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Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004

The Philippine Pro-Parliamentary Position


and the Comparative Constitutional Design Literature
Crisline G. Torres

Abstract: This paper aims to illustrate howthe comparative literature on


constitutional design thatisskeptical of the pro-parliamentary claimscan
be employed to critically review one of the central arguments of the

Philippine pro-parliamentary position. This argument is the claimed


superiority of parliamentary overpresidential systemsin promoting more
efficientand harmonious executive-legislative relations and in avoiding
political gridlock between the two branches. The paper argues that the
counter-arguments of some comparative constitutional design scholars
pose serious challenges to the validity of the Philippine pro-parliamentary
position. Hopefully, this preliminary effort can serve as a template that
can be used and developed by those interested in pursuing a similar
comparative constitutional design literature-based criticism of the other
arguments raised by Filipino parliamentary advocates.
Key words: Philippine government, Philippine presidential system, charter
change, presidential-parliamentary systemdebate, executive-legislative
gridlock, constitutional design literature

The call to change the presidential form of government embedded in


the 1987 Philippine Constitution to a parliamentary one has been a central
component of the constitutional reform campaigns that have marked the
three successive administrations that came after Corazon Aquino. This call
was heard during the 1994-1997 charter change ("Cha-cha") campaign
under the Ramos administration, the 1999-2000 constitutional correction
for development ("Concord") campaign under the short-lived Estrada
administration, and the 2001-2004 re-Iaunching of the charter change
campaign ("Cha-cha 2") under the Arroyo administration.

The author acknowledges the comments of two anonymous reviewers but assumes full
responsibility for the final manuscript.

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The importance of this call is hard to overestimate. Because the shift to


parliamentarism involves basic changes in the form of government itself
affecting the way both its executive arid legislative branches are constituted
and related to each other, this call is one of the most-if not the mostfundamental and far-reaching issues in the constitutional reform agenda in
the Philippines, By necessitating a restructuring of the institutional architecture
of governance in the country, the call for a parliamentary form of governmerit
has also served as a central justification why the 1987 Constitution, far
from needing only piecemeal amendments, needs to be replaced by an
altogether new constitution.
In making their case, parliamentary advocates have raised a numberof
arguments why the parliamentary form is superior over the presidential form.
While their arguments and the stress they give to them differ, these advocates
are united in the belief that whatever their desired political goals for the
country, these will be better served by' a parliamentary form rather than a
presidential form of government. Some of the arguments are backed by
sophisticated analyses that have helped illumine important strengths of
parliamentary democracies and weaknesses of presidential democracies.
Others, however, are downright banal with a romanticized understanding
of parliamentarism, prescribing it as a panacea to the country's problems,
and a caricatured view of presideritialism, using it as a scapegoat for most
of the country's myriad political ills. Some of these arguments are impressive
in employing the comparative constitutional design literature to back their
comparative claims. Others, however, are woeful either in their parochialism
or in their gross misunderstanding of the comparative record of both
parliamentary and presidential democracies.
Notwithstanding the importance of many of the arguments mounted by
the pro-parliamentary position for the superiority of the parliamentary system
over the country's existing presidential system, they have largely remained
unanswered by the opposition against the shift in the form of government.
Up to now, a motley group composed of those who defend the presidential
system, those who are skeptical of the strong claims made for the
parliamentary system, those who are distrustful of the proponents of charter
change, and those who simply do not see the need for an overhaul of the
constitution have only offered incoherent, incomplete, or haphazard
defenses.

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Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004

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While at least three book-length collections of articles sympathetic YO
the parliamentary cause have been published since the 1987 ratification of
the EDSA Constitution,' not a single collection defending the current
presidential form or answering the specific criticisms of or claims by the
pro-parliamentary position has come out. In fact, not even one single article
by any Filipino scholar has come out to systematically answer or at least
give a comprehensive critical review of the parliamentary position in the
Philippines as it has developed over the successive charter change
cornpoiqns.? Nor has anyone employed the comparative literature on
constitutional design skeptical of the pro-parliamentary position to answer
either the comparative claims of the local parliamentary position or its use
of the comparative literoture."

Instead, the most salient defenses offered against a shift are neither
theoretical nor conceptual but a host of conjunctural, cynical, cultural, and
"personality-not-the-system" arguments. The conjunctural argument is that
constitutional change for the Philippines is inappropriate at this time since it
will be too divisive for the country and too disruptive to the country's tasks
of addressing its political and economic problems. The cynical argument
zeroes in on the motives of the politician-proponents seeing the call as a
smokescreen to a power grab to perpetuate themselves in power or, in the
case of the Cha-cha 2 campaign led by House Speaker Jose De Venecia, to
catapult a politician to power. The cultural argument is that the Philippines'
highly personalistic political culture is not appropriate to the more
depersonalized political behavior associated with a parliamentary system.
The "personality-not-the-system" argument is that constitutional change is
not necessary since it is not the "system" that needs changing but the
personalities in the system. Largely left untouched is the theoretical and
conceptual validity of the claimed superiority of parliamentary over
presidential democracies. The opposition has therefore failed to confront
head-on many of the central arguments of the pro-parliamentary position
in the Philippines.
In view of this, it is high time to start the long overdue process of offering
a more systematic critical review of the pro-parliamentary position. It is also
high time to attempt to present the opposite side of the form-of-government
debate in the comparative constitutional design literature. For without the

