Angara pushes for shift to parliamentary system

The time is ripe to consider a shift to a parliamentary form of government, opposition Sen. Edgardo Angara said yesterday.

Angara, chairman of the Senate committee on constitutional amendments, revision of codes and laws and suffrage, said there is a growing sentiment toward a shift to a parliamentary system.

He said he is ready to start public hearings on the numerous proposals filed by his colleagues in the chamber seeking to amend the Constitution.

At the House of Representatives, Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. is spearheading the move to shift to a parliamentary form of government.

Angara said the public hearings would present an appropriate venue for the airing of all sides, allowing senators to determine the general sentiment on the controversial issue and probe deeper into the many dimensions of constitutional change.

"Let a thousand ideas contend. Let a thousand thoughts bloom," said Angara, a lawyer and delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention.

He said the country would be made richer intellectually and legally by the public hearings on constitutional change.

"A full and no-holds- barred discussion is inevitable, given the intensity of the positions for and against changing the Constitution," he added.

Angara said the French model of parliamentary government is worth looking into. He said that under the French system, full power is vested in a president elected at large, while a prime minister who is elected by the parliament has a largely ceremonial function.

"Our people would never agree to not having a hand in the election of a president," Angara said.

Sen. Robert Barbers also expressed support for a shift to a parliamentary form of government.

"We should now abolish the Senate and have only a unicameral parliament. Law making will be faster, and a legislator can become a member of the Cabient without resigning from his post," Barbers explained.

Senators Rodolfo Biazon, Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and John Osmeña are also pushing for a parliamentary government. Pimentel and Osmeña, however, also want a federal system "to democratize development."

Osmeña had complained that even the smallest decisions and the purchase of small items in national government offices have to emanate from "imperial Manila."