HE’S A partyboy in ways more than the usual: cocktails, girls, music, fun, you know.
Coming at the heels of his utter destruction of Manchester’s pride Ricky Hatton, undisputed king of world boxing Manny Pacquiao is reported to have – in December last year yet – asked the Commission on Elections to accredit his political party called – what else but – People’s Champ Movement.
Local in scope, Pacquiao’s party could only field candidates in General Santos City – where the Pacman was devoured in the 2007 congressional polls by the diminutive Darlene Antonino-Custodio, and Sarangani province – hometown of wife Jinky where the libra-por-libra champ hopes to renew his congressional bid in 2010.
Lawmakers, supporters and critics alike were quick to raise their opposition to Pacquiao delving in politics at this time, advising him to win some more in the boxing ring while he is still at his speediest and most explosive best and consider the political ring only after retiring.
No, I won’t join that chorus of naysayers to Pacquiao entering politics. I would rather give my two-cent worth on Pacquiao registering a political party. This is yet another instance of the politics of personality. This is yet another push in the perpetuation of everything wrong in Philippine politics.
There is no such thing as party politics – in its barest essence – in the Philippines. There is everything about personality and popularity.
The master of politics himself, the great Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, knew that by heart. Thus his immortal take on Philippine politics as “personalist, populist and individualist” upon which he founded his fuehrership, and, with his beloved, the Imeldific, propagated their Malakas at Maganda (the Strong and the Beautiful) apotheosis.
All Filipino politicians are birthed from that Marcosian mold of “personal, popular, individual.” All pretensions to party advocacy are…well, pretensions.
So the Castilla Manue L. Quezon ranted: “My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to my country begins.” God bless him.
Party loyalty is no simple oxymoron but a contradiction in terms. Loyalty to the country is as true as the Iscariot’s devotion to the Christ. Where politicos are concerned. Just look at those political butterflies flitting about the House.
The pre-eminence of the individual politician is inhered 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 Atienza-Defensor on the right, Drilon-Pangilinan, et al on the left. Poor Jovy Salonga, tottering at the fulcrum.
On another plane, witness how political parties hereabouts are hitched on the tides of fortune of their founders: the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan was an invincible monolith at the height 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 and emerged with El Tabako’s Lak-Tao, that’s Lakas-Tao for you, that evolved into Lakas-NUCD-UMDP further morphing to Lakas-CMD.
And where, hold your breath now, have gone Salvador Laurel’s Unido, Lito Osmena’s Promdi, Raul Roco’s Aksyon Demokratiko? Or the Reform Party of the Maid Miriam?
So shall go all the way of the flesh too Pacquiao’s People’s Champ Movement: cresting on his popularity, ebbing at the end of his boxing glory. As the Latins say, sic transit gloria mundi.
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.
So it is believed that 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 dumping the presidential in favor of the parliamentary system. So we go parliamentary. So we irreversibly go full blast in economic development. So Chacha, hallelujah! Let’s party!
It is not bad to dream. But, kung mangarap ka’t magising, at ikaw ay ikaw pa rin, para anupa’t ika’y patulugin? Baka ka lang bangungutin. (If you wake up from a dream, and you remain as you were, what’s the use of sleeping? Only nightmares haunt you here).
Charter change? Parliamentary over presidential? Yes, we need systems change. But what we need more is a change of men. And what we need most is a change in men.
May Pacquiao reconsider.
Coming at the heels of his utter destruction of Manchester’s pride Ricky Hatton, undisputed king of world boxing Manny Pacquiao is reported to have – in December last year yet – asked the Commission on Elections to accredit his political party called – what else but – People’s Champ Movement.
Local in scope, Pacquiao’s party could only field candidates in General Santos City – where the Pacman was devoured in the 2007 congressional polls by the diminutive Darlene Antonino-Custodio, and Sarangani province – hometown of wife Jinky where the libra-por-libra champ hopes to renew his congressional bid in 2010.
Lawmakers, supporters and critics alike were quick to raise their opposition to Pacquiao delving in politics at this time, advising him to win some more in the boxing ring while he is still at his speediest and most explosive best and consider the political ring only after retiring.
No, I won’t join that chorus of naysayers to Pacquiao entering politics. I would rather give my two-cent worth on Pacquiao registering a political party. This is yet another instance of the politics of personality. This is yet another push in the perpetuation of everything wrong in Philippine politics.
There is no such thing as party politics – in its barest essence – in the Philippines. There is everything about personality and popularity.
The master of politics himself, the great Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, knew that by heart. Thus his immortal take on Philippine politics as “personalist, populist and individualist” upon which he founded his fuehrership, and, with his beloved, the Imeldific, propagated their Malakas at Maganda (the Strong and the Beautiful) apotheosis.
All Filipino politicians are birthed from that Marcosian mold of “personal, popular, individual.” All pretensions to party advocacy are…well, pretensions.
So the Castilla Manue L. Quezon ranted: “My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to my country begins.” God bless him.
Party loyalty is no simple oxymoron but a contradiction in terms. Loyalty to the country is as true as the Iscariot’s devotion to the Christ. Where politicos are concerned. Just look at those political butterflies flitting about the House.
The pre-eminence of the individual politician is inhered 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 Atienza-Defensor on the right, Drilon-Pangilinan, et al on the left. Poor Jovy Salonga, tottering at the fulcrum.
On another plane, witness how political parties hereabouts are hitched on the tides of fortune of their founders: the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan was an invincible monolith at the height 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 and emerged with El Tabako’s Lak-Tao, that’s Lakas-Tao for you, that evolved into Lakas-NUCD-UMDP further morphing to Lakas-CMD.
And where, hold your breath now, have gone Salvador Laurel’s Unido, Lito Osmena’s Promdi, Raul Roco’s Aksyon Demokratiko? Or the Reform Party of the Maid Miriam?
So shall go all the way of the flesh too Pacquiao’s People’s Champ Movement: cresting on his popularity, ebbing at the end of his boxing glory. As the Latins say, sic transit gloria mundi.
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.
So it is believed that 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 dumping the presidential in favor of the parliamentary system. So we go parliamentary. So we irreversibly go full blast in economic development. So Chacha, hallelujah! Let’s party!
It is not bad to dream. But, kung mangarap ka’t magising, at ikaw ay ikaw pa rin, para anupa’t ika’y patulugin? Baka ka lang bangungutin. (If you wake up from a dream, and you remain as you were, what’s the use of sleeping? Only nightmares haunt you here).
Charter change? Parliamentary over presidential? Yes, we need systems change. But what we need more is a change of men. And what we need most is a change in men.
May Pacquiao reconsider.
