Typhoon Yolanda Relief Could've Been Done Better Under A Parliamentary System

November 8, 2013, was the time when Typhoon Yolanda crashed into the Philippines. It was during the reign of the late Noynoy Aquino as the president, the late Stinky Soliman as the DSWD secretary, and Mar Roxas as the DILG secretary. This isn't all about supporting any Diehard Duterte Supportes (DDS) reading this post. This isn't also about demonizing the Dilawans either. The bigger problem isn't about being DDS and Dilawans. This is all about doing a review of how Yolanda (in itself) proved that the government structure was flawed even before the Yellow Regime. This is to highlight not just the flaws of the last administration or this administration. What I want to do is a real COMMON SENSE analysis of the criticism that the national government was SLOW to respond to the calamities during Yolanda. The same problem still sits today during President Rodrigo R. Duterte too. 

For whatever good Noynoy did (economy) - one must consider that economics isn't enough to show one's a good leader. Sure, Noynoy passed through 29 important economic reforms that helped the economy. However, I'd like to share why the current STRUCTURE had hindered the Aquino Administration regarding Typhoon Yolanda. Again, this isn't to demonize the Liberal Party as a party but to show how their anti-reform mindset proved to be their undoing. Sure, Noynoy had some projects which are now continued by the Duterte Administration. Sure, Noynoy had left some mark on creating a rising tiger but how long can it be sustained under the CURRENT constitution? We need to take a look at the problem of how the PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM actually caused the problem behind the not-so-good or really bad response towards Yolanda. 

The presidential system's failure further revealed during Yolanda

CoRRECT Movement had written on the coming fall of the Noynoy Project. We can also read this one about the big problem:

Something has to be done at the systemic level. Our Presidential System whose winners emerge as a result of name-recall and popularity is at fault. After all, Noynoy won purely on the basis of his parents’ reputations. He won because people voted for his late parents Ninoy and Cory Aquino, and Noynoy got those votes win. We clearly need a better system.

Under a parliamentary system, Noynoy-types would hardly ever get a stab at becoming the top executive leader. And if someone like Noynoy ever did slip through, the system works in a way that a mishandled tragedy like the Bus Hostage Crisis that exposed his incompetence would have already gotten him thrown out and replaced. Immediately. No need for a long, drawn-out process of impeachment.

But we have a Presidential System so he’s still there, smirking and smiling and making excuses on Christiane Amanpour’s interview, talking about how he expected that the first responder in such an emergency would be the Local Government Units. Well, everyone knew that the Tacloban City local government was likely to be unable to function thanks to the overwhelming strength of that Typhoon, exacerbated by a Tsunami-like Storm Surge that is likely to have drowned and swept away lots of people.

How can anyone expect the Tacloban government to respond if they’re victims themselves? That’s why the National Government was supposed to step in immediately! All he did was to spew out excuses and cop-outs on Christiane Amanpour’s show, no different from how he made his first appearance in the news right after the Bus Hostage Massacre and used the hostage tragedy in Beslan, Northern Ossetia in Russia as an excuse to cover up his own ineptitude by saying “…but, as you know, even in Russia—they have resources and sophistication—when they had that theater hostage taking situation, the casualties were even more severe.”  What a freakin’ cop-out!

And Noynoy has even rubbed his bad habits off on Mar Roxas. Mar has recently been trying so hard to show his subservience to Noynoy, donning a yellow shirt instead of the national colors and reading off Noynoy’s cop-out script. Does Mar Roxas not remember how Noynoy’s inner circle screwed him over when they betrayed him and pushed for the Noynoy-Binay combination instead of what was supposed to be the Liberal Party’s solid Noynoy-Mar ticket?

Instead of sucking up to Noynoy, this disaster could have been Mar’s shining moment of stepping in as a real no-nonsense DILG Secretary, taking real control of the relief operations, taking initiative to disregard bureaucracy where Noynoy wouldn’t. But no… Even Mar Roxas talked about the need to fulfill certain bureaucratic procedures in front of CNN Reporter Andrew Stevens who retorted to Mar in exasperation “But surely you need to override bureaucracy in the light of this situation.”

