Unfortunately, the political parties we described in our debut blog do not exist. We do not have such parties in our country. As a matter of fact, we have no real political parties by the reality that they are not functioning as political parties. It’s an irony since we have acquired our democracy ages ago. Our political party system is weak. It follows that our democracy is weak, too.

 

The question is ‘Is there a strong link between the leaders and the members of the political parties?’ And there are two issues that need to be addressed; first, the relationship between the party both inside and outside the legislature and second, the process of how parties select their candidates.

To answer the question, there is no strong relationship between the members and the leaders since in the Philippines there is only personal interest aggregation instead of the party being the overseer and mobilizer of the members’ interests. The members/voters have no say to the policies which should have been the summation of the party’s interest as a whole. The parties should be members-based.

Another pressing problem is that members of political parties in the Philippines do not pay dues and do not have a real stake in them. These parties are funded by self-proclaimed candidates, party big-wigs and oligarchs. They dictate what programs and platforms to present to voters and who would run for public office. Patronage politics is the reason behind the massive exodus of members from political parties. Political manna constantly flows from the incumbent regime.

Having said this, it also follows that the relationship between the party inside and outside the legislature is weak. It is anchored by the fact that political parties in the Philippines only exist during elections and for the reason that our political parties do not provide clear procedures for nominating candidates for public office. They also do not enable members to influence the programs and platforms of their candidates. Platforms are done barely weeks or even days before a campaign starts.

Such is the perverted centralized system we have today. They also have not developed a system of sanctions and rewards for political leaders to stick to a political party. But then, that is the subject of yet another blog: “Turncoatism.”