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Hello, hello, hello mga kameta! Kamusta kayo dyan?

Sabi ko bago mag evening, enjoyin natin itong natural light dito para di na tayo gagagastos sa lighting systems.

Kamusta kayo dyan mga kameta?

Sorry kakatapos ko lang ng isang talk dito kanina sa Makati area.

Meron kaming conference kanina with folks at the Strat Basin Hall. Pinagusapan namin China, pinagusapan namin ang geopolitics.

Of course kasama po natin si Admiral Ong at si Richard McGregor, isang very world-renowned China journalist before na base kayo sa Lowe Institute.

So talagang buong hapon busy-busy tayo doon.

Kung gusto niyo mga highlights ng mga presentation namin kanina, kasi hindi siya fully on the record.

Pwede ko i-post dito yung mga media coverage doon sa mga comments natin.

So maraming kami pinagusapan.

In particular, of course in my case, I presented a snippet of my new paper on Philippine-Australia relations.

Because sa tingin ko yung relasyon natin with Australia has been very under-tapped.

It's a special relationship but very under-tapped. Not much trade, not much investment compared to its potential.

Not many Filipinos studying in Australia as much as Malaysians or Singaporeans and vice versa.

Of course, gusto natin makita yung security cooperation natin with Australia to go into a higher gear.

Para hindi lang tayo dependent sa U.S., para mag-diversify tayo with other potential partners.

Pagdadating naman sa Australia, they very much have similar strategic goals with us.

Whether it's on Taiwan, whether it's on South China Sea, West Philippine Sea, among other issues.

Yung mga Australians, even though yung mga attacks sa kanila, supposedly mga deputy sheriff lang sila ng U.S.

Sunod-sunuran lang daw, supposedly, ng U.S. Actually, that's not true.

They have acted very quite independently over the years.

And even under, especially under Malcolm Turnbull, they stood up to Trump.

Yung mga unilateralism ni Trump, yung mga anti-free trade sinanigan si Trump.

Australia stood up to that.

So Australia, I think, is a very interesting partner that we can work more with.

Of course, in ways that enhances our national security and our national interest.

And gives us more options beyond United States.

Kasi alam, ay talaga natin na purong U.S. lang or purong China lang.

We want to diversify away from that.

So I think our relationship with Australia is a very important one.

Now, obviously, kanina, pinoast natin yung article natin for today.

So, Philippine Daily Inquirer, which is about yung issue ng charter change.

Katulad ng sinabi natin, mga kameta, ininvita tayo ng Committee on Constitutional Amendments sa Kongreso recently to give a presentation.

I was not able to attend the latest one.

There's an upcoming one, but unfortunately, I may not be able to attend it because I will have overseas commitments.

Kaya I gave a snippet of what I think is very important pagdating dun sa discussion ng constitutional change or charter change sa Pilipinas.

Sa akin naman, mga kameta, without taking a stance of whether for or against,

there are three key questions that I raise that I think is very important before we jump into the issue.

Una-una gusto ko sabihin na pagdating sa Pilipinas, unfortunately, we inherited not the good things from America.

And one of the bad things that we inherited from America is what one legal scholar terms as procedural fetish.

The idea of procedural fetish is, pagdating sa discussion ng politika and governance natin,

masyadong tayong obsessed about ano yung mga batas.

Paano naisulat ng batas. Anong klaseng constitution na dawad meron tayo.

Mahalaga yan. Mahalaga yan.

Tsaka yung, of course, protocols, SOPs, etc. I'm not saying they're not important.

But we have an obsession about that and that's why in the Philippines, lawyers tend to dominate a lot of aspects of our political life,

including governance, which is not the case in many other countries.

So if you go to China, for instance, a lot of their leaders have engineering backgrounds.

It's the same thing in many, many other countries whereby their leaders come from very diverse backgrounds,

technocratic, intellectual. So very few lawyers tend to end up as presidents or top officials in some of the other countries around the world.

