Correcting That Huge Misconception About Parliamentary's No Term Limits As Staying In Office Forever

Well, the Yellowtards indeed have a history of fear-mongering, don't they? Did these guys do any research or are they fearing them and their kind will be forced to straighten up in a Parliamentary setting? So what does it mean that a parliamentary form of government will have no term limits? Did it mean that would have either Fidel V. Ramos or Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo succeeded that they would forever be in power?

Vocabulary.com defines a term of office as, "the term during which some position is held". Encylopedia.com defines a term limit as, "a rule that prevents government officials from serving for more than a specified number of terms". What does it mean that a parliamentary has no term limits? While elections do happen within a time interval -- it means that a person can serve several terms for as long as he or she is qualified. If some Dilawans wanted to push through another term under former president Noynoy Aquino -- didn't they consider that a parliamentary system would have allowed another term for the said person?

If the parliamentary system was all about staying in power forever then tell me why are there PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS? Candidates will be elected by their party and that means any incumbent prime minister may not have a consecutive term if his or her party doesn't win. Let's think about a Philippine parliamentary election. Parliamentary elections wouldn't guarantee a Prime Minister another consecutive term. Let's say that Liberal Party won the Majority Seat last term and this term it was won by PDP-Laban. Prime Minister Noynoy wouldn't get a consecutive term. If PDP-Laban won't win the next parliamentary elections then Prime Minister Rodrigo R. Duterte won't get a successive term. Simple as that!

Let's consider the stupidity of the term limits. Loida Nicolas-Lewis endorsed Daang Matuwid which would have been better UNDER A PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM. She recommends that Daang Matuwid must be six years under Noynoy, six years under Mar Roxas and six years under Leni Loud Robredo. However, how feasible is that plan? Noynoy's six years is over but what makes her so sure that Mar or even Leni Loud (who's even far more questionable than both) can actually push through Daang Matuwid at the third phase? Man, is it me or is Loida Nicolas-Lewis spending too much time in her ivory tower in the U.S.? Maybe, if she married a British man instead then she would have probably seen the beauty of the parliamentary system and endorsed constitutional reform. Instead, she just saw Daang Matuwid as defined by term limits.

I remembered critics of Noynoy who said, "If Noynoy is so so good then why hasn't the Philippines become a first world country?" I beg to tell these critics of Noynoy that a president with only one term limit can't do much of a success. Yet, some stupid old woman who's married to a stupid 4Ps-obsessed old man says that the success of Noynoy was enough. Noynoy himself passed through 29 economic reforms that strengthened the Philippine economy. But what if anybody who'd succeed him would decide to tear them down than improve them? The irony is that stupid old woman and her 4Ps-obsessed husband LOVE the 1987 Constitution while staying in Australia -- a country that runs under a far better constitution. Six years in office is not enough to make a major difference. However, uplifting these term limits will allow more ambitious projects to be carried over. A good example is that Noynoy himself could've completed several ambitious projects he had if it wasn't for term limits. Maybe, the expressway from Baclaraan to Bacoor would've been completed today if it wasn't for lousy term limits.

Removal of term limits will only be bad under a presidential system where there's hardly any check and balance. Let the 1987 Constitution get an amendment that gets out term limits and maybe we'd get another Marcos Years type scenario. The Marcos Years was a suspension on term limits which allowed the late Ferdinand E. Marcos to sit in power for 20 years. The new constitution decided to limit every president to just one term of six years -- no more no less. But what they ignored is that both Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (who's now prime minister at his ripe old age) and Lee Kuan Yew ruled Malaysia and Singapore longer than six years! The impact of both Mohamad and Lee proves that six years isn't enough to make a difference. So what was the difference? It was that the parliamentary system has better checks and balances than the presidential system. If you think systems don't matter then think again. If you're a systems engineer who thinks systems don't matter then your license deserves to be REVOKED.

What are you waiting for? Spread the word for the need of constitutional reform now!