Pragmatic party problem-solving

Manuel L. Quezon’s death, even in exile and in the midst of war, created a problem for the political class that persisted for over a generation. The unscheduled removal of the top leader led to a fracture as preexisting factions reemerged with no paramount leader to resolve matters, resulting in the split that created the two-party system in 1945.

Both Manuel Roxas and Ramon Magsaysay, poised to achieve reelection in 1949 and 1957 respectively, more likely than not, would have achieved a restoration of the prewar single-party system; but both died before it could happen and so the artificial two-party system persisted (artificial because in the post-colonial world, the single-party model, based on the legitimacy and prestige conferred by being the independence party, was the rule). Ferdinand Marcos in a sense achieved—by force in 1973—what his predecessors could have achieved by charisma; and while none of his successors since has achieved a permanent, monolithic party, they have repeatedly come close. Still, in many ways, since then, the political class still instinctively yearns for the consolidation of factions under a strong chief executive.

Back in 1940, Jose Yulo said six years is too short for a good president and too long for a bad one. If we assume that under the old, two-term possibility for a presidency, when presidents more often than not obtained majority mandates, it would have taken the better part of two terms or eight years for a president to recreate a one-party state, then it becomes all the more clearer why presidents in the Fifth Republic, which is designed to prevent majority mandates and forbid reelection, also failed to do so. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with her unique stay in office (nine years, second longest in our history) came close, but the design of the Fifth Republic meant there was no incentive to maintain party cohesion in the absence of a viable successor.

Still, no administration since 1935 has lost the House of Representatives. Even in the days when presidents sought reelection, those that failed to be reelected still won the House. What happened, then and now, was that when a winning presidential candidate became known, a stampede took place almost instantly, depleting the formerly ruling party and bloating whatever party the new president belongs to. And so, every new president has ended up controlling the House, too. I’ve mentioned elsewhere this has been a gift with a cost: moving as a herd, retains herd solidarity, it means presidents must bargain with the herd that represents a permanent majority party. A system that, in the tried-and-tested Asian way, contains competing factions under its umbrella.

We know that our new President has neither sentimental nor proprietary attitudes toward parties. He has been KBL, both in its heyday when it rivaled the old prewar NP in its dominance, and after his father’s fall; he has been a candidate under an NPC coalition and that of the NP (both of which are essentially un-reunited factions of the old Nacionalista Party) and he has run as an independent and was elected president as a member of the obscure Federalist Party (one can almost boil it down into this formula: if I am the State and the State is Marcos, then the Party is Marcos, too). And like every president before him, he was the standard-bearer of a coalition, in his case, the UniTeam composed of his recently joined Partido Federal, the regional Hugpong ng Pagbabago of his vice presidential running mate, the Pwersa ng Masa vehicle of former president Estrada, and the Lakas-CMD vehicle of former president Arroyo.

So why is it, that this time, the Partido Federal isn’t bloating? As I wrote in this column, the Partido Federal that the new President belongs to continues to have a paltry grand total of one to two representatives. While it was expected that the 66-member bloc of the former ruling party, PDP-Laban, would deflate from the time the results were in up to the time inauguration day approached, it still remains sizeable. In the same period, Lakas-CMD, the nominal party umbrella sheltering Vice President Sara Duterte, and which is for all intents and purposes, headed by the President’s first cousin and anointed speaker, Martin Romualdez, grew from 27 to 55 (it grew from 12 to 24 over the period 2019-2022); while the parties that I consider subsidiaries of commercial interests, the 34 NUP associated with Enrique Razon, the 39 NP associated with Manuel Villar, and the 36 NPC associated with Ramon Ang have held steady (though Ang claims it will expand to as many as 50 members).

Within days of the Marcos victory, it became clear that the coming administration understood national power dynamics. On one hand, it put the incoming vice president in her place when her clumsy bid for the defense department was rejected; on the other hand, it undertook a friendly-looking but still hostile takeover of the only party in the UniTeam with real muscle: Lakas. With the new crown prince as his herald, the President sent word that his anointed for the speakership was his first cousin, then Majority Leader Martin Romualdez. Everyone had to bend the knee, including Arroyo, the hitherto widely expected speaker-in-waiting.

Since it seems Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla was selected more for his technocratic reputation and private sector bonafide, it seems that up to now, the Arroyos have had little say and even less of a share in the Cabinet. The continuing stature of Arroyo then depends on the perception of the closeness between herself and Vice President Duterte, a fondness not shared by former president Duterte, described by one reporter as still sulking over the decision of his daughter to settle for veephood. Put another way, she had to be displaced by making someone else very clearly the person to talk to in Lakas, otherwise Arroyo (and by extension, Inday Sara) would have been the dominant, and not subordinate, partners in the ruling coalition. Pragmatically, the President dispensed with his newly found party to do so.

Email: mlquezon3@gmail.com; Twitter: @mlq3