Alliances

The celebration of the 74th anniversary of the signing of the Charter of Bácolod went on smoothly. The only fly in the cake is the opposition of Rep. Anthony Golez that was ignored. We must applaud Councilors El Cid Familiarian, Archie Barbar, Sonia Verdeflor and Catalino Alisbo who, despite their being members of the political opposition in the city, supported and joined the celebration. They set aside petty politics for a common good.

Every democracy needs a good opposition but not mindless, unreasonable and disruptive opposition that only make life for the city miserable and our people disunited. These councilors are not allies of Mayor Bing Leonardia but they joined hands in a historic moment. Others who, instead of helping, sabotaged the celebrations will later on just be laid in the wayside.

These are times when political alliances become part of the daily news fare. The United Nationalist Alliance between former President Joseph Estrada’s Partido ng Masang Pilipino and Vice President’s Laban are leading the way in alliance and have, in fact, already bared its first eight senatorial candidates.

Lately, Rep. Cynthia Villar expressed the view that her husband’s Nacionalista Party may coalesce with the administration’s Liberal Party in a bid to get into the LP senatorial line-up which, so far, has a bland list of senatorial candidates.

Coalition of parties had always been a hallmark of Philippine politics even when we had only two dominant parties, the Liberal and the Nacionalista. There was an attempt by a Democratic Party organized by Carlos Romulo for the presidential election in 1949 but it died after its miserable defeat which strengthened our two-party system which is similar to that of the United States and the United Kingdom.

After Martial Law, however, when new political parties were organized, not one party has dominated the political landscape except the temporary alliance of opportunistic politicians.

The Nationalist People’s Coalition headed by Eduardo Cojuangco is a single unified party big enough to be considered “dominant” although it does not have a majority in Congress or in the local level, except perhaps in Occidental Negros.

This is not uncommon for a country to have a multi-party system. In fact, the 1987 Constitution has encouraged the formation of multi-party organizations as a counter-balance against the two parties that had been our tradition since the American period but these parties merely revolved from one election to another, a musical chair.

Moreover, the two parties, Liberal and Nacionalista are no different from each other. Only politicians changed places depending where the wind blows. Turncoatism is the order of the day.

The multi-party system necessarily leads to alliances. In some countries where there is a rule of a majority, meaning a party must win the majority votes otherwise a run-off election is conducted alliances are part of the process of forming a government.

In this kind of government, whenever a party does not get the majority, another election is held immediately but this time the choice will be between the two that got the highest number of votes, the others are disqualified.

This case is ideal for alliances. The small parties and the top two usually enter into an alliance or a coalition to secure the majority seat and enable it to form a government.

In our case, we follow not the majority system, but the plurality system – whoever gets the highest number of votes, though not a majority is declared winner.

A government then, like that of President Fidel Ramos, can become a minority government. He had only 23 percent of the total number of votes but he was president.

In the US the parties need not coalesce to get a majority and form the government because they have an Electoral College that votes in accordance with mandate from the states where a candidate won.

Alliances or coalitions are good and important for small political groups to join forces to secure the election.

In the case of Bácolod, we do not have alliances because we get the groups of co-mingled personalities. Bing Leonardia has his Grupo Progreso that propelled him back to City Hall but Monopal disintegrated when it lost the election in 2010 because it was not a coalition or a party, but only a grouping of politicians seeking election by putting together their collective resources.

We now have a new grouping coming out. This time it is the group of Monico Puentevella with Vladimir Gonzales which is formed for resource-effectiveness rather than political principles or platform of government.

Because the main consideration in this alliance is money, those with less are being shunted aside. Reports say that Puentevella is trying to pacify them, but if Leonardia gets wise, he can make the offer to these erstwhile Puentevella heavy weights and dry up Puentevella’s stable of winning candidates.*

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