So the Philippines is a very lawyerly country and I think that's very much an American legacy.

And because of that, we tend to obsess over ano yung naisulat sa batas without asking the bigger question.

Because it's one thing to pass a law. It's another thing to make sure yung batas na yan ay implementable ba.

Meron ba tayong kapasidad at kakayahan na ma-implement yan?

Kaya sabi ko, and this will be really the gist of my discussion, what we tend to always forget in the Philippines is the importance of bureaucracy or state capacity.

Because you can have the best laws in the world, but if you don't have the capacity to enforce it, ano lang yan?

Baliwala lang yan.

But anyways, before going to that, let me just give my preliminary stance on the whole charter change debate.

So yung column natin today, charter change, much ado about nothing, question mark.

My argument is this.

Of course, I quote Edmund Burke there and all.

Pwede nyo i-check yung point ng Edmund Burke is better to be reprimanded for being too anxious about something than being essentially sabog and bara-bara and then later regretting it.

Now going back to this, mga kamay, there are three different issues that I raise.

Just about the debate per se, not even the content of the debate.

The first thing we have to ask ourselves is ano ba talagang gusto natin mangyari dito?

And what do we really mean by certain key terms?

Because mga kameta, when you talk about constitutional change or charter change, what you're talking about really is the legal architecture undergirding yung itsura ng gobyerno mo.

And essentially ano ang yung form ng gobyerno na meron ka.

But when you talk about political system, it's something much, much bigger.

Political system is essentially the nature of the relationship between the governing class or the ruling elite on one hand and the broader society.

Or to make it much more neutral, political system is about the nature of the relationship between the state and the society.

To give an example to see the distinction between the two, there's an overlap but a constitution is just part of the political system.

It is not the definition of a political system.

For instance, in a political system, it's a spectrum.

On one extreme, you can find a country like North Korea kung saan everything is completely top-down.

Halos walang input ang ordinary citizens sa North Korea pagdating sa big decisions of the state.

It's really all the Kim Jong-un, Kim dynasty.

On the other end of the spectrum, you can have a much more participatory democracy.

And the best examples we have are countries like Switzerland or Scandinavian countries.

So when you talk about political system, it's the general nature of the relationship between the state and society.

Whoever is in charge of the state and the broader society or the citizenry.

So when you talk about charter change, you're just talking about the legal architecture that shapes the form of the government.

But that's just a small part of the bigger issue which is the political system.

You can have a political system that is much more participatory but in completely different forms of government.

That's the first thing to keep in mind. Definition of terms is very, very important.

So when you talk about parliamentary, presidential, you're really talking about forms of government.

You're talking about legal architecture.

You're not talking about the entirety of the political system.

Because political system is about the nature of the relationship.

Is it top-down or is it more participatory? And it's a spectrum.

Some countries are more participatory, some countries are more top-down.

So North Korea on one extreme, then you have China, then you have Russia, and here maybe you have US.

Here you have the Philippines, and then here you have Switzerland and Scandinavia, and then you have South Korea, Taiwan.

So you can put a spectrum here and look at countries how they fall.

Are they more towards participatory democracy or more towards top-down dictatorship or authoritarian system?

So that's the first thing you have to keep in mind.

So a charter change debate is fundamentally not about political system in its entirety,

but about just the legal architecture that shapes the form of government.

So we're talking about form of government rather than really political systems in general.

That's just the basic thing we have to keep in mind.

The second question I have is this.

What do we really want to happen here?

Are we pushing for constitutional change or charter change because we have a problem with our democracy?

For instance, we have a lot of political dynasties, we have a lot of oligarchs.

If that's your problem, because I have a problem also with that,

now tell me, do we need a new constitution to deal with that?

Or can't we deal with that with our existing constitution?

Because we already had three other constitutions.

We had constitution under Marcos, we had constitution in the commonwealth period.

So ang dami natin naging seligang batas over the past hundred years.

And yet the problem of political dynasties and oligarchies are still there.