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benefit of a more coherent and systematic attempt to answer the arguments


of the desirability of the parliamentary system for the Philippines and without
the familiarity with the other side of the debate on the form of government,
especially as this debate has transpired in the comparative constitutional
design literature outside of the Philippines, the claimed superiority of
parliamentarism over presidentialism threatens-by default-to become the
accepted truth on the two forms of government.
Furthermore, the political and conceptual stakes of such a critical review
are also high. If the most withering criticisms of Filipino parliamentarians of
the presidential system are correct and .if at the same time. the political
possibility for the country making a shift to a parliamentary system in 'the
near future remains bleak, then the Philippines is stuck with an inutile form
of government. The true odds that the country will be able to change its
form of government are revealed when it is considered that "no existing
presidential system has ever changed to a parliamentary system."(Shugart
and Carey 1992: 3) However,' if a critical review, especially on comparative
grounds of similarly situated countries as the Philippines, can show that
presidentialism is not as inherently flawed as a form of government as claimed
and is in fact open to significant improvements through piecemeal reforms
that can improve its functioning then there is hope for the country and its
institutional form of governance.
By employing the critical edge of the alternative constitutional design
literature to cut down to size the local pro-parliamentary onslaught-or at
the very least by showing how difficult it is to get the combination right for
parliamentarism to work properly fo~ a Third World nation like the
Philippines-it might be possible to show that instead of the drastic
replacement in the form of government, the constitutional reforms needed
may be more incremental and more politically feasible amendments meant
to address the infirmities and improve the functioning of the presidential
form. Hence, this might spare the Philippines of the possibility of a wrenching
. experience of overhauling its existing constitution only toend up with a new
parliamentary constitution that is as or more flawed than the presidential
form it replaced.
Such a critical review might also show that instead of the research focus
on the principal, often ideal-typical, debate between presidential versus

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Philippine Political Science Journal25 (48) 2004


parliamentary forms, the more urgent and more fruitful research direction
to be taken is on the more specific level of how institutional varieties and
fine-tuning can affect the functioning and performance of the two forms o~
government, but especially of the presidential form which the Philippines
currently has and will likely continue to have for the foreseeable future.

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how the cornporofive literature on


constitutional design of similarly situated countries of the Third World that is
skeptical of the strong claims made on behalf of the parliamentary form of
government can be employed to critically review the most important claims
of the Philippine pro-parliamentary position. Because of space constraint, it
can subject to critical review only one of the central arguments of the
Philippine pro-parliamentary position. This argument is the claim of the
superior incentives of parliamentary over presidential systems for more
efficient and harmonious executive-legislative relations." Hopefully, this
preliminary effort will serve as a template that can be used and developed
further by those interested in pursuing a similar comparative constitutional
design literature-based criticism of the other arguments raised by Filipino
parliamentary cdvocotes."

Pro-Parliamentary Arguments
We wont to put on end to paralysis and gridlock and the constantdivisions

in the Philippine political system thathave prevented us from catching up


with the economic tigers of Southeast Asia and created cycles of boom
and bust for the country.
-

"

"

statement of House Speaker Jose De Venecia upon the approval of the House
Concurrent Resolution no. 16 on March 19,2003 asking Congress to convene
as a constituent assembly to write a parliamentary constitution

On the argument that the shift to parliamentarism would result in more


efficient and harmonious executive-legislative relations, or, put differently, in
less executive-legislative gridlock in the Philippine political system, Florencio
Abad offers one of the most developed arguments among Firipino
parliamentary advocates. This he does by closely following the proparliamentary comparative literature on constitutional desiqn."

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59


Abad echoes the arguments of the eminent pro-parliamentary
comparative scholar Juan Linz who identifies two defining features of
presidential forms of government as producing the two basic flaws inherent
to a presidential democracy. The first feature is the separate election of the
president and members of the legislature which creates the problem of the
"dual democratic legitimacy" enjoyed by both the executive and legislative
branches. The second feature is the fixed term enjoyed by the executive and
legislative branches independent of each other which creates the problem
of "rigidity" in the relationship between the two branches. Abad quotes Linz
this way:
Linz attributes this problem to an inherent structural weakness in a
presidential system: the tenure of the president is fixed independent of
the legislature and the legislature can survive without fear of dissolution
by the executive. This feature derives from the separate but coexisting
democratic legitimacy enjoyed bythe executive and legislative branches,
being both directly and popularly elected. (Abad 1997: 60)
These two defining features of presidentiolism are said to create serious
. political problems that plague the workings of the executive-legislative
relations in a presidential system. The dual democratic legitimacy of the
executive and legislative branches in a presidential system provides weak
incentives for cooperation between the two branches since direct election
gives each of them a direct mandate to represent the people. On one hand,
the executive has the feeling of superior democratic legitimacy over the
legislative. This feeling of superiority springs from the fact that the president
does not. only hold the highest office of the land but also represents the
nation as a whole. As a result, the president is said to be unwilling to
compromise with the legislature on crucial policy issues. Abad quotes
another doyen of the parliamentary literature, Arend Lijphart, to further
develop the argument:

Lijphart goes along with this view, but at the same time holds that this is
only part of the explanation. For him, 'the real problem is... that
everyone-including the president, the public at large, and even political
scientists-feels that the president's claim (to legitimacy) is much stronger
than the legislature's. Consequently... the feeling of superior democratic

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Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004

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legitimacy may make the president righteously unwilling and
psychologically unable to compromise.' (Abad 1997: 60)
On the other hand, the legislative branch also feels that it cannot be
dictated upon by the executive since it too enjoys a direct mandate from the
electorate and in its collective capacity also represents the whole nation.
This in turn may give the executive a hard time to achieve the necessary
cooperation needed to push its policy agenda in the legislature, even in
situations when the executive has majority control of the legislature .

