Of Checks And Balance
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye tried to fight back for his embattled President, while calls for resignation came, Bunye made a brief statement to the point that The Senate should concentrate on crafting Legislation rather than on politics. And that “if there is clear evidence of wrongdoing, file before the appropriate forum, before the Ombudsman”. This is of course related to the fact that Lozada, a key witness in the scrapped $329 million NBN deal with ZTE, finally surfaced with revelations that implicates both Abalos and First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo.
The Senate’s Role
But I would like to remind our dear friend Mr. Bunye, that if The Senate’s only role was to craft legislation, then we might as well hand our human rights and democratic rights over to Arroyo now.
In the form of government that we have today, and indeed in any Presidential form of government, there must be a need for a check and balance on any branch of government. Without this, any branch, including the Executive branch can run amock without answering to anyone, especially the Filipino people.
It is indeed, the concurrent role of The Senate to see to it that the will of The Filipino people is upheld and that there is a proper check on the Executive branch. Without the current Senate that we have now, and owing to the fact that the House of Representative consists of representatives that favor the President, we would have a rubberstamp Legislative branch altogether.
Bunye’s lack of respect for the right of The Senate to act as a Check and Balance to the Executive Branch clearly shows an environment of arrogance and disrespect for the right of The Filipino people to know the truth, and that the Executive branch not be held liable for its actions and inactions in its day to day activities.
If not for the Senate today, which in my opinion is a more actual view of the will of the Filipino people, the rubberstamp lower house with its Executive in Arroyo would no sooner let their own agenda prevail over that of the well being of people they were sworn to serve.
Even with the inherent checks in place, anomalies, graft and corruption, and human rights violation after one another still have taken place. What more could we see, if we had a Senate closing its eye to the Executive Branch?
The Fourth Branch of Government
Our government is based on the Presidential form of government. Meaning to say, that we essentially have three branches of government, each with their own reason for being, and each independent from one another, and each with its own responsibility, one of which should be oversight of the other two branches. This is the balance of power needed so that one branch does not run amock and screw over the other two branches. But, as we have seen in the decades past, this form rarely ever produces a fullproof democracy. Case in point, the rise of Marcos. And of course, the current administration which has completely thrown away rule of law.
We have the Executive Branch, The Judicial Branch, and The Legislative Branch. But as we have seen in the Gloria Administration, it seems that oversight is hard to come by with the major inherent flaw that many of the important department heads of government having close ties with the commander in chief, it’s hard not to feel that given the right climate and circumstances, there will come a time when the government will feel more like an authoritarian form rather than a democratic form of government.
Now the argument is there, and our history shows as much, that the people, the different sectors of society, as well as the media plays a great role in creating a non-legal fourth branch of Government. Although not being a legal fourth branch, it can equally be the greatest branch of government. It is in the end, as Lincoln so famously said, A government of the people, for the people, and by the people. If our leaders should know anything, it is that they are public servants first before they are self servants of their own interests.
This is why, although we have a military, a Lower Hourse, and different government departments being controlled by Gloria and her cohorts, the fact that we have allies in The Senate, the media, the different sectors of society, as well as ourselves to properly implement a check on this Executive, I am always hopeful despite the circumstances, that in the end, The Filipino People will prevail.
tags: checks and balance, Ignacio Bunye, philippine congress, philippine senate
