Between political parties and individual personalities

BANTAY GOBYERNO 

Ike Señeres

We have been a democratic Republic for more than one hundred years, and yet we do not have a strong multi-party system yet. As it is supposed to be, the political parties are supposed to be the foundations of our democracy. And as it is supposed to be, anyone rich or poor should be able to run for public office for as long as he or she is fielded by his or her political party.

In theory, all registered political parties are supposed to be well organized and are national in scope. Assuming that that theory is valid, there is no need to question a candidate whether he or she is capable of fielding a national campaign, for as long as he or she belongs to a registered political party. That said, only the independent candidates could be questioned whether or not they have the capability to field a national campaign.

During the time when our elections were still conducted manually, there was no problem about allowing any candidate to run, because any voter could just write his or her name in the blank ballot. That open ended approach is no longer possible now, because the names of all qualified candidates have to be written on the ballot, and that is why the list of candidates has to be limited, in order to also limit the size or length of the ballot.

In a way, it could be said that the limitation is discriminatory and undemocratic, but there seems to be no way around that, because the electronic voting system also has its built-in limitations.

In a manner of speaking, it could be said that there would be lesser independent candidates if only there are more stronger political parties, because the political parties are supposed to have their own process of screening candidates in such a way that only those that have been selected would be fielded.

That is of course based on the assumption that party members would respect the selection process and would not bolt the parties to form their own parties or run as independents candidates. The underlying principle here is that party members are supposed to believe in the ideologies of their parties, meaning that their ideologies are supposed to prevail over their personal ideas.

Talking about principles, it could be said that principles are the basis for ideologies, and individual party members are supposed to be principled people who join the political parties because they believe in the ideologies that are advocated by their political parties. Sad to say, that supposition is too far from the reality, because many candidates would bolt their parties if they are not selected, and as a matter of fact, turncoatism happens all the time and everywhere.

To a large extent, it could be said that turncoatism happens because many party members are driven by money and not be ideology. That seems to be the way it is now, because many candidates have turned politics into a business, never mind the public service.

As it is now, the Philippines has already adopted a multi-party system, and it seems that the best we could do is to make the most of that. The obvious thing to do of course is to build a strong multi-party system, but the first step towards that is to build strong political parties. In many countries, the government allocates funds for the development of political parties, and we should start doing that already.

In this case, there should be no question about playing favorite to certain parties, for as long as the government gives equal support to all parties that would qualify. In exchange for the support, the political parties should agree to adopt certain rules of corporate governance that will be imposed, on top of the usual rules of behavior that should apply to all parties.

As it is now, many individual candidates are making their own personal election promises, obviously disregarding the fact that much more political dynamics are needed in order to be able to make good on their promises, foremost if which are the dynamics within the prospective party in power.

The truth is that the eventual party in power should put their acts together in the two Houses of Congress, in order to pass new bills that would be finally approved as new laws. In this connection, it would be necessary to revive the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) and there should be no problem with that because the Executive Branch will also be dominated by the majority party.

In the past, we have seen how proposed bills have not been signed into law, because of the lack of coordination between the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch on the other hand, and between the two Houses of Congress on the other hand. Hopefully, that would not happen anymore if there is a strong majority party that would lead the LEDAC on one hand and the two Houses of Congress on the other hand.

In the event that there would also be a strong minority party that would act as the opposition, it would still be possible to achieve equilibrium, for as long as the development agendas of the two sides could be objectively discussed.

As it is now, only the rich candidates could afford to run, because they are the only ones who could afford to spend for expensive advertising campaigns. As we see it now, these rich candidates who are running as individual personalities have an edge over their adversaries, regardless of whether they are running as party candidates or as independents. Hopefully, the time will come when even the poor candidates could run for public office, for as long as they are funded by their respective political parties.

Considering all aspects however, the most important thing to consider in this regard should be the ideology, and not the money. Idealistic as it may seem, the political parties should field candidates who are more committed to their ideology, and not candidates who contribute more money.

Email bantaygobyerno-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or text +639956441780