I
I

This problem becomes more acute in cases wherein the president does
not have majority control in the legislature. Sincethe president and legislators
are elected separately, presidentialism is especially prone to situations where
the executive and majority of the legislative members come from different,
even opposing, parties. (Abad 1997: 60) Where outright conflicts between
the two branches happen, these conflicts then degenerate into a prolonged
and unproductive gridlock or impasse since, and this is the crucial part of
Abad and Linz's argument, there is said to be no clear democratic mechanism
to resolve the conflicts.
Similarly, the fixed terms enjoyed by both the executive and legislative
branches also act as a disincentive for them to cooperate. Since the executive
has no power to dissolve the legislature nor the legislature the power to
dismissthe executive, except in the rare and tedious process of impeachment,
the guaranteed term of office of both branches leaves little room for them to
coordinate their action if only to stay in office. In short, each can ignore the
other without undermining the two branches' tenure. Accordingly, this setup results in frequent policy stalemates and gridlocks between the two
branches.
In addition to Abad, this point is raised by Pablo Tangco (1991: 10)
when he argues that "[t]he Presidentin the Presidential system must contend
with institutional deadlocks" brought about by the "checks and balances
from both legislative and judicial departments." This argument is also
reproduced by Jose Abueva (2002: 79-102) when he presents Abad's
arguments on the inferior ability of presidential systems to prevent gridlock
and attain good working executive-legislative relations.

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All these infirmities of a presidential system are said to be in sharp contrast
to a parliamentary system where the fusion of executive and legislative
functions creates the proper institutional incentives for cooperation between
the two branches of government. Where the legislature is the only directly
elected institution and from which the executive-the prime minister and
cabinet-comes from, there is said to be no dual democratic legitimacy
conflict. Moreover, the flexibility of the tenure of both the executive and the
legislature where each has the power to dismisseach other, the prime minister
abolishing parliament and calling for new elections and the legislature
securing a vote of no confidence on the prime minister and/or cabinet,
provides a built-in powerful incentive for cooperation between the branches
absent in a presidential system.'
In the Philippine case, these infirmities said to be inherent in the executivelegislative relations of the presidential system have been traced as institutional
root causes of many of the country's political malaise. For Abad (1997:
60), the principle of checks and balances behind the separate powers of
the executive and legislative branches of the country's presidential system
has resulted in a "chronic problem of gridlock" preventing the country "from
responding-in an efficient and timely manner-to the many challenges
and opportunities it faces cs it struggles to catch up with the rest of the
advancing economies in Southeast Asia." It has also caused the widespread
discrediting of the two institutions as the public becomes frustrated over
their frequent quarrels and their failure to put their act together on important
policy issues. (Abad 199.7: 59-60)
This point is shared by Abueva and Tangco who also believe that the
system of checks and balances has had serious adverse effects on the
executive-legislative relations in the Philippines. Abueva (2002: 79-80) opines
that the separation of powers and the checks and balances partly explain
'not only the competition and conflict between the President and Congress
as they enact laws but also the frequent buck-passing between them as they
fail 'to enact much needed legislation. He argues that the result is that the
country has lagged behind the restof East Asia. Tangco (1995: 2), for his
part, argues that it is the system of checks and balances that "institutionalized
the hostility between the legislative and executive departments and resulted
in the gridlock that emasculate the government and render it weak and
ineffectual. "

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Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004

'.~

Joel Rocamora (1997: 90-133) puts a specifically reformist, progressive


twist to this argument by claiming that the president's relationship with
Congress in the present presidential form of government has proven to be
one of the biggest stumbling blocks to introducing, among others, much
needed but politically difficult structural economic and social reforms. For
him, however, the problem should not be framed simply in terms of gridlock
between the two branches but in terms of the "system work[ing] against
policy-making on the basis of rational planning criteria or strategic vision"
as reform proposals by the executive are watered down if they have any
chances at all of getting through the vested interests of Congress. (Rocamora

1997: 116).
Lines of Counter-Arguments

As presented earlier, both comparative pro-parliamentary scholars like


Linz and Lijphart and Filipino parliamentary advocates claim that the basic
weaknesses of the presidential system and the basic strengths of the
parliamentary system with regards to executive-legislative relations lie in their
inherent features as a form of government. Especially for both Linz and
Abad, these weaknesses and strengths boil down to the two basic features
of separate elections and fixed terms of the executive and legislative branches
in presidentialism and of fused election and flexible terms of the executive
and legislative branches in parliamentarism. As would be presented by the
paper below, the principal thesis of the responses of comparative
constitutional design scholars who are skeptical of.the pro-parliamentary
position is to emphasize that "institutional varieties" found in both presidential
and parliamentary forms of government and the overall "institutional
configuration" they are in explain more the performance of the forms of
government than the ideal-typical discussion of their inherent features.
This neglect of institutional variations within presidentialism and which
set apart one presidential form from another is one of the chief complaints
of scholars of the comparative constitutional design literature like Scott
Mainwaring and Matthew Shugart who are skeptical of the pro-parliamentary
. position. The two scholars argue that such neglect has allowed
presidentialism to be wrongfully presented as a "homogenous" kind.
(Mainwaring and Shugart 1997: 13)

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The importance of sifting though institutional variations within forms of


government are true not only for presidentialism but also for parliamentarism.
The capacity of parliamentary systems to achieve the superior performance
its advocates claim also depends on the type of institutions particular
parliamentary forms of government have. Important institutional variations
exist among parliamentary forms and these variations significantly determine
their performance. (Mainwaring and Shugart 1993: 12)
On the other hand, to recognize the factor of institutional configuration
is to be sensitive to the effects of institutions on each other. In the context of
this form-of-government debate, it is to be sensitive to the effects of other
institutions on the institutions composing the form of government (e.g.,
whether theelectorol system having an open or closed party lists will affect
the capacity of the executive to muster support for his legislative measures
from his own party mates in congress or parliament). This means that neither
presidential nor parliamentary forms must be analyzed independently from
other institutions that may affect their functioning.
Overall, it is possible to identify some of the lines of counter-arguments
that have been raised by several scholars in the comparative constitutional
design literature to answer the pro-parliamentary arguments on these two
features of separate elections and fixed terms (and the two flaws of dual
democratic legitimacy and rigidity) as they affect the performance and
longevity of presidentialism as a form of government. The paper will use
them to guide the flow of the presentation of the alternative position available
in the comparative constitutional design literature on the inherent superiority
of parliamentary over presidential systems in promoting more efficient and
harmonious relations and in avoiding gridlock between the executivelegislative branches. At least four lines of counter-arguments are relevant in
this respect.

