With this post, I offer a nuanced understanding of the principle and practice of checks and balance in democratic polities. Checks and balances is based on the notion of co-equality of branches of government (three in the case of presidential systems). The notion of co-equality of branches of government is more myth than reality. This is most specially true with presidential systems where the executive branch is, de facto, clearly the most powerful part of government. The president is the head of state, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, chief of the public bureaucracy, and the countrys chief architect of foreign policy as well as its premier diplomat. While the constitution stipulates that the legislature has the power over the public purse, real power is wielded by the branch which actually releases public money for purposes supposedly specified by the approved national budget. And that branch is the executive headed by the president. Often, the release of public money is done through the presidents alter ego--the budget secretary. With an edge over the legislature, the executive can leverage the release of money to influence the passage of so-called administration bills, including the budget itself. In command of the entire public bureaucracy, the executive has a great edge over the legislature in budget preparation. In this sense, legislators can only tinker with the budget bill proposed by the executive. In fact, most if not all legislators are merely interested in the money allocated for their constituencies or their districts. The judiciary is acknowledged as the weakest, de facto, branch of the government. The Supreme Court is at its apex, a court that is merely reactive rather than pro-active (notwithstanding bouts of judicial activism). The SC cannot do anything, not being a tryer of facts, unless a case is brought to its sala. The judiciary will likewise have to wait for its funds to be released. It is clear that the executive is the most powerful governmental branch. This runs counter to the thoughts and wishes of the English political philosopher, John Locke, who developed the notion and principles of separation of powers and the corollary checks and balances. Locke argued that the most powerful governmental branch should be the legislature since the body is most representative of the citizenry. He would not be in favor of empowering the head of state--one person--over all other branches of government as he came from a great struggle of the English people against an absolutist monarch. If we locate the discussion within the Philippine context, one can note that the Philippine president is more powerful than the US president, the latter operating in a federal framework. The Philippine president is commander in chief of all armed forces. In contrast, state governors are in control of their respective National Guards (Army National Guard and Air National Guard). The operational challenge, specially in the light of DAP and PDAF controversies, is make co-equality and checks and balance more reality than myth.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:56:02 +0000
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