The Boracay Closure Could've Been Done Earlier Under A Parliamentary System

Do your remember this one six months ago before the reopening of Boracay? I was thinking about how the idea of "systems don't matter and it's just the people" usually doesn't work. The Philippines' presidential government is usually filled with hurdles. Evidence of this hurdles are the arduous impeachment processes and several people could've been voted out by a vote of no confidence. EDSA-2 wouldn't even be necessary because Joseph Estrada would've been kicked out for the jueteng scandal via a vote of no confidence. Now it's time to think about how the Boracay fiasco could've been avoided under a parliamentary system.

Just think about the situation where the very orders of House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to rehabilitate Boracay were not followed. The problem was that Proclamation 104 could be easily voided without thinking about how useful it is. However, what if were in the parliamentary system with Speaker of the House Arroyo and Prime Minister Noynoy?

Well it's time to consider the flowchart of events. Here we see the pro vs. con side. Let's say we have Prime Minister Noynoy facing against Opposition Leader Richard Gordon who then must address Deputy Prime Minister Jejomar Binay and the rest goes on. One is for pro and the other is for con. You can think about how the debate between Prime Minister Noynoy must go against Opposition Leader Gordon. So how will this work under an eight minute debate?

You can imagine that Prime Minister Noynoy would have to say he doesn't want to close Boracay because it could be bad for revenues. However, Opposition Leader Gordon would say that they could follow the other countries' policies of closing down beaches for rehabilitation when it's off-season. The exchange will have to go on forward to the rest which means that Deputy Prime Minister Binay (who's not for closure) will have to address Deputy Opposition Leader Grace Poe-Llamanzares (who's for closure) then it goes to the Majority Bloc of Senators who must then address the Minority Bloc of Senators. In short, both the Majority Bloc and Minority Bloc will have to debate it out and come to the conclusion whether or not Proclamation 104 concerning Boracay should be done.

How could this turn out? You can imagine how it may result to either which side winning or losing. Let's say that the Opposition Bloc gave its concrete data which the Majority Bloc wasn't able to do. For instance, at the end of the day -- we have Prime Minister Noynoy presented with the hard solid evidence that Boracay indeed needs closure and how closures work to help rehabilitate nature spots from over-tourism. This is one scenario where the Boracay closure would have been done much earlier if the Philippines were under a parliamentary system.