So there's no, in fact, parang lumalapang at some point in the past,

ni Macronist, ni Marcos for instance in the 70s and 80s.

So for me, what is really your objective here?

Because if you want to deal with political dynasties and all,

then what we need is to pass an anti-dynasty law, enabling law,

sa ilalim ng existing constitution natin.

It's not like the 1987 constitution is against anti-dynasty law.

It's the trapos who don't want to pass that law.

And it was the mistake of those who framed the constitution

not to ensure that we had an automatically enabling law against political dynasties.

Now, if your problem is political parties, wala tayong tatang political parties,

well, then pass an anti-defection law to make sure na walang butterfly effect.

Do you get what I'm saying?

Because you have to first tell me what is the exact problem you want to solve

and then accordingly ask, do you need a whole new constitution for that

or can't we not deal with it with the existing constitution that we have?

That's the second question I have.

So you have to prove to me that the existing 1987 constitution

does not provide an avenue for anti-dynasty and pro-political parties

and that only with charter change we can do that.

That's the second question that we have to answer here.

Now, going to the third level, what I'm saying here is that

the form of government may or may not be important.

For instance, I always give these examples.

Turkey, South Korea, and France.

Three countries with very similar presidential, parliamentary, dominant presidential system.

In all three countries, you have a parliament, you have a prime minister, you have a president.

In all three countries, the president is a dominant figure.

Macron in France, Erdogan in Turkey, and whoever is the latest president in Korea.

By the way, I was in Seoul last year so we went to the new president.

But anyway, if you look at it, all three countries have had more or less similar form of government

over the past decade or so, especially since Turkey went from parliamentary to presidential,

which by the way shows you that when you have a parliamentary system,

there's no assurance that it will not be co-opted.

The case of Turkey is very important.

You have a parliamentary system and it's co-opted from within.

Next thing you know, you have a dominant president.

It used to be more ceremonial when Abdullah Gül was the president of Turkey.

Erdogan later on made the office of president very powerful,

so it became a dominant presidential parliamentary system, very similar to Korea and France.

And yet, all have very similar forms of government but very different trajectories.

Logically, if the form of government has a strong correlation with overall economic development

and more democracy, then why on earth don't we see a convergence among those three countries?

If anything, Turkey has been moving in a totally different direction.

The economy is in a meltdown.

They barely have a democracy left there.

On the other hand, France has stagnation, economic stagnation, and a degree of political dynamism.

It used to be the far right under Marine Le Pen who used to be a threat.

Now it's the far left under Melenchon who's trying to challenge the center.

But so far, the centuries under Macron are holding the line in France.

Now you go to Korea, it's a totally different system.

Their democracy is very vibrant despite all their problems and all.

They imprisoned corrupt presidents.

That's how much accountability they have.

And their economy is extremely dynamic.

So for me, if you want charters to change because you want to make your economy more dynamic and all,

or to make your democracy more vibrant, then maybe just changing your form of government may not be enough.

Because Turkey has a very similar form of government to France and to South Korea over the past 10 years,

and yet its trajectory is totally different.

So if you use your logic, if form of government has a strong correlation with economic development and democratization,

then it should be the case that Turkey, Korea, and France are moving in a similar trajectory,

which is exactly the opposite of that.

They are moving in a totally different trajectory.

So that just tells you that the correlation is at best weak and tenuous.

Now, again, just to be clear, I'm not saying the form of government doesn't matter.

For instance, my former professor Clarita Carlos said that forms of government could also shape the expression of the government.

Actually, more like Aristotelian.

Form shapes the expression of substance.

That's what Aristotel said in his philosophy.

So I'm not counting out the possibility that changing the form of our government may eventually change the political system.

But whether that correlation is strong, I just don't see enough evidence.

And for anyone to say you just change the form of government and everything will be okay or everything will significantly change,

it's like saying, pag nakalabas yung dila mo, pag nag-shoot ka na, tapos nakasuot ka ng Jordan shoes,

maging kasing galing mo si Michael Jordan.

