An unrepresentative House of Representatives

This is perhaps the most insidious part of our present Constitution – we have a government developed from a system that does not represent the people or recognize the sovereignty of the people. Today, being Easter Sunday, we hope to encourage Filipinos to rise up for a new life and society for the Philippines.

Bayanko has crowdsourced a new Constitution towards a new government with the people’s welfare at the center of its concern.

The Preamble to the draft Constitution submitted to former Chief Justice Reynato Puno and his panel of constitutionalists for review and finalization reads as follows:

“Article 1 – The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Filipino Nation under God, the common and indivisible homeland of all Filipinos, regardless of creed, it recognizes and guarantees the right to self-government of the different ethnic groups and communities of which it is composed and the solidarity among them all.”

The wording is borrowed from the Spanish Constitution. It embraces all Filipinos, whether at home or abroad, regardless of religious belief, and affirms their common and indivisible homeland and their indissoluble unity.

To those who say that it is too late for a new Constitution before the 2016 elections, let me remind you that the Spanish Constitution was drafted by a seven-man panel in mid-1977. It was ratified by the Spanish people in a plebiscite in December 1978. If the Spaniards can do it within a short period, so can we.

The draft Constitution is now with CJ Puno and will be finalized by his panel by June 2015. It originally contained 111 articles but with the suggestions from crowdsourcing it expanded to 124 articles. It is easy to read. It is essentially a framework of government and a Bill of Rights.

What are its main features?

First, it is a unicameral legislature.

Second, its Bill of Rights has been expanded, as suggested by CJ Puno, to cover social and economic rights of the people which are demandable and enforceable.

Third, there are specific provisions, for example, limiting political dynasties and prohibiting pork barrel.

Fourth, the marginalized sectors of society are given larger representation in Parliament.

Fifth, the qualifications of public officials and voters are upgraded.

Sixth, the checks and balances between the different branches of government are strengthened. A new Office of Inspector-General is created.

Seventh, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Commissions become totally independent bodies.

Eighth, the AFP and PNP are totally insulated from politics.

There is a major misconception about the parliamentary federal system proposed under the new Constitution. Some believe it would enumerate the federal states that will make up the union.

This is not the case. Only the criteria and procedures to determine the grouping of self-
governing communities into a federal state are given, leaving those communities to 
negotiate later between themselves as in the Spanish model. However, the federal 
states will be locked into the Constitution with no possibility of unilateral breakout without the consent of all Filipino voters in a plebiscite.

The problems engendered by the presidential form of government we have is the same faced by the United States with the same system.

Its political system is largely dominated and run for the few – big business and the moneyed elite. A recent Princeton University study concluded the United States is no longer a democracy.

The same can be said for the Philippines. A 2014 La Salle University study showed 178 families ruled 73 of 80 provinces. Forty Filipino tycoons have combined assets of $34 billion according to Forbes magazine. Nearly one-third of Filipinos live below the poverty line.

The 1987 Constitution allots 20 percent of seats in the House of Representatives to sectoral representatives. Seventy-five percent of the Philippine population is composed of women. Yet there are only 79 women representatives in the House out of a total of 290 seats.

With 75 percent of the total population of 100 million being women, 50 percent belonging to the youth, and 40 percent making up the labor force, clearly their representation in the lower house of Congress is inadequate. It is time to redress this imbalance and this is what our new Constitution proposes to do.

A parliamentary system would better address the political changes needed for good governance. The new Constitution seeks to empower labor and other marginalized sectors.

We should look to how this was done in the UK. The Labor Party came into being in the 1900s to redress the political structure.

At the time there were only two major political parties: the Whigs founded and controlled by rich politicians supported by the wealthy aristocratic families. The Tories drew their support from the landed gentry and royal family and became the forerunners of the present Conservative Party.

Inevitably, the gap between rich and poor in Britain grew wider and wider. The marginalized sectors of British society hardly had any representation in Parliament. The Labor Party emerged to address the imbalance to curtail abuses of the working class.

Deeply influenced by Keynesian economics, Labor favored government intervention in the economy and the redistribution of wealth through taxation. From the late 1980s onwards, it favored free market policies. Today it is viewed as center-left.

In 1924 the first Labor government was formed. They began a housing program of 500,000 homes for working-class families and passed legislation on education, unemployment, and social insurance.

In 1945, after the Second World War, Clement Attlee’s Labor Party defeated Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party. It introduced the ‘welfare state’ concept. The National Health Service was born in 1948 whose systems were funded through general taxation.

In 1997, when Labor won the General Election under Tony Blair, a wide range of social reforms were enacted over the next ten years with millions lifted out of poverty largely as a result of tax and social benefit reforms.

In 1998 the Blair government devolved powers to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland on an exclusive or shared basis with Westminster, giving those regions greater freedom to shape their own destiny.

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All this proves good government requires a Parliament adequately represented by workers, farmers, women, and youth. It would then be concerned with issues like taxation, education, healthcare, housing, livelihood and jobs that are primary concerns of those sectors. There was no recourse for marginal sectors but to acquire political power in Parliament.

Happy Easter to all my readers! –Carmen N. Pedrosa (The Philippine Star)