First of three parts

MY column last week featured the four sets of siblings in the Senate (Cayetanos, Villars, Tulfos and Estrada/Ejercitos) and how the tentacles of political families could affect governance. This week’s article expands the profile to the rest of the Senate whose membership comes from different political parties, alliances and aggroupments. In principle, these political parties are differentiated through their party platform from whence their program of government emanate — if at all these are indeed anchored on a set of beliefs, ideals or even an ideology of governance.

Spoiler alert! These political parties are largely devoid of such values, instead advocating motherhood mantras passing them off as their political ideals. This isn’t a personal attack on individual senators, but rather a critical examination of a systemic flaw that has long plagued Philippine political parties — pure crass expediency.

Political chameleons

The current Senate offers a vivid microcosm of these systemic flaws, laying bare the superficiality of political affiliations and the rampant spectacle of political opportunism. While some senators might maintain longstanding affiliations — Bong Go and Bato de la Rosa with PDP-Laban; Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan with the Liberal Party; Pia Cayetano, Camille Villar and Mark Villar with the Nacionalista Party; Tito Sotto, Loren Legarda, Win Gatchalian, and JV Ejercito with the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC); and with Imee Marcos often existing in a political space neither here nor there — these ties are often more shallow than substantive.

The political landscape is characterized by a strong tendency for senators to run as independents or readily switch party affiliations. Panfilo Lacson and Francis Escudero have notably demonstrated the ability to garner votes without strict party machinery. More recently, the successful independent candidacies of Robin Padilla and Raffy Tulfo in the 2022 elections further emphasized this growing appeal of non-traditional candidates. Their victories demonstrate a public appetite for figures perceived as outside the conventional political establishment, yet paradoxically, these very candidacies underscore the weakness of a party system unable to consistently produce candidates who resonate with the electorate on the basis of shared principles. Senators such as Lito Lapid and Migz Zubiri exemplify the fluidity of allegiances, having been affiliated with multiple parties or endorsed by various coalitions throughout their careers. This adaptability underscores a political environment where personal popularity and local machinery frequently outweigh rigid party lines.

The ease with which politicians jump ship is often cloaked in the rhetoric prioritizing loyalty to country over party, paraphrasing President Quezon’s dictum. Politicians who remain affiliated with a party out of genuine ideology and values are lamentably rare — an endangered species.

This is not intended to disparage all politicians and their affiliations but the political party system in the Philippines, which ought to be the backbone of a truly democratic governance, is severely defective. This inadequacy often leaves elected leaders with very little choice but to change colors and defect for personal survival.

A flawed political architecture

Our nation finds itself ensnared in the unfortunate trappings of a dysfunctional political system, one that consistently prioritizes the self serving interests of its elected officials over the collective welfare of its citizenry. This entrenched form of traditional politics, deeply embedded within the fabric of our political parties, operates on a fundamental consideration: the political survival of its members and the preservation of their pelf and privileges. This myopic focus has fostered an oppressive tyranny of numbers, where the sheer quantity of elected individuals in power takes precedence, irrespective of the quality of their leadership or the purity of their intentions. Consequently, the democratic ideal of “politics is addition” transforms into a disturbing aberration, as elections become a mere popularity contest, with candidates’ winnability eclipsing any genuine ideological perspectives.

This lamentable state of affairs forces political parties into an ignoble compromise, compelling them to recruit individuals already popular with the masses — actors, athletes, entertainment, and media personalities — thereby relegating political creed, principles and beliefs to the ignominious back burner. The discerning electorate, faced with a dearth of genuine choices and meaningful debate on substantive issues, is then paradoxically blamed for their selections, perpetuating another anomalous dictum: “One deserves the government one votes into power.” This narrative, however, conveniently overlooks the systemic flaws that preclude real choices, condemning the voters to a perpetual state of ignorance, diminished by a system designed to perpetuate itself rather than to serve.

Perpetual cycle of ‘political butterflies’

In contrast, in more modern developed countries, political parties are not merely vessels for personal electoral survival and perpetuation in power of political families. Instead, they exist because the citizenry, the wellspring and final arbiter of political power, possess diverse issues and aspirations that demand articulation and amplification within the broader political domain.

These parties are expected to provide voters with “real choices,” based on distinct platforms, visions of governance, and fairly decent leadership qualities. Members are expected to adhere to these platforms, offering a clear direction for government, allowing voters to make informed decisions about who should govern them based on what candidates and their parties truly stand for.

However, we do not have such parties in our country. Our parties are funded by self-proclaimed candidates, party bigwigs and oligarchs, who then dictate programs and platforms, if any, and select who runs for public office. This patronage politics is the very reason behind the massive exodus of members from one political party to another, creating a fluid, unprincipled political class where politicians are PDP Laban today, LP the past regime, KBL during the dictatorship and Lakas-NUCD tomorrow.

This pattern of expedient behavior by politicians is dubbed the “political butterfly syndrome,” flitting and floating from party to party, descriptive of a paucity of ideological perspectives and lacking moral compass. These defections are rampant on the shifting winds of political fortunes. The deeply ingrained traditional political practice incubated in our unitary-presidential system transforms elections into mere opportunities for power players and their oligarchic allies to consolidate their forces and unscrupulous politicians to sell their loyalty to the highest bidder.

A call for real political parties

The solution lies in the creation and institutionalization of real political parties that can truly aggregate the varied aspirations of the citizenry, giving them genuine options and empowering them to emerge from their ignorance, thereby breaking out of the clutches of the dynasties.

This demands a fundamental shift away from the personality-driven politics that currently dominates the landscape. It requires fostering an environment where political parties are built on shared principles, distinct ideologies and long-term visions for national development, rather than merely serving as vehicles for individual political ambitions. Such parties would be accountable to their members and to the electorate for the platforms they espouse, creating a clear framework for governance and enabling voters to make informed decisions based on policy, not just popularity.

Addressing these fundamental flaws requires not just rhetoric but concrete legislative action, particularly the passage of the Political Party Development and Financing Act, that Centrist Democrats label the Rufus Rodriguez bill, coupled with a fundamental re-evaluation and reform of the party-list system to align it with its original, noble intent.