GMA running for Congress

It is the talk of the town. GMA is running to be Representative of the 2nd district of Pampanga.  People are scandalized, worried, confused. Surely, this has to be part of a plot to keep her in power. Surely, she plans to become prime minister and unseat the president. For, why else would she do such a thing?

Prime Minister?
The idea that GMA wants to become prime minister, and that she is going to use her Congress seat to do this is rather far fetched. In the first place, the Constitution has to be changed. And our experience in the last few years shows that this is not that easy to do. And not only that, the Constitution not only has to be changed from presidential to parliamentary, but that transitory provisions would be written allowing those already serving in Congress to become the parliament.  And don’t forget the president and vice-president, and even senators, who need to serve their full terms. Will the transitory provisions also push them aside? Well, in short, I think the idea that from a Congress seat to Prime Minister in the same term will be rather unachievable.

Then Prime Minister in a second term as Congressman. Well, this is possible, but then the resources open to her will be those of a Congressman, so there should be nothing wrong with this.

Speaker?
Becoming Speaker after having become Representative is within the realm of the possible. But not of the probable. The speaker will most probably come from the majority party, or of the party of the president. From the way things are going, the president will come either from the LP or the NP, and the majority in the House of Representatives will align behind either of these two parties. Lakas-Kampi-NUCD is doing bad at the polls, even with a preponderance of resources. So, unless a big upset will happen, GMA could not become Speaker of the House of Representatives.

No Lame Duck
Then why is she running for a seat in Congress? Well, for one thing, she probably reckons that she is too young to retire.  And parliamentary immunity is another thing that may come in handy. She has no plans to be either a Prime Minister or even Speaker, but neither is she going to deny either of these . This way, she will be able to keep the myth that she may have power after May 2010. And by doing so, she can avoid becoming a lame duck president in her last months in office.  Also, if things go right, the idea of power after 2010 is kept alive enough long enough to keep Lakas-Kampi members in line till the elections. This way, the party will not disintegrate, and may even retain a decent number of Representatives and perhaps Senators.  As party head, she will constitute a significant minority, and will be able to negotiate for power within the new Congress.

As for those who think it is immoral or even unconstitutional, well this may  seem so to you. But having lived under a parliamentary democracy all this years, I have a healthy regard for a country’s leaders who seek “low” positions in parliament after their stint in office.

A national ID system would eliminate need for Comelec registration

We have heard about the long lines and long waiting times for those who want to register for the coming elections. It seems that the Comelec personnel are overstretched, and the people are becoming impatient with them.

But this does not need to happen. The long lines etc are there because of the system of getting an ID for everything we do. Thus, we line up for a Comelec ID, and before that, there was the GSIS/SSS ID, and other IDs – so much so, that a friend of mine was surprised that I didn’t have a spare ID photo with me, since this could be quite handy what with the various ID needs there are in the Philippines.

My experience here in the Netherlands is different.  Whenever we move to a new city, we register with the Civil Registry.  With this, we are able to get our national ID.  During elections, we just get a paper that says where and when we should show up to vote. No lining up for an ID.

The national ID and registration is year round, and thus there is no rush to register at a given time. After all, the national ID is valid for 5 years. The national ID is also handy when one goes abroad, since it is accepted by other EU countries. Thus, it serves as a sort of passport for most of people’s travels. I have applied for a separate passport, though, because the Philippines does not accept our national ID as a valid travel document.

It may be a good idea to look into having a national ID system, if only to lessen our having to line up for all kinds of IDs.

Peso will appreciate against the dollar till May 2010

The peso is set to appreciate significantly against the US dollar in the next few months. In August, it was hovering almost around Php 49: 1 US$; but slowly, it has gained strength to its present 47.50: 1. But this is just the beginning, the peso will steadily climb in value  from now till at least May 2010.

Remittances
The recent disaster that struck Manila will cause an increase in inward remittances in the coming weeks,  as Overseas Filipinos send money to their relatives who were affected by the flood. And this will be on top of the remittances that are set to come in to pay for school expenses – final exams are coming, and then this will be followed by tuition fees, etc. By the time this wave of remittances are over, there will then be the Christmas surge in remittances.

This surge of remittances is likely to cause the peso to strengthen against the dollar. The school and Christmas surges were expected, but the “Ondoy” relief remittance surge will be an additional factor to strengthen the peso. And in addition, we could expect the national elections in May 2010 to further increase the inflow of money from abroad. This happens every time there is an election, especially during national elections. It seems that money kept abroad by politicians, and by businesses,  is tapped for campaign expenses.

Weaker Dollar
The US dollar is getting weaker. It has weakened against most major currencies, and this is likely to worsen by the end of the year. In addition to the overall lowering of confidence in the dollar, we need to factor in the actions of Central Banks throughout the world. They are likely to lower the percentage of dollars they keep as foreign exchange reserves by the start of 2010. It is but proper that they do so, with the decreased trade with the US and the expectation that the US dollar will weaken.

