Every election, many are hopeful that after casting the vote, change will ensue. Change has since been the perennial theme of elections, yet we remain where we are since, seemingly forever. Of course, someone will argue that “look around you and so much has changed”, but such changes are inevitable, changes that are brought about by practically anything other than good governance and good leaders. We just have to look at one example, infrastructure. Every President we have known prioritized infrastructure, but we are still stuck to the same decrepit roads and road network and most importantly, lacking mass transportation system.

Again, someone will argue that, “Hey! We already have the skyway system and extensive tollways!” Yes, that is true, but only thanks to the private sector taking over the development of much needed infrastructure, many of which are concentrated in the metropolis and the rest of the country is left wanting such an extensive transportation network. And more still, mass transportation, a fundamental infrastructure that will benefit everyone, remains undeveloped.

The private sector no doubt will be key as they have been, but they cannot be relied on to consider projects on areas where traffic is still unknown, areas where infrastructure are needed to jumpstart trade and commerce. The private sector will always be interested in areas where market is already developed or at the least already advanced as it already shows profitability. Again, what is left behind is mass transportation, trains to be specific. Imagine if the whole archipelago is connected with trains allowing the movement of people, goods and capital all over. At the least, the “roll-on roll-off project” before could have been sustained, even developed.

Countries that successfully developed all started and prioritized their infrastructure. We were the first to have the light rail transit for example in the early 80s. Many of our neighbors just followed suit. Yet they did it better and more extensively that even Vietnam, a country that had to recover from the ravages of war much later compared to us, have already overtaken us. Since November 2020, they have surpassed us in GDP per capita.

What are we doing wrong? This is a question that has constantly hunted us. Is it the economy? Yes, no doubt! But how and why? Is it because we are not as smart as other people? That cannot be, especially considering that we are even the ones educating many of the decision makers in other countries as they come here to earn their degrees. Long before the current brouhaha of so many Chinese students enrolled in our universities, we have already hosted countless foreign students. We have been hosting foreign students in huge numbers before,  except that we didn’t have security problems with their countries.

The point is, it is out and out wrong to say Filipinos are not as good as other people. Filipinos who decided to find opportunities in other countries have been quite successful. Professional or not, blue or white collar, regardless of educational attainment, overseas Filipinos have been successful in foreign shores. Filipinos have been successful abroad that they have become the

most important reason why our economy remains afloat. No wonder our leaders have thought of exporting Filipino workers as a permanent feature of our economy.

The only possible explanation is politics and governance. There are so many more problems we face as a country, all indications of underdevelopment, all boils down to the kind of archaic politics we have. Then again, while it has become obvious that the country sorely needs political reform, it doesn’t seem to be happening soon.

Many attempted to pursue reforms before, but all failed. We can only think of a stupendous event or reason that could bring that enough push to make real systemic reforms happen. As to what that be, it can only be anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, our leaders are already satisfied with the status quo and thus content at simply preserving politics to be but a simplistic set up; plain and simply struggle for political power between personalities and families and prevent a working system to take its place. Why would they bother changing something that they are benefitting from in the first place?

Is there still something that can be done? How do well-meaning and qualified candidates consider and ultimately throw their proverbial hat into the election ring? How can voters be empowered enough to choose the right leaders given the rather markedly limited choices they always have?

Given that the circumstances shall remain and therefore options are limited both for qualified and well-intentioned leaders and the public, specifically the voters, we only have ourselves to rely on to. We should take the initiative as a sovereign people and use the power that we actually have. Then we could possibly make that stupendous reason or event to effect the fundamental political reforms happen.

As we were trying to explain in the previous writing, it would have been best to have real political parties. With political parties, we could have recruited, prepared and elected qualified and competent political leaders at the outset. With political parties, we could have kept our people informed and engaged in governance, educating them and at the same time sustaining a real functioning democracy.

The political party is a crucial nexus between politics and governance, between those who govern and those who are governed as it is found and practiced in established democracies. There is sadly no such thing in our case; whatever kind of politics we have, it simply does not require nor provide real political parties. As a result, there is a palpable divide, even disconnect between the leaders and the people.

We’ll always have popular leaders as every wannabe leader is likely to pursue anything and everything that’s popular to be noticed and, in the end, supported and elected by the people to power. That would nevertheless, not make them in any way able to or in a position to actually understand the real situation as experienced by ordinary people.

The point is to make and keep the people part of the governmental process by allowing them to witness the substantive exchanges between their leaders, especially policy-makers. It will not transform the public overnight into a politically mature and competent people, but keeping them exposed to such discussions will gradually get to that empowerment. In the same vein, given that the leaders are aware that the eyes and ears of the public are always on them, in the course of time, they will be more circumspect.

Slowly, we can look forward to a more responsive set of leaders. Even those who aspire to be leaders will realize that they cannot offer themselves to the public without any preparation, without knowing what exactly is expected of them. They will have to have plans, which then will be offered to the electorate for consideration. In the same vein then there will come a time when the electorate will be more inclined to choose candidates on the basis of qualification and no longer just whether or not they know how to dance and sing, that they are popular and good-looking and even inclined to give dole outs.

The media, including the now seemingly omnipresent social media, are simply not enough. Yes, it is their business to inform the public. Precisely however, because it is more of a business, there is bias to reporting what is profitable, what is likely to generate much attention from the public, hence what is controversial, even salacious. At least in the traditional media, there are set protocols to follow, checks upon checks are made before anything is made public. On social media, the protocol is limited to one having a gadget that allows writing an article and or capturing a video and posting it. The main objective is also important to note, and that is gaining as much following, readers and or viewers, therefore, just like naked politics, chasing that popularity.

