Let’s talk policy

“THE relative weakness of Philippine parties, dating back to the post-World War II era, has meant that they are dependent upon personalities rather than platforms,” writes Lila Ramos Shahani in ‘Political Parties and the Question of Democracy’ published in The Philippine Star. “Politicians are compelled to use political parties as financial vehicles to win elections. In place of party principles, platforms and programs, there is only celebrity and clientelism.” As Shahani astutely writes, the true victims of this are the poor, who “in the absence of genuine political parties…have been reduced to the double bind of choosing between radical Left-wing organizations or elite patronage.” “Having no real voice in either, they suffer from both.”

Another argument, recently published in Rogue, holds that the national political system has pushed to the fringes all but the center-right, and that that’s why the political parties have no ideological differences—everyone in the national government largely agrees with each other and it’s merely a question of emphasis. The problem with this framing is the complete absence of the constituency in the workings of the polity. Even if we were to grant that all the parties and politicians largely agree with one another (a proposition that the debates over the RH bill, BBL, and what course to take in the Spratlys very easily give lie to), shouldn’t the question be whether their constituents agree with them, too?