The political circus is back

ON DISTANT SHORE
By Val G. Abelgas 

United Nationalist Alliance

The circus is in town. The game is on. Let the games begin.

However you see it, the circus or game called Philippine election is back with all its hoopla and hullabaloo. That the elections would be just another game of the entrenched politicians was evident on the first day of filing for the certificates of candidacy.

Chairman Sixto Brillantes of the Commission on Elections appealed to the candidates to avoid fanfare and make the filing of the COCs a simple affair, but the plea evidently fell on deaf ears. The sun had barely shone when candidates, supporters and activists came in droves to the Comelec office on Monday with posters, banners, music and words blaring from loudspeakers, and all kinds of fanfare that reveal in no uncertain way that the election season has begun.

Liberal Party coalition

The official campaign period does not start until early February, but expect the candidates to start filling up newspaper pages and broadcast airtimes with all kinds of press releases. The time between now and February will be spent organizing and publicizing. And then the real fun begins on Feb. 29 when the 90-day campaign period for senators and party-list group starts and escalates on March 29 when the 45-day campaign period for local candidates begin.

Electric posts, walls and every available space will again be plastered with all kinds of campaign posters and neighborhoods will be constantly exposed to the all-familiar spectacle of blaring loudspeakers and candidates shaking hands and carrying babies. As election day nears, political rallies that feature not just campaign speeches but entertainment from singers, actors and actresses will be a common sight. And with cash floating around, can inflation be far behind?

Just as freewheeling as the campaign itself is the choice of candidates by the two major coalitions that will dominate the elections. The lack of two dominant parties in the present political system has turned every election since the fall of the Marcos regime into a clash between and among coalitions, instead of two major parties clashing on issues.

A cursory look at the line-ups of the two major coalitions reveals a pattern of political opportunism that started in the first real election after martial law in 1992 where seven candidates, each with their own political party, vied for the presidency, resulting in the first-ever minority Philippine president.

Ever since the late President Ferdinand Marcos uprooted the Philippines’ two-party system by declaring martial law in 1972, there has never been a truly established political party with a consistent and established platform and ideology. Instead, we have several political parties whose roster of members change as often as the wind changes its direction.

These political parties align with other similarly situated political groupings to form coalitions, whose reason for unity is political exigency, rather than a commonality in political platform. As a result, government officials, including the president, are elected not because they offer a better program of government, but because they are either popular, they have the financial resources, or they are able to wheel-and-deal with other political groupings, or all of the above.

Since the first free elections in the post-Marcos era, there has never been a president elected by the majority of the people, meaning more than 50% of the voting population. President Fidel V. Ramos got 23.6 percent of the votes in 1992; President Joseph Estrada won with 39.86 percent in 1998; Gloria Macapagal Arroyo supposedly had 39.99 percent in 2004; and Benigno S. Aquino III got 42.08 percent.

Expectedly, as soon as the results of the 2010 elections were known, the turncoats or the political butterflies, as they are known in the Philippines, immediately made their moves. Erstwhile apologists for Arroyo suddenly became members of Aquino’s Liberal Party, pontificating against corruption as if they were not a part of the previous plunderous regime.

Such has been the major character of our politicians and our political system. And the present sets of candidates are no different.

The President’s coalition, which has yet to have a common name, is composed of Aquino’s Liberal Party (LP); the party-list group Akbayan; the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) of Aquino’s uncle, businessman Danding Cojuangco; Arroyo’s Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), Sen. Manny Villar’s Nacionalista Party (NP) and the Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban).

It is surprising that the current dominant political party, LP, has only three candidates in the coalition’s line-up, and two of them were just recently sworn in as LP member. They are former Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr. and newly sworn-in members Jamby Madrigal, herself a former senator, and Paolo Benigno Aquino, the President’s cousin.

The rest of the Aquino coalition’s slate are reelectionist senators Loren Legarda (NPC), Francis Escudero (Independent), Alan Peter Cayetano (NP), Aquilino Pimentel III (PDP-Laban) and Antonio Trillanes IV (NP); Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara (LDP); former Las Piñas Rep. Cynthia Villar (NP); Risa Hontiveros (Akbayan), and censors chief Grace Poe Llamanzares (Independent).

The United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), the opposing coalition, is a merger of Vice President Jejomar Binay’s PDP-Laban party and former President Joseph Estrada’s Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino but has candidates from various political parties. The third member of the leadership triumvirate is Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (PDP-Laban).

Those in UNA’s senatorial slate are reelectionist Sen. Gregorio Honasan, Representatives JV Ejercito, Jackie Ponce Enrile and Milagros Magsaysay; former senators Ernesto Maceda, Juan Miguel Zubiri and Richard Gordon; and former Tarlac Governor Margarita “Tingting’’ Cojuangco; and guest candidates Escudero, Legarda, and Llamanzares.

The 12th slate member, Joey de Venecia, the whistleblower son of former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., withdrew his candidacy.

Based on name recognition and political experience, it would appear that the UNA slate has the upper hand. However, I’m not sure if they can count the three guest candidates — Escudero, Legarda and Llamanzares – who appear to be toeing the line of the LP coalition that barred them from appearing at UNA rallies when they did not join the slate’s filing of candidacy on Monday.

In any case, the loyalties of all these candidates are questionable in the light of their propensity to cross party lines for political expediency. Many of them will eventually change coalition after the May elections.

The instability of political coalitions reflects, and contributes to, the instability of the country’s political system. Because these parties were formed primarily for the self-aggrandizement of its founders and leaders, they are devoid of ideology and platform of government. The parties change stands on issues, and shift loyalties as often as political exigency demands.

There lies the problem with not having parties based on ideals or principles. Because they are based on the self-serving agenda of the leaders, parties tend to change platforms depending on what can win them votes at the time, or what can be advantageous to their own objectives. The needs of the people that they are supposed to serve are often overlooked. And because the members join the parties not because of the party’s ideals and principles, there is no loyalty on their part and they become political butterflies, moving from one party to another in the same manner that parties move from one coalition to another.

If the parties and the party members cannot be loyal to their own ideals or their own parties, how can they be expected to be loyal to the people?

(valabelgas@aol.com)