Empowering, that is keeping the people informed and involved through the political party, is different. Yes, popularity is still the measure considering that the objective is to keep the support of the people. The need for popularity on the other hand is more for accountability; they have to remain popular as the people have to be inclined to vote for them again and again. And that will happen only if the people are satisfied with the performance of the leaders that the political party has provided them. Such satisfaction will become more sophisticated as people become more knowledgeable as they are exposed to crucial policy discussions and not just benefit from dole outs.

Voting for the party again requires popularity, but that popularity is hinged on a people that is able to make sense of the positions taken by the political party on different issues. As for the incumbent, performance while in office is crucial to sustain popularity and ultimately lead to re-election. That popularity then is sought not for pecuniary reasons but to keep the support of the people which depends so much on an informed and therefore empowered public. Engaging the people is thus a constant for real political parties; given this, a political party remains relevant even in between elections as they continue to work and serve as go-between the people and the leaders.

We don’t have any idea how this works, sadly. We have no idea how crucial a political party really is as that is not provided for in our laws and in the way we conduct politics. We have regular elections yes, but we’re limited to just choosing who to vote for, even in the party-list elections as that’s how COMELEC made it to be, party list groups campaigning for their nominees more instead of supposedly campaigning for the party list, which means campaigning on the basis of the party list group’s advocacies and or programs.

In other countries, the establishment of political parties came as a natural course in their political history. The American founding fathers debated about it copiously as they have thought of it as detrimental to democracy. They must have taken a leaf from what the whole world saw from the French in their decades-long revolution. The experience of terror then has led to mixed reactions all over the world as France was sorely divided by different factions, like the Royalists, Jacobins and Girondins, and each of these factions further divided from within. Nonetheless, this experience led to the development of political parties as we know today in established democracies, representing different ideologies and especially of late, program preferences.

The political party is not provided for in the US Constitution. As already mentioned, the founding fathers didn’t see its advantage. France on the other hand, owing largely to their history with different political groups, the 5th Republic constitution provided it. A close reading will reveal how much of a compromise it was that it had to be included in their constitution. The same could be said in the US. It was almost a century from its founding that political parties emerged and were recognized by law. It would appear that the use of political parties was proven to be necessary in the way politics were practiced, especially that representative democracy requires organization, what with the growing population and the need to adequately hear and represent different, often conflicting interests.

We didn’t have the same experience. We simply didn’t have the same opportunity as other countries did to gradually develop our own brand of politics and in the process political and public institutions. As a country established by colonial powers, we had to adopt the occupying country’s system, even with some crucial elements being absent. We learned and we were taught Presidentialism for example, but the advantage of Federalism, despite having been discussed by Rizal and other leaders before, wasn’t given significance. The only experience we had at organizing real political parties was when we were debating whether to be one of the states of America or to be independent.

The debate then was whether or not it is to the country’s advantage to be independent from the US or not, hence the political divide between the Nacionalistas and the Federalistas. The former of course emerged victorious as our forefathers preferred to be independent. That ended what little experience we had at real, i.e. ideological and or programmatic political parties. The Liberal party was eventually organized, from the liberal faction of the Nacionalista, and other political parties were eventually organized, also always from the factions of earlier organized political parties.

This explains why the story of our political parties have been as such ever since. When a candidate is not able to win the nomination of his/her political party, s/he would end up organizing his/her own political party. In time, party conventions were entirely done away with, and those intending to run would just organize a new political party or buy an existing one. After all a political party is necessary for campaign, at least that is what can be gleaned from our laws starting with our rather archaic omnibus election code.

A law that is central to our political processes, administering the only element that makes our politics qualify as a democracy yet remains among many important laws left behind by lawmakers. Could have been overlooked by the legislature to at least review. Or, which is more likely, thought by many politicians to be difficult to pursue revising or updating to the conditions of the time. Laws which would take so much effort as it is substantive and or likely to be divisive like the Local Government Code, are always not given attention by lawmakers.

Even our constitution mentions the concept of a “political party” only once, yet interestingly provides for a “party-list” system. The law on party list (RA 7941) defines what a party-list is, but only so much as describing it as a political organization (supposedly) representing sectors and coming from different areas or regions. This is consistent with the omnibus election code. Other than describing it as a political organization, it doesn’t provide any mechanism that could provide how it could represent the people, especially the purported sectors in the case of a party-list group. That “nexus” of a function is thus not provided for and thus reflects a very inadequate rendering of a political party.

There is then a vacuum in our political set up, hence but a set-up and cannot qualify as a system. The people remain sovereign however, and given the current environment and technological advancement can be empowered. We have a very active civil society, precisely because there is a void which can only be filled by volunteer groups. There are thus so many opportunities available at preparing and choosing the right candidates and at the same time empowering the people.

If many and all options at political organizing and empowering the people have already been done and exhausted and still the state of things remain, then the other possibility can only be dire. The least that could happen is that we remain underdeveloped, that we shall see our neighbors and other countries that are supposedly less developed than us continue overtaking us until we reach the bottom of the barrel so to speak. The worst is reaching desperate levels and leading to anarchy. That is something we wouldn’t want, even to just imagine.

We can still do something. We can inform the public and empower them in our individual ways and initiatives. We can organize little by little, what with the technology that’s now in everyone’s fingertips literally. Enable everyone to closely examine every candidate running for office and choose the right one, and at the same time identify those who simply want to amass as much power as they can. Then perhaps we still have a chance.