The Philippines is composed of 7,107 islands and most of these localities remain at the periphery of the national government and not of the prime consideration. Each of these localities, islands has concerns and interests of their own which when accumulated become a mishmash that a government has to tend to. In the absence of an aggregating vehicle which will sort this [on which are truly relevant and which are not], the legislative becomes a heap of papers, bills passed [invented and reinvented] – not to mention the partylists. The legislative is clogged with proposals of all sorts (just consider the leaders elected who are not capable and knowledgeable of what politics and governance is truly about – passing trash not laws). Let me site for example the crash course for congress which by itself a proof of how the public stupid chose people to govern them. Well, there’s few to choose from anyway and they are all the same.

We have a highly centralized system where decision-making is done mostly from the top – “trickle-down system.” This illogical process takes away the ability of the localities to fend and decide for themselves, advertently suffocating the system. It has been like this for the past hundred years and yet no viable change has been created, as a matter of factly, efforts to do so were exterminated and the government remain at the hands of the elite few who are puppets of the oligarchs (if they are not of the same oligarchic clans) controlling the nation’s economy and politics.

Until this day most local governments are still dependent on the decisions of national officials and offices. They have remained weak and contingent on the releases of their share of the Internal Revenue Allotments IRA). Local and regional development and self-reliance are stifled by this system of central domination and regulation. Just imagine all the concerns of all the Local Government Units (LGUs) in the country are being attended to by a single entity. It will take time to address these concerns one by one and of course we cannot expect efficiency of the responses. Only the local governments know best of the problem and therefore know the best solution and not anyone else, what is needed is the due authority to implement and regulate.

Last September 25, 2013, I attended the Prospects for Post-Conflict Philippines which was initiated by Ateneo de Davao University in celebration of the International Month of Peace. The participants was comprised by people coming from the academe, civil society, business, diplomatic community, governance, donor agencies, and the security sector from the eastern Mindanao area and the national community. Issues such as corruption, instability of security, weak justice system. As mentioned, it is better to resort to war than bring it to a court which takes years and years of trials and most cases die in their natural death. Poverty which factor involves its geographic location - - most of which are areas where there is insurgency and the upcoming changes in policies after the 2016 elections. People are talking about all these matters but not did mention about the importance of having a voice in the senate, in the congress and executive. None did mention about a genuine political party who can bring these concerns in the table of the legislative. Billions have been wasted in this process, and not even a good percentage had even reached the concerned. We remain in the periphery of the national government whose concern attending the traffic problem in the national capital region while people in Mindanao die. We have no real voice as the senate is dominated by people coming from Luzon. You call that equal representation? There is no such thing as equal representation in this political system that we have. We give more, but receive less. We deserve more, but get less.

I agree to the old political adage that when the people are hungry, they are angry. We have not truly tapped or influenced the decision-making in the national government. We invest in war; billions are reserved to buy ammunition; but less in livelihood programs and education. There can only be peace in consensus. And there can only be consensus of the government actually listen to the grassroots, ask them and not just decide for them. It is not true that the governed most of time do not know what they want, they do. But our leaders are too proud and prejudice. This trickle-down political system must be replaced by subsidiarity.

Political parties are the backbone of democracy in modern societies. They serve as the linking and leading mechanism. They are organizations that aggregate the interests and resources behind policies, responsible for socializing of leaders, education the members so that they can make informed choices. And they gain power through election. Without genuine political parties, we will not be able to participate in policy-making. And in the long run, cannot hold accountable in the abuse of power.

Without genuine political parties our interests cannot be TRULY upheld, translated into laws and implemented. Thus it is important that political parties be owned and controlled by the people who pay their membership dues. This is in lieu of the vicious cycle of parties being ruled by patrons who poured their money in, decides on their own, choose who will ran in elections, and dictates what politicians must do. Without which, we will forever have this culture of political turncoatism and butterflyism.

It is by far essential that we will have genuine political parties that have their platforms of governance and party guidelines. Our system has been for hundreds of years prostituted by people who have no integrity, jumping from one party to another with no sanction and no question of how one can simply change their coats and colors depending of whose patron can make them win in the elections. Our system is dominated by the king-makers and personalities who have the money but no dignity. Without a strict party guidelines, constitution and bylaws, we can never eradicate these maggots infiltrating the system, and weakening the dying body politic.