Training for our future presidents

Title

Creator

Pacis, Vicente Albano

Language

English

Year

1968

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

From The Manila Chronicle.

Fulltext

TRAINING FOR OUR FUTURE PRESIDENTS One of the strongest rea sons President Quezon used in supporting the restoration Of the Senate was his belief that it would serve as a good training ground for the coun try’s future Presidents. In a way it has so served; but in effect, it is proving a very inadequate school for chief executives. The Commonwealth began with a unicameral National Assembly. This meant that future Presidents could count on gaining experience in gov ernment as assemblymen or department secretary or both. This was obviously not enough. According to Mr. Quezon, the President could easily control the Assembly because its members, not having the stature to be in dependent, readily kowtowed to Malacafiang. Training as department secretary was no better; a department secret ary, being a presidential ap pointee, was nothing but a minion of the President. A senator being nationallyelected, Mr. Quezon argued, would in the nature of things be more mature than a mem ber of the House of Repre sentatives and greater in sta ture than either a department secretary or a representative. His argument was based on the assumption that a politi cian who can command a na tional following was of neces sity a man on the rise. This was the theory, but the prac tice became entirely differ ent. In the first election for senators the so-called block voting was adopted under which a voter could check just a box on the ballot, and the entire ticket of the partv for whom he voted obtained one vote each. When public opinion denounced this scheme as political fraud, it was abolished but candidates for senator thereafter habit ually rode on the President’s coattails. The senators be came more personal selections May 1968 13 of the Chief Executive than the members of the House. This is still the situation to day. Hardly any candidate for the Senate without direct presidential support can get elected. Yet, today, when we think of presidential timbers, we continue to look for them in’ the Senate. The current speculations on whom the Li beral Party may field against Marcds are confined to sena tors. Even when the idea is toyed with that the LP might give the NP a dose of its own medicine and pick an NP to run for President, just as Magsaysay and Marcos were lured from the LP by the NP, only. NP senators are mentioned — Puyat, Magsay say and Tolentino. Secretary Ferriando' Lopez and Repre sentative Emmanuel Pelaez would by far be more attrac tive candidates, but not being senators they are not remem bered. Yet, they have been both senators and possess executive experience. All this proves how restrict ed and inadequate is the training for President our po litical establishment affords. In the United States, the sources of Presidents are more varied: state governor ship, the U.S. Senate, the Ca binet and the armed forces. U.S. state governors learn the vast executive side of govern ment, and the presidency is executive in character. Woo drow Wilson, who rose from the governorship of New Jersey to the presidency, is the best example. U.S. sena tors are elected by the states as partymen but largely on their own. They thus have a real political base. Most U.S. Presidents have come from the Senate, a fact that probably influenced Mr. Que zon’s thinking. Former Ca binet secretaries have the ad vantage of having gone through the complicated executive mill; William Ho ward Taft, former Philippine civil governor and secretary of war, is a conspicuous case. From the armed forces, several war heroes have bec o m e Presidents starting from George Washington, with Dwight Eisenhower as the latest General-President. The American presidential school has produced Chief Executives of wider expe rience and greater stature. 14 Panorama Except for Magsaysay and Macapagal, we have had senator-lawyers for President. Experts in advocacy and le gislation, most have had the handicap of being uninitiated in executive work. If only to provide better sources of Presidents, we should return to the election of senators by districts and raise the stature of provincial governors, per haps by making each senator ial district a single province together with a legislature. Such a scheme will also im prove Philippine democracy by welding the provinces closer and making represent ation more direct and ge nuine. — (VICENTE ALBA NO PACIS, in The Manila Chronicle) LIBERAL EDUCATION Knowledge is one thing, virtue is ^another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however, enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. ,It is will to be a gentleman, it is well to have a cul tivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life — these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge; they are the objects of a univer sity; but still they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for consciousness, they attach to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless — pleasant, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them. Alfred North Whitehead May 1968 15

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