REYES, MARIA JOBELLE

2PM1

Our constitution states in Article II, Section 1, that: "The Philippines is a

democratic and republicanState. Sovereignty resides in the people and all
government authority emanates from them."

Without doubt, we have been operating our government as a democracy as shown

in our tradition of coming to our polling [or "fooling"(?)] electoral places each
election time to cast our sovereign ballot with our single precious vote. Little did we
know that we are only surrendering our sovereignty to politicians without knowing
that many of them are predators or grafters.In spite of the fact that we have been
trying to keep our democracy as a protector of our freedom and liberties, we are
now finding that our so-called democracy is no better than the dictatorship in other
countries. Why?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH PHILIPPINE DEMOCRACY?

The problem with our democracy is that we have not been told, or we have not
learned, that our unalienable rights are best protected in our Republican form of
government. I am not talking about the "Republican Party" in the U.S. or the
"Republican National Guard" of the late Sadam Hussein. What I am referring to is
what we have written in our Constitution which says: "The Philippines is a
democratic and republican state".

We have a near-perfect constitution in order for us to have a perfect democracy. The

trouble is that majority of our people have no natural incentive to learn to
earn more and to plan for their future. May be I also belong to that category
because I prefer to use more of my time in promoting the jury system than devoting
my time in my law practice. I don't care if I retire or die poor as long as I am able to
help install the jury system. We are the kind of people that needs guidance, for lack
of self-incentive, both with educational guidance and judicial guidance.

Yes, we have democracy, but very few can participate in it wisely in an active
capacity. We a need judicial device by which we are enabled and guided to have a
deciding voice in justice and participate meaningfully in our government, besides
telling us to vote with enticements by politicians to fool us to sell to them our votes
to elect predatory candidates who have mastered the art of fooling the Filipino
people all the time.

So, do you wonder what it means that our government is also a republican in form
besides being a democracy? Unfortunately, we have not used it in operating the
government. We thought that being democratic in form it is just the same as
republican.By operating the country as a democracy, we the people are given the
right to one (1) and only vote. A vote that surrenders our sovereignty to predatory
politicians, and we call that as a right(?). It is more of a right of corrupt candidates
that we vote for them so that they can use it to empower them to fool you and me.
We can have a strong democracy to protect us if we also operate it properly at the
same time with our republican form of government.