party talks

The abolishment of the bi-partisan political party system in the Philippines as a cause for national corruption

One of the whiplash that’s beginning to rub its sore red mark on our backs coming from the oust of the Marcos regime is the abolishment of the bi-partisan political party system here in the Philippines. It was revised in the 1987 constitution during the Aquino administration into a multi-partisan one.

This, at least from this writer’s perspective, was an unforeseen err then that is being taken advantage upon by today’s politicians. And with about two or three “generations” of administrations, political opportunism has indeed seeded and is now bearing its rotten fruit.

Ladies and gentlemen, need you be reminded that we are now perceived in the international community as the most corrupt country in Asia? This wouldn’t have exploded, or actually, initially imploded, as you will see later why, into such if not for a stricter hold for the reins of political party systems here in our country.

Were the lawmakers then too afraid to have another Presidential Decree for militarization of the country that they made this change (and other subsequent changes like limiting presidential veto powers, which are irrelevant to the topic at hand)? I would like to think so.

Yet, people then and now are still grounded on the belief that the reason why power was, is, and will be abused is because there is no proper check and balance being implemented as far as political party influence is concerned. It is true, to an extent.

It is unnecessary to bar the principal ideology of having two opposing parties, where the possibility of one party completely dominating over the other, and thus, tyranny, because the problem doesn’t lie with the party, but really with its constituents.

The strongest suit of having a two party system is with its check and balance, and benchmarking. The minority party (here defined as the party who has gained minority influence in an administration) will always give a keen eye to the dominant party’s every actions.

This permeates not only to strength of political ideology, but also to the quality of candidates.

These two, conversely, are the weakest attributes of having a multi-party system. Like milking a herd of thin cows, resources are distributed too thinly to the parties. Political ideologies of the parties differ too much that they really don’t pose a significant challenge to forward the nation, and weak (more so, ill qualified) candidates who are party driven and not platform driven.

Having numerous split party systems is also akin metaphorically to the old pre-colonial tribal balanggays. These little communities fail to realize that progress is ultimately greater when they unify and form one large community-city. And for that similar reason, it is better to take care of only a number of fat, healthy cows, as their milk will be more nutritious and more valuable.

Ask yourself these questions the next time you think about your slate of senatoriables:

-From what party/coalition is this candidate from?
-What are the platforms of this candidate?
-What are the ideology/ies of his/her party/coalition?
-How aligned are they?
-How are the ideology/ies of this particular party/coalition different from other parties/coalitions?

The quality of a candidate is generally dependent on the strength of his party (this goes under the assumption that a candidate aligns himself with the party’s ideologies, and he does not join simply to gain block votes). With the emergence of pragmatic nonsense political parties, which serve no purpose but merely as a timely coalition to gain an identity, and more of, block votes, the integrity and values of the party, and worse, the candidates that they fare, are severely sacrificed.

This will never happen in a bi-partisan party system as one party could not and will not afford to loose a candidate to the other party’s.

It is saddening to realize that the Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party are pathetic compared to the same Titan and Olympian of parties then. The thought of the Liberal Party fragmenting into two wings, where one wing coexists merrily with the Nacionalista Party, and both parties belonging into a bigger coalition group with no real political standpoint other than being the incumbent and the opposition, is really disheartening.