Parang gano'n, di ba?

Hindi naman.

But you get what I'm saying.

Wearing a Nike NBA shoes doesn't necessarily make you an NBA-level player.

It goes far beyond that.

Again, I'm not saying hindi kailangan ng charter change per se.

I'm just saying huwag natin i-exaggerate yung potential effect ng charter change, whether positive or negative.

But more importantly, alam mo naman natin eh, ang talagang reason to push for charter change ay potentially dalawa.

On one hand is to make the Philippines more democratic and more economically developed

because napag-iwanan tayo ng mga kapit-bayin natin.

That's on one hand.

On the other hand, alam natin, may ulterior motive yung iba.

Especially yung mga trapo dyan na gusto nila ng un-league.

Un-league political terms.

So, let's talk the second one first.

So, if you look at it, maraming mga versions ng charter change nandiyan na clearly are not prioritizing national development

or making the Philippines more democratic.

If anything, some of the bills there, or proposed bills there, are going for totally removing any term limit for incumbents.

Which will likely make the situation remain as bad if not worse.

So, this is what you call the law of unintended consequences.

Because even if ibang proponents on charter change have good intentions,

and I believe there are many people who want charter change and they really want the best for the country,

but if yung gagawa mismo ng charter change are yung mga trapo na ayaw mo to begin with,

obviously they're going to hijack the process.

It's like, I'm looking at metaphors na hindi mean.

But, do you get what I'm saying?

Do you get what I'm saying?

So, obviously if you want to change the system for the best, you want the best people to also oversee the change.

Because if not the best people oversee the change, baka ang lalabas ay hindi yung change na gusto mo,

ang lalabas yung change na gusto nila.

So, charter change just could be a fig leaf for ulterior motives and other agenda,

which could make the problem even worse.

And this goes to really my fundamental contention.

My fundamental contention is this.

If you look at the entire history of modernity, especially of industrialization of the past hundred years or so,

all late capitalist countries na successful, beginning with Prussia, Germany, Imperial Japan,

and then later on more new industrialized countries like South Korea, Taiwan,

and then now you have Vietnam and China.

Look at it.

They have totally diverse forms of government.

In fact, they have even totally different regimes, right?

So, Germany and Imperial Japan had very different political regimes from let's say Taiwan or South Korea or Vietnam and China.

Vietnam and China are not even parliamentary presidential or any of that.

They're communist single-party rule, right?

And have you noticed all of them are successful economically?

All of them are successful economically.

Prussia and Imperial Japan late 19th century, Japan again after Second World War,

Korea since 1960s and 70s, Taiwan also the same,

and then you have Vietnam in the past 20, 25 years, so on and so forth, no?

And then a little bit less dynamic but still as inspiring, you have cases of Malaysia, blah, blah.

So, my point is if you look at what is common among all of these successful countries is this.

They all have capable, meritocratic, and patriotic state bureaucracy, right?

So, in the case of Japan, for instance, they had the Minister of International Trade and Industry, MITI,

which was extremely crucial to making sure that Japan negotiates the best possible trade investment deals

so they can get the best technology and capital and at the same time they'll be able to build their industries,

export, earn money for their country, and move forward.

Korea has its own version.

China has a ministry almost with the literally same name.

Vietnam also very similar.

And if you look at a lot of these countries, they have all cultures of civil service excellence.

And in the case of East Asia, this has to do with the Chinese civilization's Mandarin culture.

So, as you know, ancient China essentially invented what we today understand as a bureaucracy, right?

Which is, makakapasok ka sa gobyerno kung nakapasa ka ng isang very difficult civil service examination

and then mapromote ka sa loob ng gobyerno if you have a certain high performance, no?

That was invented in China almost 2,000 years ago.

Now, over the next 1,000 years or so, kina-copycat ng ibang bansa yan.

