Flags of convenience

LITO BANAYO
MALAYA
26 February 2009

Anent our series on the nine men and a woman who are referred to as “presidentiables”, and a personal view on the qualities that a leader must possess (The Leader We Need, 13 Feb 2009), as well as the practical difficulties of entering the field for a newcomer (Is There No One Else?, 17 Feb 2009), we now focus on the political parties.

Time and again, we have described the political parties that have mushroomed since the adoption of the 1987 Constitution as mere flags of convenience. The fault lies in the political system, where our constitutional framers first thought of adopting parliamentarism, and with it a compatible multiple party system. At the last minute though, the framers decided by a majority of one to revert to the presidential system, but they did not revisit their adoption of the now incongruous multiple parties. Neither did they propose run-off elections, to ensure that the elected leader will be a majority president.

After the 1987 Constitution was ratified, the parties or coalitions were either pro-Cory or Cory-disenchanted, and none but Erap and Juan Ponce Enrile managed to survive the Aquino senatorial juggernaut. Flags of convenience mushroomed around presumptive competitors for the 1992 elections. Vice-President Doy Laurel revived the Nacionalista Party, and discarded the coalition he initiated against the Marcos regime – UNIDO. Senate President Jovito Salonga revived the pre-martial Liberal Party too. The PDP-Laban broke into two factions — the original PDP, with its founder Nene Pimentel eventually acceding to be vice-presidential candidate of Salonga in an LP-PDP coalition, and the humongous Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), led by Cory’s younger brother, Rep. Peping Cojuangco of Tarlac, and its predetermined presidential candidate, Speaker Ramon V. Mitra Jr. The LDP was shelter to most of the traditional politicians, both those who fought Marcos and those who swore against Marcos only after he fell from power. The trapos have flourished materially, and their brand of politics enshrined in their local fiefdoms for the past two decades since Marcos. It is as if the datus never left us.

Unable to gain hegemony over Laurel’s NP, Ambassador Danding Cojuangco formed the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) as his vehicle for the 1992 presidential run. Defeated in a series of regional party conventions of the LDP, then Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos broke off and formed a party out of six faithful congressmen (Jose de Venecia of Pangasinan, Edelmiro Amante of Agusan del Norte, Francisco Sumulong of Rizal, Eduardo Pilapil of Camarines Sur, Jaime Lopez of Manila, and Hilarion Ramiro of Ozamis), then negotiated with Raul Manglapus and Amado Lagdameo for the National Union of Christian Democrats (NUCD) to form Lakas-NUCD.

Imelda Romualdez Marcos dusted off her husband’s Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), while the latest entrant into the derby, Miriam Defensor Santiago, registered a new party called People’s Reform Party (PRP). Thus, there were six flags vying for the 1992 derby: LDP, with a complete slate in all 1500 municipalities, and Monching Mitra with Celing Fernan as its standard-bearers; Nationalist People’s Coalition with Danding Cojuangco and Erap Estrada, with an almost complete slate likewise; the Liberal Party-PDP coalition, with Jovito Salonga and Nene Pimentel, and an incomplete slate; the NP with Doy Laurel and Eva Kalaw, and a rag-tag band of loyal Nacionalistas; the Lakas-NUCD, with FVR and Lito Osmena; the KBL with Imelda and Vic Magsaysay, and a few provinces carrying its local standards; as well as Miriam and Jun Magsaysay in PRP, with Fred Lim and Lito Atienza in Manila, the only local candidates they had that mattered.

When FVR won, most every trapo in the LDP, LP, NP, etc., took their oaths of temporary allegiance to Lakas. PRP, whose Miriam almost made it, became a party of one, deserted even by Magsaysay, who turned to Lakas, and Manila’s victors, Lim and Atienza, who tried to revive the now moribund LP, eventually used by Lim in his ill-fated presidential run of 1998. The LDP was taken over by Sen. Ed Angara, which entered into a working coalition with FVR’s Lakas, resulting in a half-half senatorial slate in 1995. The NP went into hibernation. KBL went back to Ilocos Norte, and NPC tried to be “the” opposition party. It had, after all, won the vice-presidency and three senators — Ernie Maceda, John Osmena, and Nikki Coseteng. But Vice-President Erap disdained taking over the role of chief oppositionist, preferring a not-too-cozy entente cordiale with President Ramos, where he carved a niche for himself as “crime-buster”.

Speaker Jose de Venecia, the quintessential trapo until Gloria Macapagal Arroyo became president, cobbled all of the parties into a Rainbow Coalition, quite an apt description for a political alliance of feudal masters and their satraps. Here today, gone tomorrow, as Joe de V now finds himself lonely and deserted, after his son Joey dared challenge the little “god” he nursed. Lakas tried to embrace the Christian Democrat ideology, albeit in name only, as its members preferred the convenience of trapo politics. Neither ersatz ideology nor the endorsement of an incumbent president made JDV win in 1998, when Erap, with a hastily formed coalition of his PMP, Angara’s LDP and some of Danding’s NPC, labelled LAban ng Makabayang Masang Pilipino, trounced him and everybody else with their now archived flags of convenience. And after Erap won, 50 Lakas faithful (almost all of them LDP’s in 1991) turned their coats once again and shouted LAMPP, led by the Speaker who bought Erap’s affections, Manuel Villar. Two years and six months later, with his real estate empire nurtured to convalescence, that Erap-handpicked Speaker impeached President Erap. He, he, he. How so very convenient.