1. The two basic features of presidentia!ism have their own


advantages that offset some of their disadvantages.
Mainwaring and Shugart argue that the two features of separate
elections and fixed terms precisely work to make possible the vaunted checks

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Philippine Political Science Joumal25 (48) 2004

-l

J'"

--------------------

and balances between the executive and legislative specific to a presidential


system. Because the legislature and the executive can consider legislative
proposals without fear of dissolution of the legislature or a vote of confidence
on government as in a parliamentary system, they argue that in policy
situations where legislative proposals need to be "considered on their merits
rather than as matters of 'confidence' in the leadership of the ruling party
or coalition" this feature of presidentialism is an advantage of presidentialism
or at least mitigates the effects of presidential ism when it comes 1"0 the
efficiency side of executive-legislative coordination. (Mainwaring and Shugart
1997: 37)
They point out that in a Westminster-based parliamentary system, this
trade-off between efficiency versus mutual checks is particularly stark since
the cabinet can impose its will on its disciplined party members who have a
majority in parliament and where the opposition (with no ability to recruit
defectors from the ruling majority during voting) cannot do anything to
block legislation and is rendered inutile to mount any checks on the
qovernrnent." On the other hand, Shugart and John Carey argue that in
some proportional representation-based parliamentary systems marked by
"fragmented party systems and considerable initiative in parliament," the
ability of parliament to threaten a vote of confidence on the prime minister
also inhibits legislation from being considered more freely on their merits.
(Shugart and Carey 1992: 47-48)
Mainwaring and Shugart also add that when it comes to providing a
more stable executive-legislative policymaking environment, fixed terms may
also have some advantages unacknowledged by pro-parliamentary scholars.
The higher threshold needed to change government can also serve as a
stabilizing factor to policymaking in the developing world "since it would be
expected to provide more predictability and stability to the policy-making
process than the frequent dismantling and reconstructing of cabinets that
afflicts some parliamentary systems-and that might especially be prevalent
in the conditions of macroeconomic instability and scarcity that plague much
of the less developed world." (Mainwaring and Shugart 1997: 38)

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2. Some of the flaws of these features of presidentialism can be


remedied through reforms involving features in this form of
government itself.
.
I

Again, this position is best exemplified by M~inwaring and Shugart who


stress that the effects of separate elections and fixed terms on executivelegislative coordination and conflict are mediated by the effects of the balance
of legislative powers between the executive and legislature particular to a
country.
They argue that where presidential powers are strong, meaning that the
presidents have significant powers to influence legislation such as veto
powers and decree powers, "the ability of the congress to debate, logroll,
and offer compromises on conflictual issues confronting the society is sharply
constrained. Instead, the presidency takes on enormous legislative
importance and the incumbent has formidable weapons with which to fine
tune legislation to fit his or her whims and limit consensus building in the
assembly." (Mainwaring and Shugart 1993: 14) In short, where the
president's legislative power is strong, his or her capacity to encroach upon
a larger arena of lawmaking deemed by legislators to be properly belonging
to the legislature becomes greater, hence, potentially exacerbating conflicts
with the legislative branch. On the oth~r hand, when the presidential powers
are weaker, the opportunity to widen the areas where the president will seek
to arrive at compromises with the legislature on policymaking is enhanced.
Mainwaring' and Shugart (1993: 14) point out that it is "probably no
accident" that presidential democra'cies that score "very high" in their system
of scoring presidential powers were the most problematic while those with
the lowest scores have been the most stable presidential systems.

"I'

I,

3. Some of the flaws of these features of presidentialism can be


mitigated through reforms involving institutional features outside
of the presidential form of government.
On this issue of executive-legislative conflict and/or gridlock over
policymaking, central attention is given to the effects of the party and electoral
system to help explain the performance of a particular presidential form of
government a country has. This orqurnent.is exemplified by Stephan Haggard
who argues that a country's party and electoral system is as important a

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Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004

factor to explain the executive-legislative configuration as the form of


qovernment.? He identifies three relevant features of the party system:
fragmentation, polarization, and party discipline.
Following the convention of the institutional design literature, Haggard
(1997: 134) defines fragmentation as the number of effective parties seated
in the legislature. For him, fragmentation affects executive-legislative relations
through the "difficulty it poses for coordination" of the executive's legislative
agenda brought about by a larger number of parties the executive must
coordinate with. Accordingly, "party fragmentation in presidential systems
compounds the chances that executives will become politically isolated and
powerless to pursue their agenda."(Haggard 1997: 135) In addition,
compared to a parliamentary government, he says that the "incentives for
small parties to cooperate with the government are weaker" and the
"temptations to legislative blackmail are correspondingly greater" because
of the inability to threaten early elections in a presidential system.'?
Polarization is defined by Haggard as the ideological distance between
the rightmost and leftmost parties in the system. According to him,
"[c]oordination becomes even more difficult when the centrifugal pressures
in fragmented systems are compounded by strong ideological polarization
or sectarian tendencies."(Haggard 1997: 136) Ideologically based, usually
populist or left political parties in such systems (whether presidential or
parliamentary) are more likely to engage in "programmatic bidding wars,"
in order to outshine rival groups and court narrow constituencies. This
intensifies the distributional demands and struggle in the legislature and
makes policy coordination between the executive and legislative more difficult
(especially the enactment of painful economic reform measures). (Haggard
1997)
On party discipline, Haggard says that the most important variable "is
the relative strength of the party leadership vis-a-vis the individual politician."
(Haggard 1997: 139) If there is strong party leadership, the prospect of
enforcing the party program becomes greater. Equally important, Haggard
(1997: 139) argues that party strength affects not only intra-party dynamics
but also the design of legislative institutions themselves: "Strong parties are
more likely to favor rules and institutions that further buttress party discipline,
such as strong oversight or control committees, extensive agenda-setting

