ANGARA HINTS ON CHARTER CHANGE AFTER 2010 ELECTIONS
Urges 2010 presidentiables to announce plans for structural reform during campaign

Senator Edgardo J. Angara today urged 2010 presidential-candidates to articulate their intentions for "structural changes" during the presidential campaign and initiate this plan, once elected, on the first three months of the term in order to be shielded from accusations of ill-motives.

"After we have installed the 1987 Constitution, what had happened was that we erected a form of government which on the surface is very democratic and republican, but deep inside strengthened even the Office of the Presidency," said Angara who chairs the Committee on Finance and sponsored the FY 2009 budget in the Senate. "Because with this new constitution, the power of the purse was effectively removed from the legislature and reposed almost exclusively in the President by several instances: (1) the power of the President to prescribe the limit of the budget and the prohibition against Congress to deploy resources according to its judgment and (2) by giving the President the power of impoundment on the appropriation."

He added, "A very pernicious and pervasive problem that may have been unwittingly spawned by the 1987 Constitution was the transferring of power of the purse from the parliament to the President. Because the President is already powerful, and when we add the power of the purse to that arsenal of weapons, then we do not have to call him or her a dictator but he or she is definitely the most powerful president ever anywhere in the world."

In his speech during the Senate's plenary session, Angara said that the "very strong comeback of corruption into our society" might have been directly caused by the pulling out of the checks and balances in the 1987 Constitution.

Angara, a member 1971 Constitutional Convention, stressed that in order to address the situation at hand we must now begin thinking of changing the political culture by properly initiating changes in the political structure and then in the people's political behavior.

He also emphasized, that our experiences from past administrations, from Ramos, to Estrada, to the Arroyo presidency, tell us that the first 90 days of the new leadership is very critical. Angara opined that if a president fails to initiate structural reforms in the first three months and do it in the middle or towards the end of the leadership's term, the leadership's motive would be suspect.

Angara suggested instead, that 2010 presidential-candidates should articulate their intentions for structural changes even before being elected or during the campaign period. He added that the agenda must be shared with the people, and thus enriched by the people.

On this juncture, he cited how the Obama administration galvanized the will, the attention and the collective efforts of people behind his stimulus package by articulating it prior to his assumption of office.

The most important thing to do, he said, is to take that hard decision and bite the bullet on how we can radically change the structure of politics in this country. Because good governance will spring from good structure

"We cannot gather political will of the collectivity unless there is an overarching purpose to which the collective can rally. The question of unity is not even essential if there is an overarching purpose. That unity will ultimately be achieved not person-to-person, but behind a common goal. I believe that the Filipinos can forge and define a national purpose that is not a one-man, one-woman will, but which is a collective will," added Angara.