If the dollar decreases in value against major currencies, it will also decrease in value against the peso.  One factor is the exchange rate effect on remittances – OFs outside the US will remit the same amount in their own currency, but this will result in more dollars/pesos received by their beneficiaries. Similar mechanisms affect trade, investments, and other monetary flows.

Portfolio Investments
The recent disaster will result in a lot of Filipinos drawing down their savings. At the same time, insurance companies need to liquidate a big part of their reserves in order to be able to pay all those who incurred damages during the flood. All these withdrawals of money will tighten the supply of money, and increase interest rates on loans, bonds, money market placements etc. International money managers will take note of this, and bring their funds into the country to take advantage of the widened interest rate differential.  We would note this as an increase in “portfolio investments” by foreigners.  This will add to the already increased net inflow of money into the country, and the resulting appreciation of the peso.

All these will mean a significant strengthening of the peso vis-a-vis the dollar, at least in the period till May 2010. What happens later will depend on the state of the world economy and the Philippine economy by then.

Safeguards needed for government’s linked databases

The government recently announced  that vehicle owners with outstanding fines will not be able to renew their vehicle registration, due to linking of the computer systems of the LTO and MMDA.  My first reaction to this news item was: do they mean to say that people were merrily renewing their vehicle registrations even if they ignored paying various LTO fines and penalties? For me, that was the news. In fact, it seems that people in the provinces will go on with doing just that – since the computer link-up is valid for Metro Manila only.

Here in the Netherlands, all kinds of government databases are linked. And, while we may marvel at the high-tech nature of this all, it often is quite annoying. For example, Dutch citizens who return to the country after having a vacation are regularly checked by the police to see if they owe the government anything – and they have to pay all these fines (plus interest) before they are allowed to go back into the country.

And if the immigration authorities are delayed in processing a foreign resident’s permit-to-stay, the poor foreigner will suddenly be treated as an illegal alien by all government agencies. These are just some of the harsh results from the linking of government databases.

Thus, while linked databases helps to catch sneaky citizens who don’t pay fines on time, it also brings all kinds of inconveniences for ordinary people. And in the Philippines, the linked databases may actually increase corruption by government officials who will then have a bigger stick to threaten ordinary people.  And there could also be a new field for “fixers” – in order to clean one’s record or get the necessary benefits despite being blacklisted.

There needs to be some safeguards to ensure that linked government databases become an instrument for more efficient government, while not being oppressive.  One measure is to allow citizens to see the details of their records, which should name the government office and the person who filed the “alarm listing”.   Another could be the prohibition of the police from accessing a person’s records without judicial approval.

Adjusting the allocation of party-list seats

The Philippine Supreme Court has decided to scrap the 2 percent (of the total votes) minimum for winning a party-list seat in Congress. This made it possible to fill up the 54 seats reserved for party-list Representatives in the House. This was because the SC realized that having a 2% lower limit made it mathematically impossible to get 54 seats filled; and that having too few party-list representatives was undesirable, even unconstitutional.

But this is only one of the ways of adjusting the party-list law to ensure that it produces the needed amount of Representatives. The original law had both a minimum percentage (2%) and a maximum number of seats per party (3 seats). The solution that the SC chose was to scrap the minimum. The seats could also have been filled by scrapping the maximum – thus allowing parties to have more than 3 seats.

There are advantages and disadvantages in either approach. The scrapping of the minimum required votes (as they have done now) ensures that more parties get representatives, and thus potentially allows more “underrepresented sectors” to get represented. However, it raises the possibility of parties winning seats even when they have only a few votes; and thus “overrepresenting” these parties. The present party-list groups could also give birth to “new” parties in the hope of getting more total seats in Congress.

Scrapping the 3-representatives per party limit is fair in that those parties with more supporters get proportionally more Representatives than those with less supporters. The problem with this is that some parties will dominate the party-list groups, and even drown out the smaller party-list groups in Congress.

The Supreme Court’s choice of scrapping the lower limit is probably the better one. It maximizes the number of party-list Representatives, giving a voice to more points of view.  The best part of the SC’s decision is that it decided that leaving so many of the party-list seats unfilled was unconstitutional. For so long, these seats were left unfilled, and there was not too much fuss about it. If the empty seats were for district Representatives, the uproar that would ensue would ensure that immediate steps would have been taken to fill the seats.

We could take the logic of representation even further. The House of Representatives should then be composed in such a way as to provide representation to the widest variety of constituencies.  I believe that this is best achieved by increasing the number of party-list seats – from 1/5th of the total to perhaps one half. And together with this would be the lifting of the upper limit of 3 seats/party. With this number of Representatives chosen by proportional representation, it would then be possible (even desirable) to allow all parties to vie for these seats. The underrepresented sectors will still be able to have enough representatives in this system. At the same time, the established parties would be more answerable to a national constituency than now.