It’s better to go back to a two-party system

Indeed, the political kettle is starting to heat up. In Cebu City, the local press has reported that no less than former Cebu City mayor Alvin Garcia is offering his son Raymond to be the vice mayoralty candidate of The Freeman chairman Jose "Dodong" Gullas if he is seeking the mayoralty post. But we already know that Sir Dodong doesn’t want to run for any elective position as he has already done a lot of good to many people, especially the public school teachers who benefited from his bill in Congress now allowing them to get their pay in their respective regions.

Indeed, everyone is jockeying up for positions. A big surprise in the senatorial race is the entry of Mrs. Sonia Roco, whose only claim to fame is that she is the wife of a former senator and a presidential candidate. Already former Sen. Francisco "Kit" Tatad has bolted the United Opposition on moral issues. But since the administration’s senatorial ticket will still be announced this week… let us focus first on our faulty multi-party system and take a brief look at American politics, which is just starting to boil… although the presidential elections will still be in November 2008. But hopefully, this should teach Filipinos how a better political system works.

This early, former First Lady, now Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Democrat from New York, has thrown her gauntlet into the political arena. Call it testing the waters or as others would say, they are creating a "Presidential Exploratory Committee" where potential candidates are using the Internet to ask voters if they would vote for them as the next president of the United States.

Let me point out to our readers that since America uses a two-party system… this doesn’t mean that Sen. Hillary Clinton is already the official presidential candidate of the Democratic Party. She’s up with other Democrats who have also thrown their gauntlet into the political ring, like Sen. Barrack Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. On the Republican side, the frontrunners are Sen. John McCain and Rep. Sam Brownback of Kansas.

If you ask me, Philippine politics was at its greatest when we had a two-party system, the Nacionalista Party (NP) on one side, and the Liberal Party (LP) on the other side of the political coin. Back then anyone who thought he was smart to become president would challenge any contender within his political party. That means winning all the debates. If he won that, then he became the standard bearer for his party.

How things have changed today with our present multi-party system, which has turned things from bad to worse. In the old days, a popular action star like Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) would never dare run for any elective position unless he could out-debate any challenger. But with our current system, FPJ just went ahead and ran for president even if he didn’t know how to debate, much less make a political speech before a huge crowd.

During the heyday of our having a two-party system, we heard a lot of eloquent speeches made by statesmen, which was why before Martial Law threw out our democratic processes we had a lot of great Filipino statesmen. With today’s stupidity called the multi-party system, we’ve only introduced personality politics… where popular movie stars vie for a Senate seat because they can sing and dance and wow a starstruck crowd.

Indeed, who really cares to listen to earthshaking speeches that would help mold this country into a better nation when the ignorant masses merely want to see a live TV show for free? This is why it is imperative that we Filipinos fight for Charter change and return to the tried-and-tested two-party system where actors take a back seat to real politicians.

If today people are incensed that the noisy leftist militants are already inside Congress using tax money to fund their anti-government rallies… blame this on the multi-party system where people claim to represent various groups, even if they really do not represent the majority of these groups. This is why we should call for a return to the two-party system right away.

I just got in my e-mail the keynote speech of Dr. Jose V. Abueva on the launching of yet another political party, which they called Unlad Pilipinas! Party of the Global Filipino Nation. Dr. Abueva is a dear close family friend, but we need to know where this Global Filipino Nation emanates.

Of course, the answer can be found in Abueva’s speech, wherein he says, "Global Filipinos overseas number some ten million and counting. Every year they contribute a great deal to our national economy and the welfare of countless Filipinos in our homeland. Our sisters and brothers abroad can do much more for our development and modernization if we welcome and empower them to do so." Again, is this just another group taking advantage of our multi-party system, claiming to represent a group of Filipinos?

Dr. Abueva added: "All Filipinos overseas should be able to cast their votes easily, freely express their opinions on public issues in the Philippines, and join political parties. And anyone of them who is willing and qualified should be able to run for public office."

At the end of his keynote speech, Dr. Abueva exhorted: "Mabuhay ang Republika ng Pilipinas! Mabuhay ang Unlad Pilipinas: Partido ng Pandaigdigang Bayang Pilipino! Mabuhay ang lahat ng mga pandaigdigang Pilipino!" While the Unlad Pilipinas claims to represent Filipinos overseas, it is unfortunate that this group believes in using a trilingual language system. I learned this from Save Our Languages through Federalism (SOLFED) national president Dr. Jose Dacudao who sent me this text message:

"I’m really concerned that Dr. Abueva is launching a political party called Unlad Pilipinas dat advocates trilingualism. In dis, Tagalog is given official legal status as lingua franca of d Philippines, whereas now Tagalog doesn’t have legal status since ‘Filipino’ is not defined as Tagalog. F and en Abueva succeeds, Tagalogs legal position will be unassailable."

Trilingualism means learning to speak your regional languages, like Cebuano for Cebu, while learning to speak a national language, which Dr. Dacudao refers to as the present Filipino which, in truth and in fact, is 99.9 percent Tagalog and learning English as an international language. This is contrary to what SOLFED believes… respect for all spoken languages in the Philippines as a way of preserving the various ethnic languages and identity and the people’s culture. Dr. Abueva has to explain to Filipinos why his political party is detrimental to the other spoken languages of this nation.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.