Time for bold acts; Paris without cars?

As usual Senator Miriam Santiago’s colorful language gets the attention. “Any idiot can run for president and possibly poll a certain number of votes among his fellow idiots.” Although it has an element of truth especially in these times, we need more than just banning idiots from the presidency if we truly wish for good politics and governance.

We have also had a fair share of intelligent leaders, even self-proclaimed geniuses (I won’t mention names) who were just as disastrous as idiots. The problem with Santiago’s statements in colorful language is that they deal only with personalities and neglect the more important debate on the structure of our government and politics.

Whether we like it or not, even with the very intelligent Senator Santiago refusing to face it, what we need is constitutional reform that will restructure our system of government. Sadly, at least for the moment, the debate has been limited to the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution restricting foreign investments. This limited debate on what we can reform and what we cannot reform in our Constitution tells a lot. It is time to lay the cards on the table. Just who and what is keeping us from changing the Constitution to make room for a more intelligent structure of government that does not allow for idiots to win an election?

It tells a lot about the oligarchic hold on the country when the only reforms that can be envisioned are the economic provisions of the Constitution. The removal of the bias against foreign investments in the Constitution is only one aspect of our problem of backwardness. There are others, more important that a senator like Miriam Santiago should consider if she really does not want “idiots” elected.  Under the present presidential system that give undue advantage on popularity and money, one cannot expect different results from what we have had in recent years. We need to do more than just ban idiots.

Recently, Santiago also said that the next president should be a woman. Great. What makes her so sure that a woman president will do better? Grace Poe and Leni Robredo are women and not idiots but can they run a government well? We don’t know. Indeed we could never know how candidates will perform until they are in office. If they do not fulfill their promises, the electorate through their members in parliament should be able to remove them for unfulfilled campaign promises through a no confidence vote. This can be done with little mess and disturbance in the running of the country.

I think we should focus the debate on issues and programs of political parties. For the moment we do not have stable political parties. I would follow the British parliamentary system of limiting it to two major political parties.

The political parties in turn will put up their own candidate who could win for them the election.  Such system will have its built-in meritocracy in the selection of candidates.

Only by restructuring politics and government can we eliminate idiots and other types of non-performing officials. It means changing our system so that parties with programs are elected, not personalities. Less than that we will only get not only idiots but popular but corrupt actors and actresses as our leaders.

Please do not blame the voters for that. They will vote for whoever is put up as a candidate and then vote whoever pays for their vote. Blame the intelligent elite and other forces for wanting to put up weak and incapable candidates.

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Paris without cars? Unbelievable, at least during the time I lived in Europe. This would have been unimaginable. The most dangerous drivers were the Parisians. And as a Frenchman said once to me, if you know how to navigate the circular road around the Etoile, you pass the test. It can frighten any amateur driver. It was only for brave experienced drivers. Parisian men took such great pride in this machismo. My late husband was one of those. He loved overcoming the hazards of traffic in Paris.

It only frightened the wits out of me and I would find any excuse to avoid the mad Etoile roundabout road. But things change. I didn’t think it would come in my lifetime, so it was shock to me when it was announced that Paris banned cars to bring down the smog levels. Gone was the romantic notion of driving around the Boulevard Peripherique with the radio blaring with Beethoven’s Ninth.

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As usual bold measures immediately provoked opposition. The last I heard was the city of lights will now implement license-plate driving bans or the equivalent of our car coding rather than the absolute ban. Critics of license plate coding ban say it is not the solution to air pollution in the cities and they have the data to prove it. Surprisingly they add that such “arbitrary restrictions make air pollution worse in the long run.”

Apart from Manila, there are also license plate bans in other cities like Athens, Beijing and Mexico City. But as in the Philippines, some buy second cars with a different code ending so it does not really help in the long run. You get as many cars on the road. Worse we do not have an  efficient public transport for commuters that these other cities have when their cars are banned.

But drivers inevitably circumvent restrictions by buying cheap, inefficient cars with opposing number plates, says Lucy Sadler, who runs the Low Emission Zones in Europe website. This means some schemes have had an adverse effect on air quality.

“Certainly, in terms of comparison between low emission zones and odd-and-even number plate schemes, it’s a no-brainer,” Sadler said. “There is lots of good evidence saying low emission zones have a good impact on air quality and health. That’s robust and well researched.”

Particles and chemicals from car pollution cause more than 1.3 million premature deaths in cities every year. It’s time to bring in the bicycles on the road and create bicycle lanes for them.