And interestingly, Europeans from Leibniz to Voltaire, look at what they had to write about China.

They were all amazed with the Chinese system of civil service, the mandarins, no?

And later on, the Germans will copy that.

The Europeans will copy that.

And if you look at cases like Germany in the late 19th century and then Imperial Japan,

of course, in the case of Japan, they're also a Confucian country.

They were influenced by China a lot.

Vietnam, also very much influenced by China.

Korea, the same.

Taiwan, the same.

Singapore, the same.

All of them have a culture of civil service excellence.

Bakit mahalagyan?

Because, mga kameta, politicians come and go.

Politicians come and go.

And politicians have their own agenda sometimes.

Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, sometimes both.

But everyday governance happens under civil servants.

Career diplomats in DFA, technocrats in the Department of Finance, right?

Yung mga nagtatrabaho dyan sa GSWD everyday, whether under Erwin Tulfo, whether under Dinky Suleiman, whatever.

The point of the matter is this.

We tend to forget that what makes a country run is actually the state bureaucracy.

And yet, we are obsessed about elections, which is really about temporarily elected officials, right?

Now, of course, mahalagang elections.

Pero para sa akin, if you want long-term sustained development,

you really need a bureaucracy that is empowered, that is capable, that is autonomous.

And this is where it gets interesting.

For you to have a dynamic private sector, you have to regulate the private sector properly

to ensure that they pay their taxes, to ensure that they're serving the national purpose.

So, for instance, in China.

In China, I may have some issues about some of the things that was done to the private sector recently.

But the reason why the Chinese private sector is so dynamic is because the government constantly provides them incentives.

The government constantly pushes them in the direction to be more innovative, to be more dynamic.

That's why, for instance, China right now is creating cars as cool as Tesla.

You think those electric car companies came out of nowhere? No.

They came because of the incentive tax break systems and other kind of incentives that the Chinese government provided them.

You think the Chebulls of China, the Hyundais and LG came out of nowhere? No.

They were there because the South Korean bureaucracy encouraged their oligarchs.

Back in the day, LG, Samsung, Hyundai, they used to make toothpaste.

They used to make, I don't know, whatever.

But the government pushed and pushed them to get into heavy industries.

And later on, into high-tech industries.

Antawag dyan is developmental state.

A state that pushes its oligarchs and entrepreneurial class to build world-class businesses

that create jobs, brings in money and sustains national development.

Korea did this in an old time.

Taiwan did it.

Japan did it under Zaibatsu.

You have the Chebulls in Korea.

In Taiwan, it's much more small and medium enterprises driven but still very dynamic.

They have the world's biggest ship-making semiconductor industry.

None of that was possible if not for incentive systems and support and regulation by their government.

China is doing that.

So all of these countries, very different political systems,

very different political regimes and very different forms of government.

Single party.

One is a presidential parliamentary.

One is a parliamentary.

Japan is parliamentary.

One is a presidential parliamentary.

Very diverse but all of them have one thing in common,

which is a strong bureaucracy with a culture of civil service excellence.

And the influence of Confucian China is very clear there.

But we see even outside China, in other civilizations, in other regions of the world,

you also have very successful countries because they also have very active and successful civil servants and all.

Now remember, Japan did not have a world empire like Britain or France.

Britain and France, their advantage was that because they had colonies all around the world,

they could create a lot of wealth out of slavery and exploitation.

The United States also had a big advantage because for hundreds of years, it was exploiting slaves.

So it had free labor for a very, very long time.

That gave them a heads up in terms of industrialization.

But in more resource-poor countries or in more isolated countries or countries without much big empire,

I'm talking about Prussia in the late 19th century.

I'm talking about South Korea in the 60s and 70s.

I'm talking about tiny Taiwan in the 70s and 80s.

I'm talking about pre-super empire imperial Japan, etc.

If you look at all of these things, all of them had one thing in common.

They had a developmental state driven by competent bureaucracy

that allowed them to have long-term planning, to tame the oligarchs,

and to push the country in the right direction.

