The party line

LOYALTY CHECK. That was how Sergio Apostol, Lakas-CMD chair for the Visayas – yes, he of the “your wetness” fame during the Erap impeachment proceedings – termed the party’s national directorate assembly scheduled today, February 7.
Those who want to leave Lakas – the President’s chief legal counsel counseled – “…are free to go. The problem is there are persons who cling to the party for their own personal interests. The change in the House speakership is one of the ways to cleanse Lakas of erring individuals.”
Events unraveled in the wee hours of February 5 and Jose de Venecia, the very face of Lakas-CMD, lost the Speakership.
Of parties and personalities. The summation of Philippine political reality. Here’s an old column finding currency anew.

THE PRIMACY of party platform over the cult of personality is one warranty of the parliamentary system. As practiced everywhere else. Thus Israel’s Likud and Labor, Great Britain’s Tories and Labour too, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, Germany’s Christian Democrats, and for sometime, even Italy’s Communist Party.
The state of high development of the named countries makes the greatest argument for the parliamentary system. Conversely, the state of underdevelopment of this country makes an irrefutable damnation on the personality-centered presidential system.
So we go parliamentary, so we go irreversibly full blast in economic development. So Cha-cha, hallelujah! Let’s party!
Something in the Filipino psyche has to be lobotomized though, for party politics to even set root hereabouts.
The master of politics himself, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, knew this by heart. Thus his immortal take on Philippine politics as “personalist, populist and individualist” upon which he founded his fuehrership, and, with his beloved Imeldific, propagated their Malakas at Maganda apotheosis.
All Filipino politicians come from the Marcosian mold of personal, popular, individual. All pretensions to party advocacy are, well, pretensions.
So Manuel Luis Quezon ranted: “My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to my country begins.” God bless him.
Party loyalty is a contradiction in terms here; loyalty to the country is as true as Judas’ devotion to Christ. Where politicos are concerned.
The pre-eminence of the individual politician over his party is inherent in Philippine political history. Thus, Nacionalista Party-Roy Wing, Liberal Party-Kalaw Wing, Liberal Party-Salonga Wing in the not-too-distant past.
Thus, a Liberal Party sundered by anti-GMA and pro-GMA flanks winging to Lito Atienza on the right and Frank Drilon on the left. Venerable old Jovy Salonga tottering at the fulcrum.
On another plane, witness how political parties here are hitched on the tides and fortunes of their founders.
The Kilusang Bagong Lipunan was an invincible monolith at the time of the Marcos dictatorship only to crumble to dust after EDSA Uno.
The sainted Cory Aquino took Ramon Mitra’s Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino to the promised land, then pulled the rug from under him and emerged with Fidel V. Ramos’ Lakas-Tao that evolved into Lakas-NUCD-UMDP and then to Lakas-CMD.
Now, where is Joseph Estrada’s Partido ng Masang Pilipino , Lito Osmena’s Promdi, Miriam Defensor’s Reform Party, and Raul Roco’s Aksyon Demokratiko?
The Philippine political experience has made a mockery of party politics. So a change to the parliamentary system is bruited about as the harbinger of political maturity, and consequently, the supremacy of a party’s platform of governance as the dominant factor in the choice of national leaders.
Good luck. It is not bad to dream. But then, kung mangarap ka’t magising na ikaw ay ikaw pa rin, para anupa’t ika’y patulugin? Baka ka pa bangungutin.
Change the presidential system to parliamentary?
Yes, we need systems change. What we need more though is a change of men. What we need most is a change in men.