Episode 18: The Senate race is like an episode of Celebrity Apprentice

The Senate race has gone to new depths. From a Spratlys Island jet skiing by Otso Diretso to penis size comparisons between the president and Jim Paredes, and shirt stripping by SAP Bong Go to prove he has no tattoos in his back, and not a member of a drug gang. We’re no longer talking about the issues. It has gotten ugly really quickly.

We’ve forgotten what this election is meant to be about. As in every election we are meant to be discussing the key question: what should the role of government be in our lives?

In our last episode, we looked at the senate race of 2019, and saw how much of it was driven by personality and not principles. We said that a general trend in all senate races since 1987 was the popularity contest that it has become. This is evidenced by the growing number of celebrities or celebrity-related candidates that are present in the senate. So how do we make our senate more representative, instead of mimicking an episode of Celebrity Apprentice?

 

Show notes available here.

Episode 17: Otso Diretso, MaBaGoKoTo, Hugpong, atbp.

The countdown to election day begins.

We are now about 30 days away from the 2019 midterms. In this episode we’ll be looking at the senate race, and how that has been unfolding. We compare the competing candidates' platforms, namely Otso Diretso's campaign platform and PDP-Laban's.

When you put the two parties’ positions side-by-side there is a clear contrast between them, both in terms of their overarching philosophies and approach to governance and development. Those who say that this election isn’t about ideas are wrong. There are clear battle lines here, and they are not just personality-driven.

Get the transcripts of the show from here.

Erratum: in counting the number of senators that became VP, I mistakenly included Mar Roxas in the list.

Episode 16: Mahathir's Malaysia and the Virtues of a Parliamentary System

Malaysian PM Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad's visit to Manila in March 2019 has inevitably led some people to draw comparisons between the two nations. Malaysia follows a federal parliamentary system while the Philippines is unitary and presidential. They have reached a level of economic progress that the Philippines can only aspire to. How did they do it?

In this podcast we look at key differences between the two systems, and try to answer the question, would a shift to a parliamentary system benefit the Philippines. We avoid the chicken-and-egg question of what should come first: culture change or structural change? We do this by differentiating the incentives under either system and show how that shapes behavior and eventually the culture.


Read the transcripts of the show here.

Episode 15: The question of Philippine federalism (Part 3)

Now that congress has formally started hearings on charter revisions to shift to a federal structure of government, some legislators are asking: Well, what’s the benefit to the public? Is federalism worth the trouble? The same goes for the proposed adoption of a semi-parliamentary form of government. And is it appropriate for the Philippines, a country of over 100 million people, dispersed over 7,000 islands? In this third and final installment to this series, we seek to supply the answer to these questions, as well as offer a critique of the proposed revisions of the ruling PDP-Laban.

Listen to the podcast here.

Read the transcripts here.

Episode 14: Twelve constitutional fixes needed for the Philippines

There are things within our present charter that need fixing. Twelve to be exact. These revisions won’t require any term extensions or postponement of elections. This episode will be devoted to discussing each of them. Hopefully the need to fix them will be self-evident, and may result in some kind of consensus, across party-lines [image credit: filipiknow.net].

Listen to the podcast here.

Transcripts to the show available here.

Episode 13: How does change come about?

The more things change, the more they stay the same, it seems. Corruption reigns, political families reign, now drugs and criminality, secession and rebellion persist. Much of our society is still mired in poverty. How do we achieve real, lasting change? We look at the context, prospects and pace of change in the Philippines in this episode. Erratum: Tocqueville's Democracy in America was published in 1835, not in the late 1700s as mentioned in the piece.
Listen to the podcast here.
Read the transcript here.

Episode 12: The question of Philippine federalism, Part 2

Some critics of the push for federalism have questioned why? Why empower local elites, who might run their regional governments like personal fiefdoms? Greater fiscal autonomy will just bloat the bureaucracy and provide greater opportunities for corruption.

Since political dynasties resurfaced after EDSA ‘86 and still dominate the current political landscape, how do we convince these powerful elites to legislate something that might harm their own interests, to begin with? What’s in it for them, in other words?

In this episode we look at the proposals for political and electoral reforms, proposed by the Federal Institute Study Group, which would allow the Philippines to gain the full benefit of localization through federalism.

Listen to or download the podcast here.

Get the show notes to this podcast here.