Traditional politics has been part of our social life since time immemorial. And it comes as naturally and regularly as the rainy and dry seasons in our weather system. The politicians would not dare think of introducing reforms to the electoral process, much more adopt a system that would try to overturn it. They are, after all, the most favored and privileged of the system’s beneficiaries.
But with the advent of revolutionary ideas, there is a felt imperative to abandon this tradition that has proven to be the major cause of our country’s backwardness and our people’s poverty. The only interesting phenomenon that traditional politics has brought to our national life is that it is principally responsible for the personality formation of leaders who soon become shameless clowns (kapalmuks) or turn out as ‘cowering puppies’ (tuta).
Transformed it must be, if we are to rise above national ignominy among the community of nations. The imperative change should be pursued as a tool for social development and national esteem even as it enables the people to elect selfless leaders who have a humane vision for the future. This alternative system need to be instituted as a fresh lifeblood in Philippine politics.
Knowing and realizing the historical roots of the government’s failures to promote development and the people’s welfare , the New Politics should endeavor to put an end to the treacherous system of puppetry perpetuated and faithfully adhered to by the succession of Philippine Presidents without exception from Manuel A Roxas down to the present regime of President Noynoy Aquino.
Puppetry has engendered a system of “patronage politics” or the padrino system which has so pervasively infected our political system such that politicians big and small have made it their effective ladder for their climb to the top in the government hierarchy of power. A politician’s careerist principle is invariably tied up with his patron’s own personal and selfish interests. The mutual favors and privileges that ensue from the padrino-protégé tie-up is profusely oiled by a vicious cycle of graft and corruption. As a matter of course, a protégé’s political career is dependent on how intimately and deeply he is beholden to his padrinos in the same measure as the padrino relies for his perpetual hold on power on the untainted support and loyalty of his political buddy protégé.
Graft and corruption is a perpetual preoccupation of the politicians, managing their political offices like personal or family business corporations. It is a kind of economic insurance for one’s perpetual holdover in a position of power. The “pork barrel”, a system inspired and copied from the US, serves as a watershed of graft and corruption that generously benefits the Chief Executive and other top executive officials, as well as the favored members of Congress and the top echelons in the military.
Needless to say, under the prevailing political set-up of our society, patronage politics works in wily schemes that always ends up in social injustice and crass betrayal of the paramount interest of the people. As a veritable offspring of our leadership’s unbridled puppetry—better termed “canine obeisance”—to US Imperialism, it insures the continuing dehumanization of the disadvantaged and underprivileged masses of our people.
NOW, therefore, it behooves all well-meaning and concerned citizens to overhaul the prevailing system and replace it with an alternative one. It shall be the task of this alternative political design to work out appropriate mechanisms in order to insure the establishment of a new politics.
Under this conceived New Politics, a new organic political structure shall be established which will abolish the presidential system as well as the bicameral Congress. And an alternative electoral system shall be created which shall be designed to suit the new political set-up. A People’s Legislative Assembly represented by all classes and sectors of society shall replace the bicameral Congress. Necessarily, all the congressional districts that elect the incumbent Congress people shall also be abolished.
To occupy permanent seats in the PLA would be the representatives from the basic masses such as the worker and the peasant classes, their composition to be based on their respective percentages in the total population of the whole country. So, if we take a hypothetical example of the PLA to be composed of 100 members, then the number of seats to represent the working classes should be 20, equivalent to 20 percent of the working class population in the entire nation, and that of the peasant classes, the urban poor population and fisherfolks sector, including the IPs, should be 70 seats. The remaining 10 seats would be apportioned among the middle classes (7-8 seats) and the landlord-capitalist sectors (2-3 seats).
The composition of the representatives of the basic masses shall come from the advanced elements of the working class organized into a political party and trade unions, as well as the organized contingent of the peasant masses and indigenous peoples throughout the archipelago.
The electoral system shall radically depart from the present system of elections that not only entails gargantuan campaign expense but also encourages massive fraud that defeats the very purpose and ideals of universal suffrage. The duly elected officers of the different organizations of workers and peasants and other basic masses of the people shall be the arena where from their representatives to the PLA are chosen. These chosen representatives shall automatically serve without having to undergo a regional or national elections. For after all, they are the genuine leaders and representatives of their respective people’s organizations, political parties or trade unions, and who have in fact served long and selflessly their fundamental interests through the years.
The political parties of the middle classes and the landlord capitalist classes shall in like manner send their representatives to the PLA as internally chosen by their respective political aggrupations.
All the members of the legislature shall take the responsibility of electing from among themselves the Head of State who may be called Prime Minister or Premiere may deemed proper and fitting.
The lower organs of the State in the regional, provincial, city and municipal levels shall as much as possible and for all intents and purposes reflect the principle and rationales of the national structure.
With this political architecture under the New Politics so contemplated and designed, unnecessary campaign money is removed and deceitful propaganda and marketing gimmicks are done away with. The opportunity for fraud is eliminated. But most remarkable of all is that the interests of the basic classes and sectors who constitute the backbone of society are given due course. In effect, the ”tatsulok” as projected in the pop song of rock star Bamboo is turned upside down.