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and committee assignment powers for party leaders, and weak policy
committees." Such arrangements have been identified elsewhere in the
constitutional design literature as measures that facilitate executive control
of and/or coordination with the legislature.
These three features of the party system are largely determined not by
the form of government a country has but by its electoral system. According
to Haggard (1997: 145), " [e]lectoral rules that provide low barriers to
political entry encourage the fragmentation and polarization of the political
system, factors that make coordination difficult." For party discipline,
Haggard (1997: 139-141) sees the effects of the electoral system on at
least four electoral features, namely: (1) manner of candidate selection; (2)
control of the order of electoral tickets; (3) choice voters make whether
between parties or candidates; and (4) control of campaign finonce.!'

4. The supposed superior features of parliamentarism. depending on their specific institutional features-suffer from
their own political pathologies (or from similar problems that
parliamentary advocates attribute to presidentialism).
It is crucial to point out that the specific pathologies would depend on
the institutional varieties of the parliamentarism in question. This buttresses
the argument of scholars that it is not the ideal-typical qualities of the form
of government that is determining but the specific institutional varieties and
context/configuration that the form of government finds itself in.
In addition to the trade-offs between the mutual checks and balances
of presidentialism and the executive dominance in Westminster-type
parliaments, and the trade-offs between the potential policy stability provided
by fixed terms in presidentialism and the policy flux offered by proportional
representation-based parliaments already mentioned above, scholars have
raised other possible trade-offs and problems concerning specific types of
parliamentarism as they relate to executive-legislative relations. Some of
them are mentioned below.

a) A parliamentary system that has a bicameral legislature may also


bring about conflicting claims to legitimacy although in a different form
than in a presidential system.

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Philippine Political ScienceJournal25 (48) 2004 .

One form of conflicting legitimacy claims in a parliamentary system


may involve the lower and the upper houses if the parliament is bicameral.
According to Mainwaring and Shugart (1993: 7-8), dual legitimacy claims
between these two houses may happen if both houses have the power to
exercise the vote of confidence over the government and both houses are
controlled by different, especially sharply opposed, majorities. They say that
when conflicts arise between the two chambers "there is no dual legitimacy
between executive and assembly, but between two chambers of the
assembly."12
Another form of conflicting legitimacy claims in a parliamentary system
that they identify involves the executive and the legislature's upper house.
This is true in cases where the upper houses have significant legislative
powers but do not have the power to exercise a vote of confidence against
the government as in a few parliamentary systems like in Canada, Germany,
and Japan. Conversely, in some parliamentary systems, the government
cannot dissolve the upper house. In both cases, Mainwaring and Shugart
(1993: 8) claim that "there is a genuine dual legitimacy between the executive
and (part of the legislature."
b) A parliamentary system that has strong legislative committees may
also suffer from problems of executive-legislative gridlock in policymaking
similar to a presidential system.
Jose Antonio Cheibub and Fernando Limongi say that when powerful
legislative committees exist in parliament, these committees make it difficult
to exercise executive control of the legislature. According to the two, this
fact has not been frequently acknowledged by pro-parliamentary scholars
who harp on the superior executive-legislative relations of parliamentary
forms because they seem to be stuck on the Westminster model as the
"prototype" parliamentary case. While the prototype nature of parliamentary
system applies to England, a different, more problematic picture of executivelegislative relations emerges if other parliamentary systems are considered.
Legislative committees in both France of the Third and Fourth Republics
and Italy are powerful vis-a-vis the executive since the committees, as against
the ones found in their Westminster counterpart, could significantly delay
the passage of bills. In the parliaments of France at those times, "committees

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69


could act as 'veto players,' since a report from the committee was necessary
for consideration of a bill by the floor." (Cheibub and Limongi 2002: 174)
In the Italian parliament, "one finds the same pattern: the parliament's
independence to set the legislative agenda/strong committees, and legislative
rights that favor individual members' influence over decisions."(Cheibub
and Limongi 2002: 174) Like their French counterparts, Italian legislative
committees can act as important veto players of the executive's legislative
agenda since, among others, committee chairmen are autonomous in
defining their legislative priorities and even in convening their committees. 13
c) Parliamentary systems with a fragmented and/or polarized party
system may also suffer from policy irnmobilism.
Parliamentary advocates assume that because parliamentary systems,
almost by definition, can command a 'majority in the legislature, they will
not experience the same problem of policy immobilism that presidential
systems face, especially when the president's party lacks rnojority support in
the legislature. Contrary to this belief, however, Cheibub and Limongi suggest
that majority support in parliament may also make the parliamentary system
suffer from its own version of policy immobilism (especially as legislation
relates to policy reforms) if the majority in the legislature is formed out of a
fragmented and/or polarized party system.
In terms of status quo-changing legislation (i.e., enacting reforms), the
fact that the formation of a majority government in a parliamentary system
is based on the conglomeration of a number of parties with different political
preferences makes government action necessarily "limited to the area that
contains the policy proposals preferred by its supporters over the status
quo."(Cheibub and Limongi 2002: 156) As the government attempts to
court and broaden majority support, the once limited area in which the
government can take action may become even smaller. Citing George
Tsebelis's concept of "veto players," Cheibub and Limongi (2002: 156157) explain that the number of parties that come together to form the
majority would help determine the number of actors who can veto status
quo-changing policy proposals." The biqqer the majority, the more the veto
players. With this reduction in the scope of governmental action, "governments
may have to pay the price of policy immobility in order to form a majority."
(Cheibub and Limongi 2002: 157)

