Have you come across a new and exotic word lately? You have just encountered one. ‘Semenekaki’ has host of meanings depending upon the disposition of the user at a particular point – and the gravity of the topic or situation being confronted.

It is incumbent upon us to push for the immediate passage of the Political Party Development Bill if we are to have truly honest, free and credible elections next year.

The political party system in the Philippines remains weak and personality-oriented rather than based on ideology, program and platform. These parties are vital to strengthening Philippine democracy as they sustain popular support and build political constituencies for their party platforms and programs of governance.

Political parties play a crucial role in instituting and implementing policies to address the long-term needs of the people. Lastly, there is a need to strengthen the political party system in the country if we are to achieve genuine development and democratization.

The current Senate and House of Representatives versions of the Political Party Development Bill should be amended; and pertinent provisions, harmonized:

• Adopt the term “national political party” instead of all references to political

parties;

• Support a strong provision prohibiting Political Turncoatism with penalties;

• Support the creation of a campaign finance department at the Commission

on Elections (COMELEC);

• Impose stricter and well-defined standards and parameters for the

registration of political parties;

• Allocate a major share of state support fund for political party development

• Adopt an effective system for reasonable measures of allowable political

party campaign contributions and expenditures together with strong penalties on violations.

The development of interparty discussion mechanisms would promote wider space for democratic political participation and advance broad and meaningful citizen participation. It would also support intraparty democracy and strengthen party linkages.

The passage of this Political Party Reform Bill will change the way politics is being done in the country since it aims to strengthen the political parties by promoting party loyalty and by getting rid of patrons.

We mentioned in an earlier blog 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. To understand why this system exists, one must seek for what is missing in what is - for such a long time -- existing.

The reality in the local political landscape is that political parties are only active during election season. Off-season, they tend to “hibernate.”

Ideally though, political parties ought to have activities throughout the year. In-between campaign periods, representatives must conduct continuous dialogue with the people and the institutions that govern them.

Political parties are key actors in a democracy. They serve as a linking and leading mechanism in politics being a means of mobilization of the masses as well as the socialization of leaders. They also function as a source of political identity - next to religion, political parties should be how citizens are identified or the point of reference. Furthermore, political parties are a channel of control. Without political parties, citizens are not represented in governing institutions, cannot control power and participate in decision-making. Thus – in the long term -- they cannot prevent the abuse of power.

Political parties are the backbone of democracy in modern societies. They are organizations that aggregate the interests and resources behind policies. They gain power and authority by engaging in elections.

If political parties would only function according to what they were meant for, then all the citizens of this country stand to truly benefit from them.

What are they for, anyway?

Political parties are supposed to be the channels of communication between policy-makers and citizens. They should also take an active role in informing and educating the country’s citizens about politics so they could make informed choices. They should have a fair, democratic and reasonable process of selecting candidates for different public positions.

Political parties are crucial in turning the tide of public opinion, in the creation of laws and in public administration at all levels. They offer the population their plans to implement these changes.

A party must write a unique platform or vision of governance with a set of principles and strategies. This vision defines the ideological identity of that party; and members are expected to go by these principles and strategies as political parties offer the direction of government. Voters must be given a choice as to who must govern them based on what candidates and their parties stand for.

These parties must:

- have clear program orientation

- provide policy options for voters

- strictly follow internal democratic procedures

-organize activities for members and interested citizens even during off-election season

-hold elected representatives accountable in-between election and campaign periods

It is therefore important for political parties to be owned and controlled by their members.

 

Turncoatism or Butterflyism has been with us since as far back as we can remember. In local parlance, one who does this is called “balimbing,” in reference to a fruit with many sides.

Turncoatism happens when a politician who runs for public office changes parties at a drop of a hat whatever seems most convenient at the moment. More often than not, these so-called public servants switch parties whichever the incumbent President or padrino of a political party is affiliated.

Senate Bill No. 3214 – also known as the Anti-Balimbing Bill – seeks “to punish political turncoats and provide a state subsidy for political parties” according to an article by Christian Esguerra. Esguerra writes that the bill defines political turncoatism as ‘the change of political party affiliation by any candidate within eight months prior to an election – whether or not elected –from the time he was first nominated.’ It adds that ‘no violation shall exist if a member’s party has been abolished or coalesced with another group or if he or she has been expelled in writing,’ the bill states.

Section 13 states that “an incumbent official who switches parties shall be ‘deemed to have forfeited’ the office; and that politician will also be disqualified from running in the next election and from being appointed to public office ‘for three years after the expiration of his/her term.’

What people don’t understand is how damaging this could be to our political system/life and our life as a people. The leaders of a party must have many punishments and rewards at their disposal – nomination of various offices, support in passing favoured legislation, and so on.

For truly democratic political parties to flourish, and if they are to be independent of grantees of big donations, the state will have to provide subsidies. This will ensure that parties would be independent of grantees of big donations (a.k.a. “padrinos”), be able to field qualified leaders and organize continuous dialogue between the citizens and their elected representatives.

Turncoatism should be curtailed. The amount of donations for the work of political parties should be limited to PhP1 million per natural person and PhP10 million per juridical person (company).

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.”

While it was meant for good - that is: to provide political access to representatives of marginalized groups -- the Party-list system only leads to factions in Congress. It has so far been heavily misused by powerful and rich families and personalities.

The Constitution and its implementing law introduced this system only for a transitional period of three elections. It is perpetuated due to vested interests of many persons who directly benefit from it.

The members of the House should be elected in a mixed system of 50% direct elections in Congressional Districts, and 50% election in a proportional system or Proportional Representation (PR) through party-lists. These should be drawn from all parties registered and accredited for participation in the elections. Proportional Representation is the process of transforming votes into seats in the Congress. There should be no limits for the seats of each party depending on the percentage garnered by the party-lists which will be translated into seats in the House of Representatives.

This would ensure a very effective representation of different sectors and marginalized groups as candidates on the party lists of major national parties compete with one another for the votes of the groups of citizens.

CDP will fight for the reform of the election periods of national and local elections. Members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives should be elected for four years with possibility of re-election twice. Governors, mayors and all elected local officials should be elected for five years with possibility of re-election for two times.

This will strongly improve the quality of the work of these democratic institutions, enable them to follow more medium- and long-term objectives for the benefit of the citizens and save money as the number of costly elections would be reduced.

In order to institutionalize political parties, some things must be done first: Reform the Party List Act: open Party List elections to all legally-registered political parties and distribute seats in proportion to that party’s share of votes.

These steps can be done without having to change the constitution.

For long-term improvement of the quality and stability of Philippine Democracy, however, strong existing connections between economic and political power should be dissolved. The rule of law should also allow changes in the constitution.