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Ike Señeres /

WE often hear people proposing either the federal form of government or the parliamentary form, and we often wonder whether they are one and the same. As I see it however, the two are different from each other, but that does not mean that they could not work together or alongside each other. To differentiate between the two, it is possible to adopt the federal system without adopting the parliamentary system. Conversely, it is possible to adopt the parliamentary system without adopting the federal system. It could be said however that within the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), it is only Malaysia that has adopted the federal system, and it is only the Philippines that has not adopted the parliamentary system.

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Just to drive home my point, it is actually possible to adopt the federal system of government, and then keep the tripartite structure despite that. However, in saying that, I would only mean the national or federal level, because the individual states within the proposed federal union might still want to keep the tripartite structure at their own level. On the other hand however, it would also be possible to have a national parliament at the federal level, and at the same time, also have local parliaments at the state level. That is just an option, because the prospective states may just want to do away with the local parliaments, and may just prefer to have one federal parliament.

Perhaps for most of us, the parliamentary system may just be an alien concept but the truth is, it is already in our midst, at the very core of our national existence. For all intents and purposes, in substance and in form, the barangay system of government is actually already following the parliamentary form, so to speak. That is so because the Barangay Council (BC) as we know it now is already performing the legislative, executive and judicial functions at the same time, in a manner that is not different from the parliamentary system of government in many countries. Simply put, the BC makes the local laws, implements them and also interprets them.

To some extent, it could be said that if we would like to experiment with the federal form of government, the best place to start would be the municipal level, because that next higher level could just be a federal union of all the barangay units within its present jurisdiction. Following the same logic, the Municipal Council (MC) could just be composed of all the BC Chairmen, in which case there will be no more need to call for expensive elections. In the same manner, the MC could also make the municipal laws, implement them, and interpret them. In a manner of speaking, it could be said that the municipal parliament could elect a Prime Minister, who will then serve as the Mayor.

Moving up the ladder, it would also be possible for the Mayors to convene themselves into a Provincial Council (PC) that would also make the provincial laws, implement them, and interpret them. If and when that could be done, then in effect the provinces could also adopt a parliamentary form without having to spend for expensive elections, and yet at the same time they would also have the character of having the federal form, because in effect the province will now become a federation of municipalities. That is not entirely an alien concept, because in effect the Confederation of Madya-as was like that, it was a union of three kingdoms in Panay Island at that time.

When I was a press attaché in Washington DC during the term of the late Ambassador Emmanuel N. Pelaez, I learned something from him that I will never forget. He said that in the case of the United States of America, their union was formed by sovereign states from below, states that already existed even before the USA was formed. In the case of the Philippines however, he said that the provinces were formed by a central government that pre-existed them. If I am to derive a conclusion from what he said, I would say that there would be a need to re-create the Philippine Republic by enabling it to be formed by the provinces from below, meaning to say new provinces that would be created by the people from below, and not created by the central government from the top.

For the record, I would like to clarify that I am not actually advocating yet the systems that I have described, at least for now. Actually, my main point here is that if we truly want to understand the parliamentary system as a concept, we do not have to go far, because it is already in our midst. It is already in each of the 42,000 barangay units where we all live, and for sure that each and every one of us lives in a barangay. As it is now, it seems that most of us are taking for granted the treasure that we already have in the parliamentary system of the barangay units. From where we are now, the saddest thing that could happen is for our country to move to a parliamentary form of government, and yet we would also fail to value the treasure that it would be.

E-mail: iseneres@yahoo.com

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