What if the Philippines were a parliamentary system during Yolanda?

No, I'm not talking about the mock parliamentary of the Marcos Years which his father, the late Ninoy Aquino, exposed as a SHAM. I may be skeptical about Ninoy's status as hero. However, Ninoy was RIGHT to call the Marcos Years a sham parliamentary. Now, let us just imagine if we had a parliamentary system under the rule of the Liberal Party. We would have Prime Minister Benigno Simeon C. Aquino, Deputy Prime Minister Manuel A. Roxas II, and Minister of Welfare Corazon Juliano-Soliman in the whole operation.

You can imagine these as the lines of events that would totally make things different:

1. Corazon C. Aquino, an inexperienced housewife, will be president but she will be the symbolic Head of State. In short, Tita Cory will serve as the symbol of national unity for the Filipino people like she did during the EDSA Revolution. Meanwhile, maybe Fidel V. Ramos would become the first prime minister of the Philippine Republic. Cory may serve another term as the national symbol of unity and ambassador while Ramos serves as the prime minister.
2. Noynoy and Mar would be serving as Members of the Parliament under the Liberal Party. That means there will be more exposure to them to behave or be voted out. 
3. Meanwhile, Ramos himself may decide to retire from politics and anoints Jose De Venecia to become the next prime minister. Joseph "Erap" Estrada is chosen by LAMMP to become its prime minister. Elections happen where Erap becomes the prime minister because LAMMP won the government seats and De Venecia of LAKAS becomes the opposition leader. Chances are Erap may get voted out of office due to his misbehavior. Maybe, Erap would do good in 1998 but got caught with several misdemeanors in 2001. There will be no need for EDSA as De Venecia calls for a vote of no confidence which even LAMMP agrees Erap has to to leave. 
4. The parliament is dissolved and Noynoy eyes to become the new prime minister. Noynoy is the Liberal Party's best choice as the prime minister with Mar as the deputy prime minister. The next election results in the votation of Noynoy as the prime minister and De Venecia becomes the opposition leader yet again. Noynoy may either behave better or eventually fall down during Yolanda. Erap is also unable to run again as prime minister because he got blacklisted due to bad behavior. 

Now, the next string of events is under the rule of Noynoy. Noynoy would be the prime minister and he would be scrutinized every week. Noynoy and his cabinet would need to be watchful if they expect to uphold the confidence of the Philippine Parliament. In short, Noynoy can't say his usual rhetorics such as not knowing anything at all and the like. Let's imagine if De Venecia was still the opposition leader during the term of Aquino as the prime minister. Noynoy would need to be prepared every week or he would risk getting voted out as the prime minister. Let's say that he made it that far until 2013 from the time he was installed as prime minister in 2010. Now, the real heat hits during Yolanda.

The issue is that the whole Liberal Party will be under the scrutiny of LAKAS. Maybe, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would have never been the prime minister but works either as the Speaker of the House or the Deputy Opposition Leader. Both the Liberal Party and LAKAS will engage in weekly scrutiny. 

Imagine if Stinky was the minister of social welfare. Yolanda strikes and the next weekly question hour's priority focuses on disaster relief. Stinky must present her reports to the Opposition's shadow minister of social welfare. The same applies that every government minister must present their reports to the shadow ministers. Stinky must answer for how the Yolanda relief operations would be going. Stinky would have to answer for the damaged relief goods that happened. This would mean that the Opposition can have the right to call for a vote of no confidence against Stinky. It would be because the weekly question hour may show Stinky has been very negligent with her job. This would cause a vote of no confidence that may pressure the Liberal Party to kick her out if they want to save their credibility.

However, under a presidential system, Stinky kept her post instead of having been kicked out. The lack of shame in the presidential system is now amazing, isn't it? Stinky managed to keep her lack of shame even after the term ended or even when she was already dying of renal failure. A parliamentary system would've either voted Stinky out or she would've resigned out of shame. Instead, the presidential system continues to add more layers to the already thick faces of the politicians.