligibility to run as president was deliberated in the Supreme Court, how did the latter come up with a favorable decision for the woman candidate? The suspicion was that Malacañang, to whom four of the justices owed their appointments, had a hand in the decision because Poe is rumored to be PNoy's" Plan B candidate."

Power plus prestige makes the presidency a highly coveted post. But insofar as the general populace is concerned – the rank and file, the middle income earners, the big time businessmen or small time entrepreneurs – their interest on who gets the mandate for the executive office is an outgrowth of their anxiety of how things will turn out under the new occupant. Questions such as: Will the economy be improved and better quality of life result? Will peace prevail and criminality be under control? Will there be more social services to more people who need them? In short will a better social order evolve under the new leadership?

These are the usual questions. But they surface every time the country chooses its president.

If anything, this fixation on the presidency suggests that something is wrong with the functioning of democracy in this country. Something should be done to clip the power of whoever sits as president. At the same time the legislative and judicial branches should be strengthened to preserve their independence and to enable them to do their checking and balancing functions.

Charter change, anyone?

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