Parliamentary vs.

Presidentialism: The Philippine

Case
The Philippines is in dire need of systemic reform, and the
quickest, albeit and the most drastic reform that can be
implemented is a change from the current American-style
Presidential Democracy, to a Parliamentary form of
government.
First is on the area of the checks and balances. Inherent
check-and-balance system in a presidential form of government
introduces a rigidity that is less favorable to democracy than the
flexibility offered by parliamentary systems, where
governments are not elected for a fixed term of office but rather
depend on the ongoing confidence of the assembly. Because
under presidentialism the chief executive cannot bolster his or her
authority either through a vote of confidence or by dissolving the
parliament to call new elections, presidential leadership can be
weaker than that provided by some prime ministers. Presidential
constitutions often manifest a contradiction between the desire
for a strong and stable executive of the presidential power.
In other words, the presidential system empowers the president
to such an extent that he or she has vast powers for the duration
of the term, while at the same time, limits that same power to
ensure that he or she does not grow too powerful to threaten
democracy and the rule of law. The best example would be the
provision from the Constitution that says Every bill passed by the

Congress shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the

President. If he approves the same he shall sign it;
otherwise, he shall veto it and return the same with his
objections to the House where it originated. In other words, the
Presidents disagreement with legislative measures merely
serves as a point of information, and the legislature, if brazen
enough, can still choose to pass laws which neither the executive
nor the judicial branches of government has the power to protest,
so long as it does not violate the fundamental law nor encroaches
on the functions of the other co-equal branches of government.
In contrast, a parliamentary system, by unifying the functions of
the executive and the legislative in one collegial body, ensures
that bills passed as laws have the concurrence of implementing
body who will be tasked with implementing it. This means that
there is greater dynamism and synergy between the executive
and the legislative branches, resulting to timely legislative and
executive interventions to resolve pressing problems of the
country.

Next would be on the Supremacy and Influences. The

current Philippine Presidential System, with its propensity to
consistently produce minority presidents allows vested interests
from the oligarchy, powerful religious blocs, and other influencepeddlers to hold a single person the President hostage to their
demands, such can never work in a parliamentary system. Within

a Presidential System, the supremacy, which is power that is

over and above, that the Office of the President holds over all
other decision-making bodies as well as holding veto powers over
the legislature, a President can be influenced, cajoled, harassed,
pressured, or bribed into making a yes or no decision, regardless
of whether this decision reflects the views of the wider public
spread out across the entire country.
On the other hand, a Parliamentary System in which the
legislature itself controls the executive works based on
consensus, as the Prime Minister does not hold supremacy over
different members of parliament. Instead, All that the Prime
Minister has is primacy which is purely a position of first
among equals. Again Primacy over Supremacy!
In a presidential form of government, the only legal means of
removing an incumbent president is through the unwieldy, timeconsuming, and often procedurally-charged impeachment
proceedings. This inflexibility of the chief executives position
often means an incompetent President can continue and wait
out the completion of his or her term, and often without any
significant accomplishments for further growth and development
of the country.
As shown in the Philippine experience, mass dissatisfaction with
the incumbent President that is not resolved via constitutional
means are resolved by taking to the streets, or People Power as

evidenced by the EDSA revolution against President Marcos and

President Estrada.

Parliamentary systems, on the other hand, have other means

of resolving deadlocks between the executive and the legislative.
In case of deadlock between the executive and the legislative on
important issues either of the following remedies are available:
(a) the legislature may force the cabinet to resign upon a vote
of confidence, or, (b) the Prime Minister who feels he has popular
support may call for the dissolution of legislature and the holding
of general election where the issues are decided by the people.
A defeat means a repudiation of the policies and the Prime
Minister and his cabinet then resign, and a new one is formed.
However, since the legislature and the executive, or the cabinet,
are intertwined, disputes between the two branches can be
resolved via intra-party caucuses, among other methods, that do
not require resorting to the extreme measures of dissolution of
cabinet or a call for election.

Third would be on economic growth. The International

Monetary Fund and World Bank released a ranking of different
countries based on nominal GDP/capita and by just looking at the
raw and unprocessed listing of the top 20 countries based on GDP
per capita, we can easily spot the trend. This is not to say

that all of the countries that top of the nominal GDP per capita list
used parliamentary systems. Its just that out of 20 countries on
the IMF list, 15 of them use parliamentary systems. On the World
Bank listing, 17 out of the top 20 countries use parliamentary
systems. In both the IMF and World Bank lists, only the USA uses
a full presidential system.

TOP 20 COUNTRIES BASED ON GDP/CAPITA (2011)

BOTTOM 30 COUNTRIES BASED ON GDP/CAPITA (2011)

On the other hand, you can see that on the World Bank listing, out
of the bottom 30, only 6 countries use a parliamentary system.
Likewise, in the IMF listing, only 4 countries out of 30 use the
parliamentary system. The rest use full-presidential systems,
semi-presidential systems, and military dictatorships.

By simply looking at both listings, it is easy to spot the fact that

the Parliamentary System is generally associated with higher
chances of economic success and lower chances of economic
lethargy and failure. In fact, certain countries, such as Mongolia,
Moldova, Lebanon, and Kyrgyzstan have consciously decided on
shifting away from presidential forms to adopt the parliamentary
system in order to streamline their economic development
through better policy-making.

Indeed, the parliamentary form of government enables

political maturity and economic stability, compared to the
current presidential form of government in the
Philippines. So with this, I rest my case.