New party, old principles
BALIMBINGAN, IT is called in the local parlance.
The game of musical chairs, or the dance of changing partners, transposed to politics. So it is euphemized.
Butterflies flitting from one flower to the other, seeking the sweetest nectar. So politicos engaged in it are metaphored. And, put in simile, like rats abandoning a sinking ship, where the administration party is concerned.
Political prostitution. So Sen. Jamby Madrigal went graphically ballistic.
Strange bedfellows politics does indeed make. So sworn foes today are the sweetest friends in the next polls. The party pooper in the last elections becomes the party boy in the next.
Political opportunism, but an aberration in the party politics of the parliamentary system is the very rule of thumb in the Philippine political praxis.
So Ferdinand Marcos left the Liberal Party to be standard bearer of the Nacionalista Party against incumbent Diosdado Macapagal, and won in 1965.
So Fidel Ramos jumped the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino ship after losing the party convention and formed his Lakas-Tao to contest the presidency and won.
In the Senate and the Lower House, at the provincial, city and municipal levels, candidates have changed political colors so often that etched in the national political consciousness is that broad-based multi-hued spectrum, most appropriately termed “rainbow coalition” by the ultimate politico, Joe de Venecia, who in the end was devoured by his own machination. Dedikasyon. Delicadeza. De Venecia. Who do they think they can still fool with that political infomercial? More than a simple oxymoron, the blurb is an idiotic contradiction in terms. Be it applied to either the elder or the younger De V.
Bottom-feeding invertebrate. Parasitic fungus. So we sneer at the opportunist who switches party affiliation at the slightest…well, opportunity for self-preservation, if not self-gain.
The rule among the rare exceptions to turncoatism here is embodied by City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar Samson Rodriguez.
Rodriguez rose and fell with the fortunes of the LDP: winning Pampanga’s 3rd congressional district seat as Cory’s candidate in 1987, losing in 1992 by obstinately sticking it out with Ramon Mitra, even when Cory herself shifted her administration’s support to Lakas-NUCD.
For all his loyalty to the LDP, the party slammed its door on Rodriguez’s face in 1995 when it coalesced with Lakas-NUCD, taking in Mitra as a senatorial bet. Even partyless, Rodriguez won. And Mitra, with two parties, lost. Which goes to show how (in)essential the party is in congressional district contests.
Of course, Lakas-NUCD knew a man of the vote when it saw one and promptly recruited Rodriguez: winning re-elections to Congress in 1998 and 2001, the San Fernando mayorship in 2004, and again in 2007 – against Kampi’s then comebacking Rey Aquino, whose own loyalty, not necessarily to the party, but to some party powers-that-be merited him the Philhealth presidency, so it was whispered within Kampi.
In 2004, Rodriguez declared his intent to run for governor but was promptly prevailed upon by the President, to give in to then provincial Liga ng mga Barangay chair Mark Lapid. The party – so GMA was supposed to have invoked – needed the elder Lapid in the Senate. And she needed the action star Lapid – along with Bong Revilla – to somehow counterbalance the star value of her rival, the FPJ. To the interest of the party – and his President’s – Rodriguez readily subsumed his own, putting on an indefinite hold his gubernatorial aspiration.
All these indubitably proving that more than make Rodriguez, party loyalty unmade him.
Yesterday, Rodriguez took his oath as member of the Liberal Party. More than his whole slate for the City of San Fernando and the votes he would muster for the Aquino-Roxas ticket, Rodriguez took along to the LP his lifelong dedication to popular democracy and unassailable commitment to the principles of good governance as embodied in his article of faith, Magsilbi Tamu – that which has always served him in good stead, that which has served his constituencies the highest degree of excellence. Or have you not been watching the transformation of the City of San Fernando?
Hence, where other new converts could only show form, Rodriguez already provides the LP the very substance of that which the party still dreams of.
The game of musical chairs, or the dance of changing partners, transposed to politics. So it is euphemized.
Butterflies flitting from one flower to the other, seeking the sweetest nectar. So politicos engaged in it are metaphored. And, put in simile, like rats abandoning a sinking ship, where the administration party is concerned.
Political prostitution. So Sen. Jamby Madrigal went graphically ballistic.
Strange bedfellows politics does indeed make. So sworn foes today are the sweetest friends in the next polls. The party pooper in the last elections becomes the party boy in the next.
Political opportunism, but an aberration in the party politics of the parliamentary system is the very rule of thumb in the Philippine political praxis.
So Ferdinand Marcos left the Liberal Party to be standard bearer of the Nacionalista Party against incumbent Diosdado Macapagal, and won in 1965.
So Fidel Ramos jumped the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino ship after losing the party convention and formed his Lakas-Tao to contest the presidency and won.
In the Senate and the Lower House, at the provincial, city and municipal levels, candidates have changed political colors so often that etched in the national political consciousness is that broad-based multi-hued spectrum, most appropriately termed “rainbow coalition” by the ultimate politico, Joe de Venecia, who in the end was devoured by his own machination. Dedikasyon. Delicadeza. De Venecia. Who do they think they can still fool with that political infomercial? More than a simple oxymoron, the blurb is an idiotic contradiction in terms. Be it applied to either the elder or the younger De V.
Bottom-feeding invertebrate. Parasitic fungus. So we sneer at the opportunist who switches party affiliation at the slightest…well, opportunity for self-preservation, if not self-gain.
The rule among the rare exceptions to turncoatism here is embodied by City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar Samson Rodriguez.
Rodriguez rose and fell with the fortunes of the LDP: winning Pampanga’s 3rd congressional district seat as Cory’s candidate in 1987, losing in 1992 by obstinately sticking it out with Ramon Mitra, even when Cory herself shifted her administration’s support to Lakas-NUCD.
For all his loyalty to the LDP, the party slammed its door on Rodriguez’s face in 1995 when it coalesced with Lakas-NUCD, taking in Mitra as a senatorial bet. Even partyless, Rodriguez won. And Mitra, with two parties, lost. Which goes to show how (in)essential the party is in congressional district contests.
Of course, Lakas-NUCD knew a man of the vote when it saw one and promptly recruited Rodriguez: winning re-elections to Congress in 1998 and 2001, the San Fernando mayorship in 2004, and again in 2007 – against Kampi’s then comebacking Rey Aquino, whose own loyalty, not necessarily to the party, but to some party powers-that-be merited him the Philhealth presidency, so it was whispered within Kampi.
In 2004, Rodriguez declared his intent to run for governor but was promptly prevailed upon by the President, to give in to then provincial Liga ng mga Barangay chair Mark Lapid. The party – so GMA was supposed to have invoked – needed the elder Lapid in the Senate. And she needed the action star Lapid – along with Bong Revilla – to somehow counterbalance the star value of her rival, the FPJ. To the interest of the party – and his President’s – Rodriguez readily subsumed his own, putting on an indefinite hold his gubernatorial aspiration.
All these indubitably proving that more than make Rodriguez, party loyalty unmade him.
Yesterday, Rodriguez took his oath as member of the Liberal Party. More than his whole slate for the City of San Fernando and the votes he would muster for the Aquino-Roxas ticket, Rodriguez took along to the LP his lifelong dedication to popular democracy and unassailable commitment to the principles of good governance as embodied in his article of faith, Magsilbi Tamu – that which has always served him in good stead, that which has served his constituencies the highest degree of excellence. Or have you not been watching the transformation of the City of San Fernando?
Hence, where other new converts could only show form, Rodriguez already provides the LP the very substance of that which the party still dreams of.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 2:39 PM
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