Playing with Fire
Let’s return the 2-party system
By Gonzalo Duque
TRUE to our forecast, the withdrawal of Mar Roxas from the presidential race in favor of Noynoy Aquino has sealed Noynoy’ s stature as the man to beat in the presidential contest.
Not only that. The duo have shown a powerful unity effort that is expected to revive the glorious days of the Liberal Party which, we posited once, is the party of presidents.
We were in fact opting for a Mar Roxas-Noynoy Aquino team, but the events made the team more winnable. It’s a closer road to victory, mind you.
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With the exciting revival of the glorious days of the Liberal Party after the death of President Cory, political analysts believe that the revival of the old two-party system is just a matter of time.
We hope it is. As you know, one of the reasons we have a rotten political system is its confusing, multi-party character. This was partly due to Nene Pimentel’s idea of banning political parties in the barangay level. And so what happened? Bedlam, gulo, confusion!
And then, our own Joe de Venecia invented another one – the so-called rainbow coalition. Well, you know, Manong Joe, a superb salesman who can sell refrigerators to the Eskimos, could make many people of divergent beliefs come together for a common goal. Okay na yan because he did it for then presidential candidate Fidel V. Ramos who eventually became our president.
On the surface, getting so many parties in one table looks ideal, but it would be disastrous in the long run. Because what’s happening is that politicians would join a political party for convenience not out of principles. This has spawned opportunists and panhandling for the highest bidders, enhancing the rule of the 3 G’s – guns, goons and gold, because there is no more binding principle to hold on to.
In our view, we would even go for severe penalties for political butterflies because they weaken our political system. We would ask our lawmakers to consider party defections without any cogent reasons a crime. Too much, you say? Nope. We are just of the view that entering a public office is serious business, and that to trifle with it just like what is happening in our country is to destroy our democratic system giving truism to the expression, “demoncracy.”
We are happy that because of the display of political maturity and excellence by Senator Mar Roxas and the people’s open endorsement of Noynoy Aquino as a presidential bet, the LP has regained its stature as a powerful party. With this development, expect a more aggressive movement towards rationalizing the country’s political party with the end in view of making our democratic system workable.
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