How The Parliamentary System's Opposition Is Better In Keeping The Government On Its Toes

There is always the desire for a Yellow-led opposition and the Trillanes-led opposition. However, the real problem of the Philippine PRESIDENTIAL government is that the opposition is not really well-defined. The problem with the movement of #TindigPilipinas is that it's set in a presidential system and it doesn't even have a formalized role. However, the problem of the presidential in general is that presidents tend to wield too much power. It also becomes a game of Russian roulette whenever it comes to getting a good president. Yellowtards who consider Noynoy Aquino to be the best president ever should ask themselves if they want to wait for decades before another Noynoy appears. Political analyst Richard Heydarian needs to ask himself in his profession whether or not Filipinos should wait for another Isko Moreno and Vico Sotto to rise up for a long time after both terms are over.

How does the Opposition in the Parliament work?

You can consider the role of the two parties. Let's just imagine Rodrigo R. Duterte is the Prime Minister and Antonio F. Trillanes IV is the Opposition Leader. What would be the role of Trillanes as the Opposition Leader? Well, here's how CoRRECT Philippines would define the role of both parties: 

Parties will be forced to compete against other parties by presenting their platforms to the public and showing that their platforms are more responsive to the needs of the people. More importantly, parties will be forced to compete against each other by choosing the best members among themselves to be the senior members of the party, the best of whom will be the party leader.

In a Parliamentary System, unlike in a presidential system, the Prime Minister and his majority bloc are always in competition against the Leader of the Opposition and his minority bloc. Active Debates ensue. The Leader of the Opposition tries to show that the Prime Minister does not know what he is talking about. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, must always be on his toes to show that indeed, he does know what he is talking about and has the facts to prove his point…

In a parliamentary system, there is an intense system of competition where the Majority’s “Government Cabinet” is always being challenged by the Minority’s “Shadow Cabinet.”

The Minister of Finance from the Government Majority is always on his toes and must always prove himself as the Shadow Minister from the Opposition Minority always challenges him and questions his decisions. In fact, since every single decision that the Minister of Finance makes within the Ministry of Finance regarding budget and other concerns is always done in the presence of the Opposition Shadow Minister of Finance, everything is above board, everything is transparent.

Consider this the way things will be. Trillanes' job as the Opposition Leader is to form his shadow government and have his shadow appointees. Trillanes would be appointing his side of the fence. He might want to appoint the members of #OtsoDiretsoSaParlamentaryo such as Gary Alejano as the Shadow Minister of Defense, Florin Hilbay as Shadow Minister of Justice, Erin Tanada as Shadow Minister of Labor, Chito Gascon as Shadow Minister of Human Rights, and maybe he can have Leni Loud Robredo as Deputy Opposition Leader. Trillanes would have to make sure that he has appointees that will correspond to all of Duterte's appointees. 

Why weekly questioning helps with better check and balance?

Now let's consider the House of Commons. Duterte as prime minister is answerable to Trillanes as the opposition leader. Trillanes has his Shadow Government ready to question the actual Government. Trillanes represents the minority. Now, it's time for the weekly question hour between the two sides of the coin. 

The sad truth about #OtsoDiretso is that they really failed to see how the parliamentary system is a superior democracy. #OtsoDiretso could've tagged #OtsoDiretsoSaParlamentaryo and support constitutional reform. They could've made themselves shine but they ended up getting tagged as #OtsoDiretsoSaImpiyero because of their desire to stay in the severely flawed presidential system. They could've been voted diretso or direct because the parliamentary system is block voting. Now, let's imagine the scenario of the weekly question hour and how it works. 

In the weekly question hour, each corresponding minister on Duterte's side must answer to every minister on Trillanes' side. What Trillanes must take note of though is that he can't just talk and talk. Everyone on both sides is limited to a 7.5 minutes privilege speech. Duterte's ministers and Trillanes' shadow ministers are frequently on each other. One flaw of the presidential system is that transparency is hardly there. Here, Trillanes as the opposition leader must prove his charges against Duterte as prime minister.

A good illustration will be if we have the current COVID-19 crisis. We could consider how ministers of Duterte must present their decisions before the shadow ministers of Trillanes. The transparency on both sides will reveal the flaws one after the other. The biggest job of the current opposition is that they must give better alternatives rather than just oppose and oppose. It would be like that the shadow ministers would probably provide alternatives on how to better handle COVID-19. It would be like a shadow health minister would have to roast the health minister for any inaction done by the Ministry of Health.

At this point, Constitutional Reform should not be limited to just being labeled as Dutertards. Instead, it's all about getting every side of the spectrum on a real platform. Anti-Duterte who are concerned about real checks and balances should see how the parliamentary system works. Who knows the Anti-Duterte side would have better alternatives than the Pro-Duterte. That can only happen under a parliamentary system.