Because party loyalty died with martial law, and the Cory constitution made it all too convenient to be political butterflies, presidential wannabe’s concentrate on developing a personality cult around themselves, whether through patronage or money, advertising or networking, or all of the above. Thus, for 2010, Villar will use the NP whose franchise he got from a dying Doy Laurel, and later adding even the Laurel mansion as new acquisition, to become his headquarters. Mar Roxas has been nominated in the LP which his grandfather and namesake formed in 1945. Chiz Escudero is likely to be hand-picked by Danding Cojuangco to bear the colours of his NPC. Both Lakas which Gloria used, and Kampi which she founded, are still wondering who they could adopt as standard-bearers, other than “pakipot” Noli de Castro, the vice-president Gloria wisely bought in 2004 as insurance cover from impeachment. Loren will likely resurrect LDP, the once humongous party that now hamlets in Aurora province. (But over the week-end, Angara endorsed Gilbert Teodoro as his presidential candidate in Baler. Is this retaliation for Loren’s rumored acceptance of a personal offer from Erap to be his vice-president in next year’s electoral contest?) And Ping Lacson, dribbled off by Jojo Binay from his PDP, is still conveniently sans party shelter.

There you are — the presidential candidates of 2010 and their flags of convenience. Are there any more?

The political party has become a tool of the personal ambitions, legitimate or otherwise, of a presidential candidate. Hence, it’s active shelf life is confined to the presidency of the standard bearer who used it in the campaign. LDP was dominant majority in Cory’s time; Lakas took over in FVR’s. In 1998, formed LAMMP as his vehicle, but since his stay in power was short-lived, so was his coalition, In 2004, FPJ ran under his own version of a coalition, even if his political sponsors — Angara, Sotto and Oreta, were LDP. Villar is resurrecting the NP for his own run, to be filled up by recruits from whichever. If he loses, the NP goes back to the morgue. PMP of Erap will, like Angara’s LDP, remain in their San Juan del Monte bastion, or for as long as an Estrada is politically active. NPC hopes to have ultimate political hegemony with their prince, Chiz Escudero, and to ensure his election, they are ready to bed with Lakas and Kampi, or whoever will desert the coffin GMA has prepared for these alliances. For as long as their “boss” Danding is alive, there will be an NPC. Apres the “boss”, as Louis XIV once declared, “le deluge”, unless they bag the presidency in 2010 through their Chiz. While the LP is currently tied to the chances of its presumptive president, Mar Roxas, it is likely to survive and be active whether or not its presidential candidate wins. Why so?

First, it has elders who will stubbornly keep the fires going, whether a Salonga or a Drilon, or the Roxas family itself, which to its credit, has never abandoned the party of their forebear. Mar Roxas at 51 can yet politically re-invent himself whatever happens on or before May of 2010, unlike Doy Laurel after 1992. Second, the LP was declared the “dominant opposition party” by the Comelec in 2007, which, repeated in 2010, is a powerful come-on for local candidates who need the right to field official inspectors in every polling precinct. Third, many of its members are bonded together by some adherence to party principles, something alien to most trapos who are kept in leash only by the money of their bosses, or by taking advantage of presidential power and prerogative, something bound to end in 2010 for Lakas and Kampi if (and that is still a big IF) Dona Gloria descends from her throne.

If the Liberals win the presidency in 2010, and the Constitution is revised (as it should be, at the proper time) thereafter, expect a return to the two-party presidential system, with the LP as majority party, and the remnants of the other parties forming whatever else. Perhaps even the NP, if Manny Villar sells his current franchise to the next ambitious person with loads of money.

The party-list, envisioned as voice of the marginalized and anchored on ideology, albeit singular or specific interests in many cases, are supposed to balance off the traditional parties. Some of these, particularly the progressive if left-leaning ones, fulfil their constitutionally-mandated purpose (although they are still divided between those who remain faithful to the exiled Joma of Utrecht, and those who reject his leadership). Others have become flags of convenience too, for ambitious men and women who think a party they personally own and are able to register for accreditation with a corrupt Comelec, can buy them the recognition, so undeserved, of “honourable”. See how they have proliferated, many of their acronyms starting with the letter “A”, so they would be first in the long list, hopeful that ignoramuses would write their party name on first cognizance. They are treated as second-class citizens by the trapos, but many do not mind. After all, they are still addressed “honourable”, and they get chunks of the pork too. Some party list solons though have distinguished themselves, not so much in the selfish esteem of their old-boy colleagues in the chamber of “thieves”, but in media, as intelligent and articulate resource persons.

So what’s in store for us with a polity so confused and confusing, except for the trapos who know how to exploit every rule in the book to serve their selfish interests? Will this kind of system, this “variety” of similar flags of convenience, be a vehicle for reform? Again, look at the presidential candidate, and never mind the party. For even if you search the origins of the two party-system which we had before Marcos, you will find that they were formed for the convenience of a presidential candidate, from Quezon to Roxas to Marcos.

We just have to hope that the electorate chooses a wise and decisive president who, after the nightmare that is Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is over, will prioritize the writing of a new and better Constitution.

Otherwise, we shall just pass from one Gloria to another male “glorioso”, perhaps more rapacious, and as we keep saying, once more be consigned to a state of benightedness, having chosen the least of us to lead us. All these assume of course, that the present Gloria will not be able to achieve her ultimate high, which is to remain in power until the good Lord wakes up and has mercy on his people.

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E-mail address: (banayo_at@yahoo.com)
Blog: (litobanayo.blogspot.com)