Happy year of the pig anyone? So why are we having all the protests against the parliamentary system and some of its biggest opponents are overweight? Franklin Drilon, Edcel Lagman, Pantaleon Alvarez and Neri Colmenares are all overweight -- though it's Drilon who's been seen sleeping like a domesticated pig in the Senate. So how can we define a pig politician? They can be defined as someone who's useless in their job. You never see pigs do any kind of farm work right? All you do is raise pigs for consumption in countries that eat pork but NEVER raise them for farm work! The Philippines is full of pig politicians or those politicians who receive taxpayers' money but NEVER do their job right! You can also define pig politicians by the pork barrel. A pork barrel is when government funds are designed to please voters or legislators and win votes. Isn't that the common problem of the Philippines even before Noynoy Aquino sat into power?
So how can the parliamentary system actually do better in removing pig politicians? The problem of the presidential system lies in the lack of a formal opposition or Shadow Cabinet, the lack of the weekly question hour and a popularity-based democracy. A democracy was never meant to ignore the minority since it's a government of the people, by the people and for the people -- not a government of the majority, by the majority and for the majority! The parliamentary system would feature the formalized Opposition or Minority Bloc, the weekly question hour and credibility-based systems. People will have to prove how credible they are in order to win a vote and favor of the Parliament.
How can pig politicians be roasted? Let's imagine that either House Speaker Drilon or House Speaker Alvarez are the House Speaker of the Parliament. Can you imagine House Speaker Drilon trying to sleep on the job or House Speaker Alvarez choosing to remove the funds of the Ministry of Human Rights because Minister Chito Gascon wasn't doing his job? Chances are the Opposition Cabinet would have roasted House Speaker Drilon for sleeping on the job or House Speaker Alvarez for attacking the Ministry of Human Rights as a whole when the solution is to vote Human Rights Minister Gascon out of his place. Also, can you imagine if both Edcel Lagman and Neri Colmenares were forced to answer in the Weekly Question Hour and only provide their stupidity? They would have been easily voted of office when the Parliament loses their confidence in them.
While I won't call parliamentary to be a panacea but it's proven itself to be more effective. It's always both people and systems. It's not enough to be skilled or to have the best tools -- you need both to do the job as best as you can. The problem of the presidential system is that it's like giving the best chef the worst cooking utensils or giving a skilled programmer a really defective computer. While the answer lies more in the man yet one must understand that tools play a part in the performance. The parliamentary system is in fact more effective in roasting pig politicians than the presidential system due to the credibility-based features which the presidential doesn't have!
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