"Reform the Philippine Constitution Initiative" is an initiative which looks to spread the advocacy of Constitutional Reform in the Philippines.
This initiative seeks to educate, share, and facilitate with others all the information about reform.
Constitutional Reform is the rethinking and restructuring of the fundamental document that lays down the ultimate law of the land.
Many problems plague the Philippines today:
Many of the aforementioned problems can be traced back to provisions written in the Philippine Constitution. The overall structure and provisions for the Philippine government, from the 1987 Constitution, naturally gives rise to its later problems. How several constitutional provisions give rise to their own national problems will be stated later along with their corresponding solutions.
The "Reform the Philippine Constitution Initiative" believes in a packaged reform solution, composed of 3 points, that can help alleviate the several, broad, national problems which plague the Philippines today.
This belief is supported by several other constitutional reform social movements and is guided by sound scientific research.
The packaged constitutional reform solution contains,
The 1987 Philippine Constitution, compared to the constitutions of many other countries, is highly restrictive.
A constitution is supposed to be concise about how a nation's government is supposed to be run and what is its basic structure. It can even be unwritten instructions, as is the case in the legal system of the United Kingdom.
In the case of the Philippines, many provisions in the constitution were written hastily and with much emotion after the authoritarian period of Ferdinand Marcos.
Economic restrictions for the various Philippine sectors were debated over in the Constitutional Convention for the 1987 Constitution and it was decided that agreements pertaining to the economy required 60% of the capital to be owned by Filipinos and 40% is left to the investor.
This is the 60/40 problem.
Note: This aspect of the constitution has been greatly affected, just recently early in the year of 2022, with the passage of the Trade Liberalization Act, Public Services Act, and the Foreign Investments Act. However, Representative Joey Salceda, an economist, says our hands are still tied even with these changes.
This restrictiveness is a problem because it affects the inflow of capital and investments into the country. Proper amounts of capital and investment into the country is needed to employ the millions of jobless Filipinos and those Filipinos looking for better quality work. Proper amounts of capital and investment is needed to build infrastructure in the country to facilitate jobs and businesses.
All the provisions which enshrine concrete, numerically-stated, economic restrictions in the constitution must be removed. Then, specific details of economic restrictions can be addressed in legislation to keep it flexible alongside ever-changing annual economic conditions.
This change in the constitution signals to multinational investors that the Philippines is much more open to investment.
Domestic capital and competition amongst mostly domestic companies has simply not been enough to raise the socio-economic situation of the Philippines up to a better stage.
The presidential system in the Philippines has its origins from its ancestor constitution from the United States of America. The US Constitution was created after their Declaration of Independence was written and an agonizing war was fought against Great Britain, the empire that oversaw the development of the nascent American colonies.
From the point of the creation of the US Constitution up to the beginning of the creation of the first Philippine Constitution, it can be generally said that the United States had had a model of government worth emulating which could provide for the basic needs of its citizens.
For some reason, the Philippines did not end up adopting all the essential institutions and provisions contained in the American Constitution. (Perhaps because originally the Philippines was supposed to be governed similar to a "state" of the United States.)
Aspects such as the following are largely absent:
The specific Presidential System that the Philippines has today is prone to corruption. It is prone to gridlock. It is vulnerable to political lobbying. It promotes and perpetuates personality politics.
The 1987 Philippine Presidential System has further adopted or not adopted provisions that are detrimental to good governance.
Provisions such as,
A Parliamentary System is an alternative approach to modern day liberal democracy.
In contrast to the Presidential System, the Parliamentary System features:
Even with the new system itself, there are differing specifications and/or features that are preferred or non-preferred.
Here are the preferred specifications for a parliament for the Philippines,
In the current day, much development of the Philippines is mainly centered on historically important trade centers and ports in the Philippines such as Metro Manila and Cebu City. Now, this is not uncommon compared to other urban centers in other countries, however, it appears that the situation has worsened and the Philippines has one of the most densely populated places in the world - Metro Manila.
Urban city concentration and concentration of governmental power in the 'center' of the Philippines has left the outer provinces underdeveloped or in a state of unsolved corruption by local officials.
Past leaders and laws have tried to develop the Philippines along the concept of "devolution" coupled with unitarism but it has proven to be ineffective in addressing problems for the localities. Local officials are still mostly not held accountable for their corruption and rent-seeking activities. Projects that are in the community become muddy with kick-backs, delays, and low quality creations.
These are several symptoms stemming from the problem of unitarism in the Philippines,
Evolving Federalism is a long-term solution to overpowering unitarism.
It is the eventual handing over of power and responsibility in decision-making from the national to the local level. It is the last step in the 3PA process that will take a decade or more to achieve after reforming the central government with a parliament and economic liberalization.
Federalism is a form of territorial administration which creates a national and regional level of government. The federal or national government will be in charge of those matters which are larger than the responsibilities needed within a state such as national defense, international and domestic economy, inter-regional trade, and more. The regional government handles matters which are more feasible to attend to at a sub-national level, such as schools, health, housing, and more.
Federalism provides for,
Even with the new system itself, there are differing specifications and/or features that are preferred or non-preferred.
Here are the preferred specifications for federalism for the Philippines,