The “revolt” of PDP-Laban originals headed by former Assemblyman Rogelio “Bec-bec” Garcia of South Cotabato is just the beginning of strife within the so-called “ruling party.”
They may be pooh-poohed as a rump assemblage of political unknowns but some of them were with PDP-Laban when Senator Nene Pimentel founded it as the PDP, back in the mid-eighties when Ferdinand Marcos was still the authoritarian leader.
Bec-bec Garcia ran and won as the Unido candidate of a multi-party coalition, one among 59 assemblymen in a 180-member Batasang Pambansa under the dying 1973 Constitution. He was sidelined when the PDP was co-opted into becoming the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino by a merger engineered through the influence of then President Cory Aquino’s brother, Rep. Peping Cojuangco.
The ideological “purity” of PDP married into the traditional politician support base of then Speaker Monching Mitra and Cojuangco. Thus was the PDP marginalized, and Senator Nene Pimentel went into an alliance with Senator Jovito Salonga of the Liberal Party, running as the former’s vice-presidential candidate in 1992.
A splinter group of LDP’s however challenged the late Tata Monching, and despite their paltry numbers, supported the candidacy of Fidel Valdez Ramos. Playing around the Laban acronym’s “mystique”, they called themselves Lakas ng Bayan. FVR squeaked past Miriam Defensor Santiago, but trounced the mighty LDP machinery.
Since the Salonga-Pimentel tandem also lost in the 1992 elections, PDP became a small party of a few, most of them local politicians known only in their bailiwicks. Bec-bec Garcia who organized the “day-after” PDP national assembly at Amoranto Stadium in Quezon City, is one of those faithful PDP’s sidelined by the recent mega-expansion of the “ruling” party.
But what a difference a day makes.
Clearly, PDP-Laban has become a casualty of the stealthily executed yet predictable stab behind Speaker Bebot Alvarez’ reign in the House of Representatives.
This of course was preceded by the lesser drama in the Senate, when Tito Sotto replaced the “ruling” party’s president, Koko Pimentel.
Now everyone and his mother in the HoR who used to sing allelujah’s to PDP wants to form a bee-line to Mayor Inday Sara’s Hugpong ng Pagbabago, but the mayor is wisely saying “not just yet.”
Rigodon and musical chairs are the only games trapos have acquired mastery of.
And if there is anything that ought to be changed in the present “ruling” Constitution, it is the non-existent party system.
Political parties which rise and fall according to the political fortunes of their founders and keepers have become irrelevant. And the present Constitution forged during Cory’s time made the irrelevance institutional.
From Unido to PDP to LDP to Lakas to Erap’s Lammp to GMA’s Lakas-Kampi, thence the NUP, to the revival of the Liberal Party, to PDP-Laban, to what next, Hugpong?
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Of course, President Duterte never played an active role in the PDP-Laban, other than to allow the party to use his name as honorary chairperson. Unlike political operators in previous administrations sanctioned if not directed by the reigning president to strengthen their political party, Duterte was above partisan politics from the beginning.
There are pluses and minuses depending on whether one values statecraft over politics more than the other, but this is proof that the President is merely thankful for the support the people (and not one or any other party) gave him in 2016, and wants only to serve the limits of his gifted term.
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Note the timing of the power plays as well. It’s just two months before the 2019 mid-term election season begins. By the first week of October this year, certificates of candidacies and certificates of nomination by political parties will have to be filed with the Comelec.
The deadline is ticking by the day. Shifts in presumed political alliances have suddenly been discombobulated by the drama in the House last Monday.
And Bec-bec Garcia’s “revolt,” pooh-poohed even by a media that cannot see beyond the well-know names, may just be a signal for bigger events yet to morph, and quickly.
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Yet another possible casualty of the power politics in the House is the fate of charter change, particularly the shift from unitary to federal.
The traditional politicians who reign over the legislature will not give up the kind of power they exercise in a unitary set-up, let alone exorcise the evils of dynastic power they have so profoundly mastered under the present Constitution.
While it is difficult to read the President’s mind about the push for federalism at this time, many have been reading portents with the seeming downplay of the federalist push in his third Sona.
Too early to tell, with a President whose mind is most difficult to read, or predict.
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The PCOO, through its director for content and messaging, Dennis Bryan Ting, sent us a letter to explain the circumstances behind the accomplishment report that mis-spelled the word “administration,” which we mentioned in our previous column.
“We may have overlooked the cover page due to time constraints. We however made the necessary corrections after having distributed [blasted] it to the Malacañang Press Corps,’ Mr. Ting wrote to this writer.
“Be that as it may, I apologize for the typographical error that may have caused the PCOO embarrassment…the office will be more careful moving forward.”
Sana nga. You guys speak and write for the highest office in the land. Utmost care and eagle eyes are always expected of the President’s press office.