LAST week, I argued that the Philippines possesses an abundance of politicians but practically no genuine political parties. This would merely be another amusing defect of Philippine democracy were it not for what I am proposing.

I have long advocated replacing our unitary-presidential system with a parliamentary system, eventually operating within a federal republic. There is, however, an inconvenient detail.

Parliamentary government cannot function properly without real political parties.

Otherwise, we might be abolishing our dysfunctional presidential system only to discover that we have transferred the same political families, oligarchs, butterflies and balimbings into a shiny new parliament. We would have changed the plumbing while keeping the sewage.

Parliament is not a prime minister

Many Filipinos understandably think parliamentary government simply means replacing the president with a prime minister.

It does not.

If that were all we wanted, we could change the brass plate outside Malacañang and save ourselves the trouble of constitutional revisions. The fundamental difference is political accountability.

Under our presidential system, we elect one enormously powerful national personality for six years. Once elected, he assembles a Cabinet, negotiates with Congress, distributes political favors, builds coalitions and attempts to govern a political establishment consisting of people who may have campaigned against him only weeks earlier.

Then comes the migration of political butterflies: enemies become allies, allies rediscover principles, blocs appear overnight. It is musical chairs to “Bayan Ko,” with everyone claiming he moved seats for the national interest.

A functioning parliamentary system changes the organizing principle: voters choose parties offering governing programs; the majority forms the government, its leader becomes prime minister, ministers answer to parliament and an organized opposition presents an alternative. This is why I favored parliamentarism: It provides continuous scrutiny through question periods, opposition discipline and party accountability. But the essential ingredient is real parties. Without them, the machinery collapses.

Imagine our present parties in parliament

For entertainment, let us imagine transferring today’s political habits unchanged into a parliamentary system.

Election Monday: Party A wins a plurality.

Tuesday: Party B congratulates Party A.

Wednesday: Seventeen members of Party B discover that they have always secretly admired Party A’s philosophy.

Thursday: Party C joins the government in the interest of national unity.

Friday: Party D splits into D-Original, D-Puso, D-Tunay and D-One More Chance.

Saturday: Everyone issues statements denying political opportunism.

Sunday: Rest.

Monday: Cabinet appointments.

We would have invented parliamentary government, Filipino style.

The problem is not parliamentarism. The problem is putting parliamentary institutions atop a political culture organized around personalities, patronage and dynasties.

That is why political-party reform is not an accessory to constitutional reform. It is a precondition.

In a genuine parliamentary system, voters must know what a party stands for: welfare or markets, autonomy or centralization, higher taxes or tax cuts. Coalitions may compromise, but elections must still offer real choices — not merely vows to end poverty, fight corruption and create jobs. No party campaigns for poverty, corruption or disorder. The serious question is how.

From patronage to program

Here, the institutionalization of parties becomes revolutionary. Imagine Philippine politicians depending less upon the favor of one president because their political careers depend upon strong parties with dues-paying members, transparent financing, local organizations and established procedures for selecting candidates.

Imagine aspiring leaders entering politics through parties that educate and train them instead of through famous surnames. Imagine political parties existing 12 months a year rather than being resurrected every election like Lazarus.

Imagine elected representatives being accountable not only to whoever financed their campaign but to thousands of ordinary party members who can demand explanations.

This is what we attempted to inculcate in the Centrist Democratic Party (CDP): membership ownership, political education, internal elections, party discipline, a program of governance and continuous community engagement between elections.

Again, I cite this not to canonize CDP. Political experiments have successes and failures. But the institutional principle remains sound.

Federalism and dynasties

Here lies another danger.

Federalism without political reform could simply decentralize political capture. Instead of one centralized oligarchic system, we could create several regional oligarchic systems, each with its own governor, dynasty and family corporation masquerading as democracy.

Congratulations. We would have democratized feudalism. I warned about precisely this problem years ago. Political-party reform was one of four preconditions we proposed before a full transition: party reform and financing, freedom of information, electoral reform and an effective prohibition against political dynasties.

Federalism is supposed to bring the government closer to the people. But without safeguards, it could bring political dynasties closer to the treasury. That is why the sequence matters.

First build the vehicles

We Filipinos are fond of constitutional solutions. Government fails, somebody proposes Charter change; somebody else shouts dictatorship; then a new scandal arrives, and we forget what the argument was about.

But constitutions do not operate themselves. They need institutions, and in a democracy, the vehicles are real political parties — aggregating interests, recruiting leaders, forming governments and sustaining an opposition.

A parliamentary constitution without genuine political parties is like constructing an expressway before inventing automobiles. The road may be beautiful. Nothing useful will travel on it.

No more political messiahs

Our presidential system has trained Filipinos to place political hope in one individual. Every six years we ask: Who can save us?

Makoy promised a New Society. Cory restored democracy. Tabako promised Philippines 2000. Erap championed the masses. GMA offered economic management. PNoy promised the straight path. The Deegong promised order. BBM offered unity.

Different presidents. Different promises. Same republic waiting for the next one. A parliamentary system properly supported by genuine political parties changes the question.

I used to tell our CDM/CDP recruits that even if Jesus Christ were to come down and is elected president, with the 12 disciples composing his cabinet; with our system intact — Christ will fail.

Instead of asking who will save us?, voters should begin asking: Which program should govern us? That is an enormous psychological and institutional shift.

From man to institution. From patron to party. From personality to program. From messiah to mechanism.

Before we change the Constitution

Thus, my advocacy that the Philippines must have a federal-parliamentary architecture. But I am equally persuaded that merely rewriting constitutional provisions will not save us.

We must first — or simultaneously — construct the institutions capable of inhabiting that architecture. Foremost among them are genuine political parties: member-owned, ideologically identifiable, internally democratic, financially transparent, active between elections and capable of disciplining their own elected officials.

Otherwise, we will write a magnificent new Constitution and populate it with the same political habits that corrupted the old one. The butterflies will survive. They always do. They will simply learn to flutter around parliament instead of Malacañang.

And that brings me finally to the conclusion toward which my domestic series of columns have been moving. After decades watching Philippine politics, participating in it, studying it, writing about it and hoping that the next president may somehow succeed where the others failed, I have gradually arrived at a position I once would have considered too sweeping.

The problem is no longer merely who becomes president.

The problem may be the presidency itself.