All of these countries had their own oligarchs too in one way or another.

Samsung, in a way, they're also.

But they were tamed and they were pushed.

My point is this.

Sometimes we're having all of these debates, but we're forgetting what we're really missing.

My point is this is the bad legacy we have from Americans

because the American political culture is very libertarian.

It demonizes the state or the government.

Bureaucracy is a negative term in America.

But the reality is that almost all successful late developing countries

were able to catch up because they had a developmental state.

That's just the fact of the matter.

This is what history shows us.

Even if you look at, for instance, small successful dynamic countries,

not necessarily industrious but small and dynamic,

like Dubai, for instance.

Dubai is Dubai today because they had a leadership and a bureaucracy

that ensured they get the best investments from around the world.

They diversify their economy.

They properly regulate the private sector.

They can plan long-term.

They can look beyond oil.

All of these things, you need bureaucracy.

You need civil servants to run that every day.

You don't need a tatay who will magically solve your problems in three to six months.

No.

You don't need any kuyas and ates there as civil servants who will deal with issues of trade,

investment, and commercial interest of the country over the next 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

Because if you really want to be a first world country,

it's going to take a generation or two at least of sustained optimal policymaking and regulation.

For that, you need way more than just rotating politicians.

You need a strong civil service.

One of the big problems we have here in the Philippines is that we have a lot of political appointees.

People who get into government,

nagiging assistant secretary,

nagiging director,

nagiging USEC,

without having any relevant background in the departments they enter.

Some of these people have no business to be there.

I'm not going to name names,

but there are people who ended up in Banco Central.

What? Anong background neto?

May alam ba ito sa macroeconomic policy?

Bakit siya na sa Banco Central?

See, that's the problem.

We have to reduce the number of political appointees.

We have to make sure that the best and the brightest get into government.

We have to make sure that they're paid well,

they're compensated well,

and that we value their job.

If you look at the success cases,

Department of Finance for instance,

and DFA,

they have very hard examination to get inside,

especially inside the carrier service of DFA.

They're paid decently and well when they're inside.

They're very, very smart people.

DFA is constantly among the cleanest,

most efficient agency in the government,

arm of the state.

It's because there is a culture of civil service excellence.

Saan meron tayo sa DFA

if this is happening in all major agencies of the government,

and bawasan natin ang political appointees,

we make sure we get the best and brightest

through competitive examination,

competitive meritocratic system,

and we promote people not because

gusto sila ni tata or kuya or ate,

no, because magaling sila,

they met the targets,

they move up,

then so be it.

Look at Singapore for instance.

In Singapore,

they push their top ministers

to get training in the private sector sometimes

so that they're much more efficient

in their management of their departments or sectors.

So it's very, very meritocratic.

And by the way,

if you look at a lot of these countries,

over time,

they became stricter and stricter with corruption.

Now in Vietnam,

a president had to step down because of corruption.

In China,

President Xi Jinping disciplined millions of corrupt people.

In Japan,

in Korea,

maraming nakulong

or nakulong and na-impeach na presidente

because of corruption,

they're dealing with that.

So whether they're communists or democratic

or presidential,

parliamentary or parliamentary,

all of them also have developed

a very strong culture of accountability

at least compared to super corrupt other countries

that you can fill in the blanks.

Now kunyari,

democratic,

pero ano talaga,

oligarchy.

Anyway,

mga ka-meta,

I'm just simplifying to you

what are the basic questions we have to ask

even before getting into the whole

debate on charter change.

Because I think the problem we have in the Philippines

is that we're a too lawyerly country.

We have what one legal scholar,

American legal scholar called,

we have procedural fetish

and too many lawyers are

dominating the political debate

when they have zero idea about

what really makes a country successful.

And believe me or not,

actually you don't have to believe me,

you just read on your own,

what we need is a strong bureaucracy.

Strong not yung

Soviet Union style,

strong, capable, autonomous,

and meritocratic.