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Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004


d) Parliamentary systems with a fragmented and/or polarized party
system may also suffer from a different form of executive-legislative deadlock.

A parliamentary system whose proportional representation-based


electoral system is marked by fragmentation or polarization may also bring
about deadlock between the executive and legislative branches. Although
different from the policy deadlocks in the executive-legislative relations in a
presidential system, critics of the parliamentary position such as Haggard
and Robert Kaufman (1995: 348) point to a deadlock between the executive
and legislative branches in a parliamentary form of government when
parliament is faced with the more basic problem of the inability to form or
maintain governments. Cheibub and Limongi (2002: 156) raise the similar
argument that deadlocks in parliament exist when the legislature could not
arrive at lasting agreements on the composition of government and where
"no stable majority is formed" even after new elections for parliament are
formed.
Implications

The arguments that scholars of the constitutional design literature raised


against parliamentarism's superiority in promoting efficient executivelegislative relations pose some serious conceptual and policy implications
for the Philippine pro-parliamentary position as well as on the larger formsof-government debate in the Philippines.
At the conceptual level, the Filipino parliamentary advocates are able to
claim that the parliamentary system is superior to the presidential system
only because they base their arguments on ideal-typical distinctions between
these two forms of government, that is, the parliamentary system is inherently
superior because of its basic institutional features of fused legitimacy and
no fixed terms while the presidential system is inherently weak because of its
institutional features of separate legitimacy and fixed terms.
By arguing along this ideal-typical dichotomy, Filipino parliamentary
advocates have not only adopted the mistaken view that the superiority of
one form over another revolves simply on the form of government but, more
importantly, have also failed to consider that both presidential and
parliamentary systems have many institutional varieties and that these

The Philippine Pro-Parliamentary PositionlTorres

71


institutional differences significantly affect the performance of each of these
forms of government. As discussed in the paper, the success or failure of
any form of government, whether presidential or parliamentary, depends
on the various institutional features associated with it such as the electoral
and party system. For instance, executive-legislative relations whether in
parliamentary or presidential systems can be affected by the extent of party
froqrnentotion, polarization and discipline. Thesequalities, in turn, are shaped
by the type of electoral system found in each form of government.
. Sensitivity to these institutional varieties is crucial since it shows that the
choice for an institutional arrangement aimed to promote harmonious
executive-legislative relations must not merely be between presidentialism
or parliamentarism but must also be in terms of what specific types of
presidentialism and parliamentarism. There are many variations of
presidentialism as there are many variations of parliamentarism. The specific
arrangements within these variations are as important as whether
presidential ism or parliamentarism is chosen because these arrangements
strongly affect the functioning and performance of each of these forms of
government. Moreover, these distinctions are crucial given that, as discussed
earlier, there are trade-offs involved not only between presidentialism and
parliamentarism but also among variations within each of these basic regime
types.

Given the importance of the institutional configurations, the urgent


research focus in the Philippines should be on the more specific level of how
institutional varieties and institutional details can affect the functioning and
performance of the two forms of government. Instead of the research focus
languishing in the principal, often ideal-typical debate between presidential
versus parliamentary forms which has only led to an intellectual cul-de-sac'i
the more urgent and more fruitful research direction to be taken in the
:,j
Philippines is on the more specific level of how institutional varieties and
fine-tuning can affect the functioning and performance of the two forms of

government.
Pursuing this research focus must involve the employment of the
comparative literature on constitutional design on similarly situated countries
as' the Philippines since this would help both proponents and opponents of
the local pro-parliamentary position develop a more sophisticated and
nuanced grasp ofthe conceptual and political stakes involved in the forms-.

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Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004

of-government debate. Moreover, such employment would, among others,


give a fuller appreciation of the range of positions available in the
constitutional reform debate. While a comparative perspective is certainly
no guarantee that Filipinos interested in institutional questions would get it
right, a comparative perspective can be expected to be more nuanced than
a parochial one. Filipino parliamentary advocates and their critics can put
to their advantage the arguments of this comparative literature by appraising
its analyses in the light of their own local research questions and concerns.
Perhaps as important, by surveying the literature they would also become
more aware of the vast array of positions which would guarantee their
familiarity with both sides of the argument.

At the policy level, because the Filipino parliamentary advocates have


argued along the ideal-typical distinction and have ignored the institutional
configuration, they have created the impression that the problems they found
with presidentialism cannot be remedied at all, thus rendering the
presidential system a hopeless form of government. As discussed in the
paper, this is far from the view of many constitutional design scholars. A
number of the flaws of the presidential system such as those found in the
presidential form in the Philippines may be amenable to reforms involving
those features at the level of the form of government itself and those features
at the level of other institutions affecting the functioning of the form of
government.

I.

