A constitution is the foundation on which a country is run. A country’s government takes up vital responsibilities, for the general welfare of its citizens and supported by its citizens, like mentioned in the US Constitution’s Preamble:

“We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

There can be different variations of constitutions, like the uncodified constitution of the United Kingdom. There can be different types of government systems that spring up from a liberal democratic constitution: parliamentary, presidential governments, and semi-presidential. Due to circumstances in history, the Philippines came to adopt the presidential system of government.

I believe, along with many other Philippine reformists, that many flaws written in the Philippine 1987 Constitution have caused its underdevelopment up until the present day of 2022.

This may seem like an extremely boring topic for a regular citizen in any country but it is a topic that is super interesting to me since I grew up in the United States, in its educational system from birth up to high school and one year of university. By chance, I was later able to attend university in the Philippines. Through all this time in the Philippines, I wondered why so much poverty and underdevelopment persisted in the Philippines. This is a large problem to fill out with my own naïve brain but I believe there are so many obvious national problems that seem to go unsolved year after year.

Through thinking about so many possible root causes as to why the Philippines is left so underdeveloped, I found that systemic flaws in Philippine governance are the most glaring and obvious reasons for making this country the way it is. It is because of the information dissemination efforts by past and present Philippine reformists, and for the research findings of political scientists like Francis Fukuyama or Arend Lijphart that I have come to these conclusions. They helped calmed my mind and kept me focused on what important changes need to be done in order to help the country’s governance perform better and thus develop the country better over time.

First of all, before I had knowledge about the importance of constitutional reform, when I came here to the Philippines and traveled a bit, I noticed that there are barely any official road signs. Cross-country US travelers would take this aspect of the US for granted. Every 100 miles or so, even on bare roads and landscapes, there are road signs present to indicate how far people are from rest stops, small towns, stores, highways, and major cities. In the Philippines, you are lucky if you see a sign by Jollibee which indicates it is coming up in about 300 km but by then you are already in the major city limits.

I like to mention this observation to others because I believe it is a clear sign of a country’s security, economy, and government bureaucracy whether or not they have road signage. This problem led me to want to research more. Eventually, I found that a country’s constitution is an important aspect in a country’s developmental road map. It is essentially the rules map on how to organize decision-making from the most highest positions in society.

Here I list the several flaw points in the 1987 Philippine Constitution and the presidential system in general. These points were gathered over much time by reformists like those over at the CoRRECT™ Movement.

1. There is a separation of votes between the President and Vice President; No tandem vote / single-ticket vote

2. No electoral college type of vote for the president

3. The Vice President is not the Senate President. Or that there is even existence of a Vice President compared to other presidential countries

4. The Senate is voted “at-large” with no checks according to party or regional representation

5. Half the amount of senators are put up for vote every 3 years

6. The party-list system has failed to provide representation for marginalized sectors and has even opened up to allow any party with an ideology to run

7. No strong party forming dynamics in Congress unlike with proportionally represented legislatures in other countries

8. Enumerated, enshrined, economic restriction provisions

9. President selects judges and justices from nominees given by the Judicial and Bar Council

10. Lengthy with forced social rights

11. The amendment process is unclear due to a mistake in the legislature’s amendment voting provisions -> the provision is unicameral in nature with 3/4 votes required of all lawmakers. It is unclear what 3 / 4 now means since the constitution came to adopt bicameralism.

With such a long list, let’s take time and take a look at each aspect with a magnifying glass. Stay tuned for future blog posts on each feature mentioned above.