It's Insanity To Do The Same Thing All Over Again While Expecting Different Results

It's been said by more than one person that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. This is exactly the problem of the Philippines for more than 30 years. It's doing exactly the same thing with the 1987 Constitution and their program which they call as Daang Matuwid  or the straight road in English. Manang Loida Nicolas Lewis even had the nerve to derail every other candidate to promote her allies Marbobo Roxas and Leni Loud Robredo to continue the Daang Matuwid that Noynoy supposedly started. 

What insanity am I talking about? I could talk about trying to open the jar of progress with the faulty Aquino constitution. So how is insanity displayed by the 1987 Constitution? Let's talk about some of the provisions which they try to achieve something but said results say otherwise. It's like trying to keep a business while not taking advantage of what modern technology has to offer and not keeping up with the trends of your target market or trying to cook quality food without changing the quality of one's raw ingredients. There's a big lie that says that it doesn't matter what kind of system we have as long as we get competent people to rule it. That kind of thinking is just very wrong. The reason why the Philippines suffers further after the Marcos Years is because the current system is based on incompetence.

Let's start with trying to achieve economic growth without removing unnecessary restrictions towards foreign direct investors. This is living with the protectionist fantasy of self-industrialization. If you don't know what that means then let me tell you what it means. This is the idea that first world countries didn't progress by accepting foreign investments but by protecting their local small businesses and that it was through that a national industry was born in the process. What's worse is that you have people who want to end the labor export program all the while they still don't want to open up the economy. They still expect the sick man's fantasy of self-industrialization to spring up an economic miracle even when first world countries progressed through economic liberalization.

People want to have competent people but they still want to stick to the popularity-based presidential system. If there's any good reason why dumb voters multiply like rabbits then you can blame the current system. People are voted for their popularity over their credibility. Think of the number of times popularity defeated credibility such as the presidency of Joseph Ejercito Estrada when Jose De Venecia (though lacking charisma) had more credibility or when Noynoy Aquino won simply because he was an Aquino. If you want to stop stupid people from rising into power then you should replace the popularity-based presidential system with the credibility-based parliamentary system.

People complain about traffic in Imperial Manila or slow progress all the while they still stick to the unitary form of government. This is like complaining about your flow of water in your plumbing is too slow yet you refuse to get wider tubes and you still use overly narrow tubes. You could also think about trying to solve a blood circulation problem without unclogging or relaxing the blood vessels. The reason why the unitarian system is a failure is because it tries to centralize everything instead of delegating authority. The federal system is all about decentralization to make sure that not all activities are too focused on Imperial Manila. That's why there's the need to decentralize through an evolving federalism because the geography of the Philippines is 7,107 islands.

How can you expect peace and order if a disciplinary system isn't installed first? People tend to complain about disciplinary form of governments to be tyrannies all the while they complain why peace and order is almost non-existent. How can you get human rights defended and monitored as long as the Commission on Human Rights' current function restricts itself to monitoring only abuses done by state agents? CHR should be made to monitor all forms of human rights abuses regardless who does them. The reason why countries like Singapore are progressive and less disorderly is because strict discipline is part of maintaining good economics. If there's more discipline then you can expect the Philippines to also have better peace and order.

What about you? Would you still want to achieve progress with a faulty system or are you willing to embrace new paths of innovation to create better systems to solve the current problems?