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.
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