Party-building through Charter change

At a lunch tendered by the US embassy some time ago for a visiting academic, the guest of honor told me there was no future for a parliamentary system in the Philippines. The system requires strong and stable political parties. He followed his remarks asking whether there was any party in the Philippines that has lasted. He may have been referring to the country’s pre-martial rule parties, Liberal and Nacionalista and the KBL during Marcos’s iron rule.

Well, there is a party in the Philippines that has lasted and it occupies a central role in our national life today but it owes more to European rather than American influence: the LAKAS-CMD party.

It is co-chaired by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Speaker Jose de Venecia with former President FVR as honorary chairman. Its candidates swept the recent election from president down to municipal mayors. It was an impressive showing. More important is its commitment to constitutional reform that would shift the country to a parliamentary federal system of government and prove that political parties in the Philippines have come of age. This commitment underpins its philosophy and program to make government closer and more accountable to the people.

The party traces its roots to the early reforming spirit of our nation’s founding fathers but this is more a romantic allusion. More realistically the party developed after martial law with serious efforts to rebuild the democratic institutions destroyed during the Marcos regime. The inspiration and drive of the party came from Europe when the late statesman Raul M. Manglapus linked up with the Christian Democrats during a visit by a young German politician named Helmut Kohl. The story goes that Mr. Kohl and some of his colleagues were scouring the world for similar minded politicians to form an international group and found that Manglapus & Co in the Philippines were it.

A capsule history of Lakas-CMD began in 1957 when the Progressive Party of the Philippines offered itself as the third party alternative to the oligarchic Liberal and Nacionalista parties. Manglapus and Manuel Manahan organized the Christian Social Movement on October 19, 1967 that later became the National Union of Christian Democrats (NUCD). The philosophy of that party was succinctly stated by Raul Manglapus : "We believe in a truly and fully human society which is the ideal of Christianity as well as of all great religions of the world." It remains true to this day.

A year after the launching of the NUCD, a group of young Muslim leaders had a series of meetings with Christian Democrat leaders to discuss Mindanao’s raging problems. The result of these meetings was the establishment of a Muslim political party called the United Muslim Democrats of the Philippines, patterned after the ideals and objectives of the NUCD. On November 14, 1987, at the joint national Convention in Cebu City, the NUCD and the UMDP merged as one political party. It formally brought Muslims and Christians together in a viable political framework. Without giving up their identities, they defined the fundamental sources of their respective values which were remarkably the same. It was designed to forge a national unity between the two groups not just for themselves but for generations to come.

In 1992 nine political parties signed a coalition agreement to support Fidel V. Ramos for President. These parties were NUCD, LDP, EDSA Wing, Philippine Democratic Socialist Party, UMDP, Lakas Tao, Bicol Saro, Lapiang Manggagawa, Partidong Katutubo and Ompin Party.

Today the coalition is simply referred to as Lakas-CMD and is a member of Christian Democrat International. In a debate in Mexico it was agreed upon that those who wanted to refer to CDI as Christian Democrats are free to do so but it also stands for Centrist Democrat International to embrace other religions. Most Christian democratic parties set out to capture the middle or moderate conservatives between ideologically defined parties of the right and socialist left. It has attracted business interests, the middle class and non-Communist workers as an enlightened alternative. CDI used to be limited to Christians, but later non-Christians were also accepted provided they conformed to the aims of CDI.

In the Philippines much still needs to be done for the party to become a disciplined organized group that works together for a common vision. Sometimes it still functions very much like political parties in a presidential system, personality rather than issue based with its guns trained on the spoils of victory. But it continues to evolve with the changing times. The union of Christians and Muslims under a single political party in the Philippines is a unique development anywhere in the world. It is looked upon as a model, especially by countries torn by Christian-Muslim differences.

A recent workshop/seminar entitled Building Leadership Towards a Social Market Economy under a Unicameral Parliamentary and Federal Form of Government last September 29-October 1 in Subic was both necessary and timely. Heherson Alvarez and Louie Lagdameo gave overviews. Klaus Preschle of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation that sponsored the workshop spoke on Social Market Economy. Former Rep. Antonio B. Nachura, a renowned constitutional lawyer spoke on The Charter Change Content (by the way, he gave us a CD on all the resource documents on the Agenda for Transition to Federal Parliamentary System). Rep. Constantino Jaraula, also an advocate of constitutional reform spoke on The Charter Change Process.

Sec. Romulo Neri used the 10-point agenda of President GMA and Speaker JDV as a benchmark for party unity: creation of six to ten million jobs, education for all, budget balance, decentralization, development of power and water supply throughout the country, decongestion of Metro Manila, development of Clark and Subic as logistics center in the region, automated elections, peace pacts with rebel groups and ‘closure of wounds’ from EDSA 1, 2, and 3. The role of local authority was set out by Marikina Mayor Lourdes C. Fernando in Subsidiarity and Local Governance.

Party building for Lakas-CMD may have come in fits and starts in the past but today it has a direction all other parties in the Philippine political scene do not have – it has a philosophy, a program and the political power to see it through. Filipinos who are great basketball fans understand the superiority of a team working together to a single star player. A presidential system has a star player – the president who oftentimes reinterprets the party program to fit his or her personal objectives. In a parliament, it is teamwork that is enhanced. The Subic meeting was called to ensure each member, mayor or congressman, understood the party’s objectives.

In a way, the American academic was right – a democratic parliamentary system can only be successful if political parties are determined to carry out their programs. We may criticize political parties but it is through them that government keeps in touch with ordinary citizens and vice versa. It has its flaws but genuine parties are necessary in a well-run democratic body politic.

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