Reforms within the presidential form of government may begin with


addressing the basic institutional features and extending them to other
features within presidentialism. For example, if separate legitimacy is a
problem in the Philippines since it provides less incentives for the executive
and legislative branches to cooperate with each other, then one possible
solution is to reform presidential powers in the direction where both branches
will seek to arrive at compromises with each other. Reforms beyond the
inherent features may involve the restructuring of legislative committees in
the Philippine Congress to ensure better legislative support for the executive's
legislative agenda.

Instituting reforms outside the form of government must involve the


various institutional features associated 'with the performance of the
presidential form of government. Central among them are the electoral

The PhilippinePro-ParliamentaryPositionlTorres

73

and party system. Reforming these institutions are crucial in addressing the
problems that Filipino pro-parliamentarians raised against the presidential
system since they could significantly affect the way it functions and performs.
For example, specific features of the Philippine single-member district
electoral system and the current electoral nomination process of Filipino
political parties affecting the extent of party system fragmentation or cohesion
may be addressed which, in turn, are likely to have an impact on the legislative
support and level of party discipline the Philippine executive can count on.
Given these possibilities for reforms, the limitations of the Philippine
presidential system may not necessitate grand constitutional changes but
only more modest piecemeal changes. Since the reforms involving the forms
of government and electoral systems can be made by more conventional
legislative actions compared to a shift to a parliamentary form that would
need a constituent assembly or a constitutional convention, these reforms
are far more politically manageable and politically less risky to undertake. If
the claims of the pro-parliamentary position on the virtues of parliamentarism
are seen as exaggerated, then this institutional fine-tuning of the presidential
form might even be more important and politically constructive than
overhauling the form of government itself. Moreover, because this would
not involve a wholesale rewriting of the constitution wher~ all institutional
features are potentially up for grabs, then these piecemeal changes may
substantially lessen the danger of ending up with a version of parliamentary
form of government far worse than the presidential form of government the
Philippines currently has.

Concl usion
This paper has presented the claim by Filipino parliamentary advocates
that parliamentary forms of government are superior over presidential forms
in encouraging more efficient and harmonious executive-legislative relations
and, conversely, in avoiding political gridlock between the two branches.
Where appropriate, the paper has traced the influences of the local position
from their original sources in the pro-parliamentary comparative
constitutional design literature. In turn, the paper has employed at least
four lines of counter-arguments distilled from the works of scholars who are
critical of the pro-parliamentary position in the comparative constitutional
design literature to guide the paper's presentation of the contrary position
available on this claim. The paper has argued that the counter-arguments
of some comparative constitutional design scholars pose serious challenges
74

Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004

to the validity of the arguments made by the pro-parliamentary constitutional


design scholars utilized by some Filipino parliamentary advocates. The paper
has also maintained that accepting the validity of these criticisms will pose
critical implications to the Filipino pro-parliamentary position .:..
Notes
1 The first is the 1991 collection "Summary of Conference Proceedings: First National
Conference on Parliamentary Government" published by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation
and the Local Gavernment Development Faundation. The second is the 1997 boak Shift
published by the Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and the PhilippinesCanada Human Resource Development Program. The third is the 2002 book Towards a
Federal Republic of the Philippines with a Parliamentary Government: A Reader published
by the Center for Social Policy and Governance of Kalayaan College.

I could only find two published papers (to be differentiated from single-issue newspaper
commentaries) that have attempted to answer some of the arguments advanced by the proparliamentary position as it relates to the 1987 Constitution. The first is the 1995 paper by
Jose Abueva which does not really answer the arguments advanced by parliamentarism but
is more a plea to give presidentialism a chance to work for about 12 more years from
1998 before shifting to a new form of government. In the meantime, he proposes importont
electoral and political reforms that would strengthen the presidential form of government.
2

Calling the parliamentary position as "beguiling and seductive" but arguing that the present
constitution is "good and solid," Abueva himself later succumbs to parliamentarism's siren
song that by the year 2001, he has shifted gears and has joined the parliamentary call,
complete with a draft constitution based on a parliamentary government (and a federal
organization of the state) but to be enacted in 2010 (in line with his earlier 12-year plea).
He is therefore included by this paper as a parliamentarista and would be reviewed as one.
See and compare his 1995 paper published as a four-part series in Today, "Proposals for
Changing the Constitution" (4-7 July) with his 2002 paper "Towards a Federal Republic of
the Philippines with a Parliamentary Government by 2010" in Towards a Federal Republic
of the Philippines with a Parliamentary Government: A Reader, pp. 79- 102 that introduced
his draft constitution.
The second paper is by Emil Bolongaita, "Presidential versus Parliamentary Democracy,"
Philippine Studies 43 (First Quarter 1995): 105-123. Here, he challenges the stronq claim
made for parliamentorism by some congressmen. But his work is a commentary of pre1995 events, well before Ramos's Chc-cho gathered steam and shortly before a number of
major pro-parliamentary articles appeared.
This is also the complaint of Bolongaita. He complains that "the debate between
presidential and parliamentary government in the Philippines has not been supported by a
corresponding debate among international scholars concerning constitutional choices far
reemerging and new democracies," (Bolongaita 1995: 107). However, he himself does not
explicitly employ camparative insights against parliamentarism and for presidentialism in
this article. While this dismal state for the pro-presidential position still exists up to the

The Philippine Pro-Parliamentary PasilianfTorres

75


present, this is no longer true for the parliamentary position after the 1997 publication of
Shift where one article in the collection written by Florencio "Butch" Abad ("Should the
Philippines Turn Parliamentary: The Challenges of Democratic Consolidation and
Institutional Reform," pp. 48-86) extensively employs the pro-parliamentory comparative
literature to buttress his claim of the superior performance of parliamentary over
presidential democracies in the world.
It is possible to identify at least eight major argumentswhy the parliamentary posltlon '
believes that the parliamentary form of government is superior to the currently existing
presidential form in the Philippines. These are parliamentarism's superior incentives for
more efficient and harmonious executive-legislative relations; superior democratic
survivability; superior accountability in governance; superior representation of nonmajoritarian interests; stronger inducement for more disciplined political parties; superior
economic performance; superior incentives for a better functioning bureaucracy;' and
superior set-up in promoting cheaper elections.
4

This review is more illustrative than exhaustive. The stress of the review would be
according to the theoretical positions espoused and not on the individual positions of
either Filipino parliamentary advocates or of the comparative constitutional design
scholars. The modest aim is more to raise the main themes of the debate than to arrive at
an ambitious, thorough matrix of positions of both camps.