We need to make sure the best and brightest Filipinos

look forward to working for top government agencies.

As I said,

DFA and Department of Finance

are some of the success cases,

but we need that on all other

key departments of the government.

It's only then

that we can make sure that

even if we get clowns as our leaders,

elected leaders,

we can check that because we have competent people

to run the everyday governance.

The presidents can go and travel right and left.

They can go Magellan Jr.

Who do you think runs the Philippines

when Magellan Jr. is all around the world

and circumnavigating the earth?

It's the civil servants and bureaucrats, right?

And we have to reduce the number of political appointees.

We have to make sure

that only people who pass the examination

or people who have really relevant background

become our top civil servants.

That our assistant secretaries,

undersecretaries are people

who really have a relevant background.

The people who are working in Banco Central,

all of them have a background

in economics, development,

or something along those lines,

or at least public policy.

That's all.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Kameta.

We ran out of time.

Let's read the article we posted there.

As I said,

Aristotle said that

form can shape the expression of substance.

I am open to the argument that

certain kinds of constitutional amendments

make the Philippines much more democratic

and developmentally friendly.

I agree with that.

But let's not also exaggerate

the importance of form of government

because the political system

is way more than just the legal architecture

governing the shape and form of the government.

And more than that,

and this is more important,

we have to make sure

any constitutional change

is shepherded by the right people.

If trapos are in charge of charter change,

then you know what's going to come out of it.

So please,

please don't get carried away by

you know,

you know this,

the soothsayers,

the charmers,

snake charmers.

If you do that,

automatically,

we'll be in Singapore.

It's like saying

if your DILA comes out

and you're Michael Jordan

and you shoot like that

because you're already good at Michael Jordan.

It's like that.

Alright.

Okay.

Alright.

Thank you very much.

The late ones here,

Riza is late.

Watch this again.

I simplified it.

The natural light is disappearing.

So I think it's perfect time

to close this discussion.

But let's have more discussion on this.

Please read the article I posted

among others.

I'll write more and more on this.

And by the way,

thank you very much to

the Committee on Constitutional Amendments

for your kind invitation to come.

I look forward to joining you guys

in some of the discussions again

in the future, hopefully.

But so far,

I just raised some three

fundamental questions.

What do we mean by

political system versus

charter change?

Number two,

what are we trying to solve here?

And number three,

is the form of government

as important as

creating a strong bureaucracy

in state?

And that we should not forget

that the success story of nations

is based on having

inclusive political

and economic institutions.

So how is charter change

going to help that

or make it worse?

That's the question

that you have to ask yourself.

Alright, mga kameta?

And that's the question

you have to ask

those people who are saying,

O pag ganito tayo,

Singapore na tayo.

O pag ganito tayo,

maging UK na tayo.

And by the way,

just look at parliamentary system.

It works in some places,

but in some places

also it doesn't work.

Look at how it is in Iraq,

for instance.

The parliamentary system

is a mess.

Or look at other

parliamentary systems.

Look at UK,

look at Australia,

look at Israel.

Look at how many elections

they have had

over the past

three, four years palang.

Right?

Especially UK and Australia

who are like

genuine democracies.

Look at how messy

their politics is.

Now imagine if that's

in a country which has

really no culture

of real political parties.

Now,

is charter change

going to solve that?

Or maybe we can just

amend our existing laws

or maybe we should

force our trapos

to press

an anti-dynasty law.

Right?

Yun lang.

Nagtatanong lang po.

Maraming salamat,

mga kameta.

Maraming salamat.

Thank you very much.

And God bless.

Oh, by the way,

thank you again sa mga

nagbigay ng support

sa Senan Makalalad,

Eden Olonan,

Riz Annie,

Jocelyn Ilumberi.

As always,

thank you so much

kay Mitch Tencho,

Michael Uy.

Thank you so much

sa mga support nyo.

Wala na yung mga

natural light so

talk to you soon.

Thank you very much.