MANILA, 23 July 2005 — Former President Fidel Ramos yesterday urged Filipinos to support proposals to rewrite the constitution to allow for a shift to a parliamentary form of government, which he said is what the Philippines needs.
A constitutional change would also give embattled President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo a dignified way out of office, Ramos said at a forum with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines yesterday.
Ramos said that a shift to a parliamentary shift via a constituent assembly could make another “people power” revolution unnecessary.
As a senior military official, Ramos played a key role in helping topple dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and later served as defense secretary of Marcos’s successor Corazon Aquino. He has so far declined to add his voice to calls for Arroyo’s resignation since the scandal erupted last month around audiotapes of a wire-tap in which a voice like hers tells a supposed election official to rig last year’s election.
Arroyo has agreed that constitutional reform is necessary but has not said whether she will adopt the proposal, which could see her make way for a prime minister by June next year rather than 2010 when her six-year term expires.
She has apologized for improperly calling an election official during the vote tally but has denied any wrongdoing and vowed to stay in office.
Ramos said he would be “very, very unhappy” if Arroyo fails to adopt the timetable for switching to a parliamentary government next year.
“Whether or not she chooses to do so is up to her,” Ramos told repoters. “If she says no, she faces the consequences.”
Ramos presented a timeline for the changes wherein the draft amendments would have to be drawn up by September 2005 in time for eventual ratification by February 2006.
He emphasized that “incumbents must not be disqualified from running for public office” under a parliamentary system of government. “Otherwise,” he said, “they will reject all of these changes.”
Ramos said Filipinos should give the parliamentary government option a chance because changing the leadership via people power revolutions is costly for the nation.
A simple vote of no confidence would be needed to change the leadership in a parliamentary government, he said. A people power revolution takes time to happen and it could degenerate into a civil war, he warned.
Ramos also said changing the country’s form of government would be good for the Philippines since “the trouble with the presidential system is we go back to square one (each time we have a new president) and the first part we redo is the master’s bedroom to make it more comfortable for the new occupant.”
“There is no continuity there and an admirable economic feature of the parliamentary system is the continuity of programs, projects and business contracts, and even policies,” Ramos said.She faces impeachment hearings in Congress next week as well as another street protest to call for her ouster.
Meanwhile, the widow of Fernando Poe, the deceased opposition candidate who lost to Arroyo last year, hinted that she would seek the presidency herself.
Susan Roces told a rally in the southern city of Davao that Filipinos should step up a campaign for Arroyo’s removal on allegations that she cheated to defeat the movie icon Poe in the May 2004 elections.
“Our little voices will be louder if joined together,” she told the cheering crowd. Asked if she would run for president, Roces said: “It depends on when and in what way.” Poe, who died of a heart attack in December, had filed an election protest and never conceded that he lost the election.
The opposition has been trying to position Roces as a potential leader with some activists calling for her to step in Arroyo is forced out, even though Roces is not the constitutional successor and has no government post. (With input from Agence France Presse)