The importance of Abad 's work for the pro-parliamentary camp is evidenced by the fact
that it was reprinted in the 2002 book Towards a Federal Republic of the Philippines. His
work is also one of the most cited by the parliamentarista camp. For example, Abueva,
doubtless the leading intellectual light of the parliamentary movement in the 2001-2004
cha-cha2 campaign, heavily depends on the arguments found in Abad's work to mcike his
case for the superiority of parliamentary forms of government over presidential ones.

7 See this glowing quote on the virtues of executive-legislative relations in a parliamentary


system from Abueva: "After decades of experience, this shift will be absolutely good for the
Philippines because of the continued conflict and gridlock between the President and the
legislature as well as within legislature itself. It should be changed to a parliamentary
government where the impasse can be overcome by fusing the powers of the president and
the legislature in a new parliament headed by a prime minister and his cabinet," as cited in
Rocky Nazareno and Juliet Javellana, "Only 8 Senators Needed to Scuttle Cha-cha,"
Philippine Daily Inquirer, 8 January 2003, p. A7.

See Mainwaring and Shugart's discussion of how parliamentary systems with disciplined
parties and a majority party promote a winner-takes-all approach more than presidential
systems in "Juan Linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: A Critical Appraisal," Helen Kellogg
Working Paper Series no. 200, Kellogg Institute for International Studies (July 1993), pp. 910. Available from: http://www.nd.edu/-kettogg/WPS/200.pdf.

"This review does not imply complete agnosticism on the question of the effects of
parliamentary versus presidentiol rule. However, it suggests that the effects of this
fundamental constitutional choice are contingent on other components of institutional
design, particularly the party system." (Haggard 1997: 133)
9

"

76

Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004

"


10 Consistent with his argument that it is the party system not the form of government that is
at work here, Haggard does not mean that parliamentary systems are immune to this
problem of fragmentation, only the mechanisms of the coordination problem are different.
(Haggard 1997: 135-136).
11 Mainwaring and Shugart (1997) raise the same points. For them, the effects of the two
features on executive-leqislctive deadlocks are mitigated by the party system presidentialism
finds itself in. They focus on two aspects of the party system. First is the level of party
fragmentation and second is the level of party discipline. In turn, many characteristics of the
party system are products not of the form of government per se but of the country's
electoral system.
12 Mainwaring and Shugart (1997) concede that in most parliamentary systems, mechanisms
exist to allow one or both houses to be dissolved in an attempt to resolve the deadlock.
The point is that dual legitimacy conflicts can also happen in some parliamentary systemsa point unacknowledged by many parliamentary advocates.

Cheibub and Limongi acknowledge that the two examples of parliamentary systems
represent more the exception than the rule. However, this in no way lessens the force 01
their argument that it is the specific design of supporting institutions not any ideal-typico:l
understanding of the forms of government that matters. (Cheibub and Limongi 2002: 175)
13

The work of Tsebelis they cite is the article "Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto
Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentorism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism," British
Journal of Political Science 25-3 (July 1995): 289-325 .
14

References.
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Democratic Consolidation and Institutional Reform." In Soliman Santos et aI., Shift.
Quezon City: Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and the PhilippinesCanada Human Resource Development Program, pp. 48-86.
Abueva, Jose V. et al. (eds.) 2002. Towards a Federal Republic of the Philippines with a
Parliamentary Government: A Reader. Marikina City: Center for Social Policy and
Governance.
_ _ _ _ _. 1995. "Let 's Make our Presidential System Work." Today 4-7 July.
Bolongaita, Emil. 1995. "Presidential versus Parliamentary Democracy." Philippine Studies
43 (First Quarter): 105-23.

Cooill, Olivia. 1994. "Legislative-Executive Relations in the Philippines and the


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Cheibub, Jose Antonio and Fernando Limongi. 2002. "Democratic Institutions and Regime
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Haggard, Stephan. 1997. "Democratic Institutions, Economic Policy, and Development." In
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Haggard, Stephan and Robert Kaufman. 1995. The Political Economy of Democratic
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linz, Juan J. 1994. "Presidential or Parliamentary Democracy: Does It Make a Difference?" In
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Main~aring Scott and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 1997. "Presidenfiolism and Democracy in
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_----:-:-:-:-__. 1993. "Juan linz, Presidentialism, and Democracy: A Critical AppraisaL" Helen
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/www.nd.edu/-kellogg/WPS/200.pdf.
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Shugart, Matthew. 1995. "Parliaments over Presidents?" Journal of Democracy 6-2: 168-

172.
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Tangco, Pablo. 1995. "A Guide to Adoption of a Parliamentary Government." Paper presented
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_ _-:-=----::-. 1991. "The Executive in the Parliamentary System of Government." Summary

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Westin Philippine Plaza, 4-5 December, pp. 9-13.
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_--::-;-_'""7'7.2001. "The Never Ending Cha-Cha Beat: How Should Progressives Dance?"
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Philippine Political Science Journal 25 (48) 2004

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