A Critical Analysis of Philippine Politics in the Light of Contemporary Political Situation
By B. I. Gacrama What is essential in a democracy in not political parties, but information and discussion conducted in a spirit of cooperation. —Manuel L. Quezon, The essence of democracy With the unexpected resurgence of the infamous COMELEC commissioner, whose alleged involvement in the controversial “Hello Garci” tape had plunged the country into serious socio-political crises, the administration and their political rivals—the opposition—are once again back into noisy political bickering. The opposition accused GMA of vote-rigging by having conversation over the phone with Commissioner Garcillano who was tasked to oversee the election in the south where the President garnered a substantial lead over other presidential candidates especially her closest contender, Fernando Poe, Jr., who is the standard bearer of the united opposition. Convince that the taped conversation evidently involved the voice of the President, the opposition called for a house inquiry, in “aid of legislation” as lawmakers would like to call it, to dig into the truth of the case. Surprisingly, the alleged person behind the voice, the one who was addressed simply as “Garci” hastily fled the country unnoticed even by immigration officials before he could be summoned to appear before the Blue Ribbon committee. Chancing upon an opportunity, the opposition suspected the administration of orchestrating the sudden disappearance of “Garci” and called for the resignation of Gloria Arroyo on the premise that the administration tried to conceal the truth from the public whom the President sworn to lead. The subsequent turn of events almost went beyond control when various sectors of society openly declared their indignation to the President and her political allies who mounted a strong defense to rescue her from imminent political disaster. Some politicians even bolted from the administration camp and, in “solidarity” with the opposition, asked GMA to resign, to render the supreme sacrifice, to prevent further escalation of political and economic turmoil. All attempts had unfortunately failed and the administration standard bearer during the 2004 national election survived her perhaps most difficult political ordeal so far. How did she survive? The answer obviously lied in the support mounted in favor of her from influential political allies who gathered around her during the recent election and who benefited from her administration. Had the politicians connected with the administration abandoned her and joined the ranks of her adversaries, she would have suffered a similar plight experienced by former President Estrada. Luckily for her, majority of the politicians, who happened to be administration candidates during the last election, expressed their confidence, mostly in print, in her government. While the recognized dominant opposition, KNP, lose their standard bearer, politically and ontologically, the political squabbles—the constant hurling of derogatory accusations—between these two parties have persisted even during post-election scenario. Instead of working in unison to carry out effective and efficient government and set aside their differences for the good of the nation, the two camps, viz. administration and opposition, continued their counter-productive political quarrels at the expense of the public good. Our political situation has brought to my mind the possibility of having a democratic system of government without political parties. Is partyless democracy feasible in our political system? Although the idea of democracy without political parties is not something new in the sphere of academic discussions, it is nonetheless worthy of further re-consideration not only for purely intellectual purposes but more significantly for pragmatic reasons. This paper is an attempt to “read” the events of contemporary Philippine politics and the possibility of instituting a partyless democracy. Do we really have existing political parties in the truest sense of the word? My answer is negative and this is in fact what I would like to argue. Political Party Defined According to Hector de Leon, political parties may be defined as the “voluntary organization of citizens advocating certain principles and policies for the general conduct of government and which, as the most immediate means of securing their adoption, designates and supports certain of its leaders as candidates for public office.”[i] Based on this definition, it must be said that one of the basic attributes of a political party is that it is a voluntary organization of citizens. Given the present situation, we have no difficulty categorizing our political parties as such for they are indeed organizations composed of citizens. On closer analysis, however, the statement is actually question-begging. For one, what kind of citizens is allowed to join a political party as an organization? Joel Rocamora from the Institute of Popular Democracy says that “the most important characteristic of Philippine political parties is that they are parties of the elite.”[ii] Major political parties were actually creation and/or composed of elite politicians. Although the 1987 Charter allows multi-party system which includes adopting a party-list system to enable sectoral groups mainly composed of mass-based individuals to have representation in the Congress, party-list groups are relatively less instrumental in influencing the affairs of the government. Another distinct characteristic identified by Rocamora is “the shifting character of membership and leadership and the absence of ideological or programmatic differences between parties.”[iii] That our political parties lack certain principles for the conduct of the government are best exemplified in their not having clear differences. Unlike in Great Britain and in the United States which have two contesting political parties distinctively identifiable by the difference of their platform of government, Philippine political parties obviously do not espouse clear-cut program of government. They are more of personality oriented rather than having strong adherence to a particular political ideology. And this is where the problem of Philippine politics lies and, in one way or another, our political parties definitely fail to qualify as political parties in the strictest sense of the word. _____________________________ [i] Hector de Leon, Textbook on the Philippine Constitution (Manila: Rex Bookstore, 2002), 298. [ii] Joel Rocamora, Philippine political parties, electoral system and political reform, Available from http://www.philsol.nl/pjr/JR-98a.htm.Internet.Accessed Novermber 17, 2005. [iii] Ibid. |