Former President and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Monday nodded the proposal of Philippine Constitution Association president emeritus and former chief justice Reynato Puno to remove the power of the President to appoint judges and justices.
At a news conference, the former president said she is open to the proposal of Puno and Congress may consider the matter when the Constitution is amended through a Constituent Assembly and with the help of a Constitutional Commission whose members will be appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte.
“My mind is very open even when I was a president and when I was proposing a new Constitution my mind is very open to those details. For me what is important is about the shift from unitary presidential to parliamentary-federal,” said Arroyo, who is now deputy speaker.
Arroyo said she sees nothing wrong with the proposal of Puno to address the country’s highly politicized and weak judicial system by taking the power of the President to appoint justices and judges.
“Since this is going to be Charter Change, all recommendations are welcome,” Arroyo, who supported Duterte’s call for Cha-Cha, said.
At a recent Philconsa forum, Puno, one of the country’s main federalism advocates “the current system (power of the Chief Executive to appoint) has not prevented the politicized system of judicial appointments. We lack judicial autonomy.”
Philconsa is the oldest association of legal luminaries in the country and headed by its president Martin Romualdez, a former Leyte congressman and head the House Independent Bloc and also president of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats.
Puno blamed the problems plaguing the country, such as graft and corruption, poverty, insurgency, weak judiciary and others, to the present presidential system of government.
“Federalism will give us the chance to reexamine the provisions of our Constitution on the powers of the judiciary so we can strengthen its independence,” Puno pointed out as he credited Duterte’s “political savvy for using federalism as a major platform of government” in the last elections.
“Look at the Constitution of other countries, they have taken away the powers of the appointment of judges and justices from the Chief Executive and they have lodged this power to a group that is more apolitical. We can learn from their experiences and lessons that will result to a stronger judiciary,” Puno explained.
Puno said the country should pursue a “customized” and “hybrid federalism” that would truly serve the interests of the Filipinos, adding that even Dr. Jose Rizal advocated federalism during his time.
“I have said the model that we should adopt is customized to meet the needs of our country and you see now a lot of hybrid models and the reason for that is that the needs of countries vary from one country to another,” Puno explained, adding that the strong clamor for federalism being espoused by President Duterte was triggered by the failure of the recently-concluded 16th Congress to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law.
Puno said the unitary form of government that the country adopted since the 1935 Constitution failed to make the Philippines as one and united nation and even facing threats of separation from the Moro people nowadays.