Quo Vadis, Fidel Ramos?

PRESIDENT FIDEL V. RAMOS conveniently left for a business trip to India yesterday, so he did not have to face the Media and the Public following last Saturday's National Directorate meeting of the LAKAS-CMD. But the question I asked a week ago, Will FVR Lose Lakas To GMA? appears to have an answer in the "Communique"--(oops, correction per Gabby Claudio speaking at noon with Pinky Webb and Ricky Carandang)-- "Statement of Consensus" issued after the meeting held in Malacanang Palace last Saturday. Two resolutions, Claudio said, were passed by the Directorate. It was a stinging defeat for FVR's call on Lakas "to ask the President to do the noble thing and cut a her term short"

(1) to support the President's continuance in office till 2010 as a fulfilment of her mandate as President; and

(2) adoption of a unicameral parliamentary system of government under a new Constitution to be drafted by June, 2006 and presented to the people for a plebiscite and ratification by 2007.

FRANCO-ANGLO-FILIPINO MODEL (HUH?) According to Claudio, LAKAS has agreed to adopt Jose de Venecias FRENCH MODEL of a strong president, weak Prime Minister durng the incumbency of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo between 2007 and 2010. But dig this. After 2010, Claudio says it is envisioned that the country will transition to a BRITISH MODEL of a strong Prime Minister and a presumably ceremonial President. I wish they wouldn't drag the Europeans and the British into this. It's a pure FILIPINO TRAPO MODEL if you ask me, all dressed up in European Parliamentary garb.

ACTUALLY NOBODY--NOT EVEN FVR--KNOWS WHAT FVR WILL DO NOW. We will just have to wait until he returns from India, the land of meditation and discernment.