President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recently signed Executive Order 728, in which among other provisions dealing with the food and fuel crises, permits herself to explore emergency powers if the crises deepen. According to EO 728, the National Food and Emergency Council (NFEC) is empowered to make recommendations to the President and Congress to exercise emergency powers. Predictably, Senate President Villar and House Speaker Nograles rejected the idea and stressed that the president has enough powers to address the twin crises without emergency powers. Other senators (particularly those considered as presidentiables) also pitched in with their objections. GMA has her own crisis of legitimacy. This crisis has now evolved into a crisis of political survival, especially since there is as yet no guarantee from presidentiables on her future, her deep unpopularity continues, both friends and enemies plot despite or even against her, and the economic crisis increasingly becomes unmanageable. T...

We Filipinos have been so starved of good governance for so long that our appetite for it has become unlimited. What we hunger for is a whole archipelago of good governance. We want the blessings of good governance to spread through all our 7,100 islands—including even those submerged at high tide! Yet, if the May 2008 State Department Global Report is to be believed, corruption and the uncertain rule of law still lie at the root of our political problems. Achieving an archipelago of good governance will be a great challenge—because, in its geography, ecology, natural resource endowments, economy, ethnicity and culture, our country is extraordinary in its diversity. Our fragmented geography produced a highly fragmented political system—whose ill effects we suffer until now. Decentralization and national unity Historically, political power in our country has been highly diffused. Until now, we as a people have a great deal to do to gather our regions, provinces, cities, towns and v...