TUN Dr Mahathir Mohamad is going to name names, we are promised. In the Philippines, "the Malaysian model" is commonly proffered as the way to do it. Foreign investors channel 20 per cent of their capital to Umno in Kuala Lumpur, Filipinos believe. Therefore, any investor must put 20 per cent of his money into whatever party a president has used or created in the Philippines to propel himself to power. The supposed "Malaysian model" legitimises the same practice in Manila.

But at least Malaysia has a lot to show for the investment -- economic growth has stormed ahead despite world economic vicissitudes. The other 80 per cent does its good. In our book on this subject, Nick Thompson and I called this only "the next-worst form of corruption", because it doesn't exactly affect the forces of production.

In the Philippines, though, corruption actually affects the economic powerhouse itself: the worst form of corruption. Corruption drives the process, rather than being a function of it. The fundamental problem here among Filipinos is that politics is not just mainly about money, it's only about money. The high-falutin' words used all over the world about development, poverty reduction and so on aren't even bothered with here in Manila.

This is not corruption where a cut is taken from the cow's milk coming out of the barn; it's the alteration of the barn itself so that only designated cows can come out. The result is a lot fewer cows and a lot less milk.

Every Filipino president since the innovative dictator Ferdinand Marcos, save Cory Aquino, has in either beneficial or detrimental ways modelled him or herself on Marcos. Fidel V. Ramos knew his cousin Marcos's methodology of governance, rectified it and put it to good use.
Erap Estrada just took all the bad from Marcos and none of the good, and multiplied it.

Gloria Arroyo came to office in a silent coup with only a legacy to leave behind: she had an almost guaranteed decade of power ahead, a reformer president as her father and a rich mother and husband to negate her need for presidential plunder.

By now thought to be the "most corrupt president" ever in a survey, Arroyo is only looking at the end-game, how to preserve power after her term ends in 2010, to avert corruption charges and possibly prison.

It's even harder than in Marcos's days, when "People Power" overthrew him. There's that possibility still, but there are subpoenas that can be issued internationally in this new era, and these give her scant comfort. The billions Arroyo and her husband, "First Gentleman" Mike, have allegedly amassed won't buy safety anywhere outside the archipelago, and are dubious protection at home.

So her current game plan is manifestly to change the constitution from a presidential to a parliamentary form, so guess who could emerge as the prime minister, Malaysian style. How would she ensure that? Money talks.

She has given handouts of cash even to bishops right inside the palace, and uses virtually all her vast powers to stay in office and keep her supporters in line. Reports have just come out of how members of congress received literally bags of cash to oppose the annual attempt to impeach her.

Her current effort is to obtain a congressional mandate for constitutional change, and the wags are counting as she approaches the magic number of 190. Failing that, she can try to enrol the population in a plebiscite, but that's difficult.

There's also the problem of the senate, which constitutional change would almost inevitably close down for good. No senators want that, and anyway, six of them want to be president, another reason for refusing to support Gloria on this one, even if otherwise in her court. So the palace is trying to force the supreme court to declare that a "joint session" of the houses, where the lower chamber has a huge majority, would vote on whether to move ahead on "Cha-Cha".

The senate might thus be the biggest barrier to her.

Failing that, she goes to the supreme court, where she controls nine of the 15 judges, and will presumably be able to appoint six more before term-end. A brilliant associate justice told me recently that they can already feel the pressure. But the supreme court is no pushover. There is so much procedure that stalls the process; it might be March next year before it would come before that august bar. "This is one determined lady," a justice told me.

The last and final step would be, of course, emergency rule or even martial law. Marcos staged an incident in 1971 that has now been proved to be phony -- a bombing that left several senators maimed. The culprit, beyond Marcos, was Juan Ponce Enrile, now at 84 elected senate president (politicians have long shelf lives here) and he managed to arrive late for the rally where the bombing took place.

So, we anticipate a bombing, probably here in the business district of Makati, that would have the apparent footprints of separatists from Mindanao, as pretext for constitutional change, maybe next March or April. Plus ca change plus ca la meme chose, the French say. The more things change the more they stay the same.

And all because of money politics. Twenty per cent would seem to most of us as enough. When the son of House Speaker Jose de Venetia Jr negotiated a broadband contract in China for about US$120 million (RM400 million), the First Gentleman travelled to tell him famously to "back off". This one was for the first family, and they were to get a 200 per cent rather than a 20 per cent cut. That's inflation.

Numerous knowing negotiators had to be silenced with high jobs or big payoffs; they were only "trying to limit the greed involved", one of them famously testified. But Gloria had to cancel the project.

Whether it's a fertiliser scam (now in the news) or huge per diems for properly vetted bureaucrats travelling abroad, it's all there is in the news these days. "Reform" politics resides now only with a lone former priest elected governor of the president's home province, Pampanga. He's a lonely voice, and the big boys are even trying to recall him.

Good governance is a long way off in the Philippines.