Death of political parties / The SC and Hubert Webb

We’re all kidding ourselves, ticking off the names of political parties as if they still existed – and mattered. Kiss my blooming, behind they don’t. And if we mention them at all – LDP, Lakas-CMD, NCP, PMP, LP, Aksyon, Promdi, Reporma et al. – it’s because we Filipinos are stragglers and somnambulists in the present. We’re still chained to a nostalgic past. And psychologically, it’s in the past where we can still breathe and reminisce, and pretend we have a better future. The past worked somewhat, didn’t it? The present doesn’t anymore. As we wrote in a recent column, we Filipinos are in denial and refuse to believe the nation is hanging to the cliff by its fingernails.

And the forthcoming elections may well see the "strong republic" of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo crashing down like the Three Stooges going crazily downhill in a laundry chute. Bashing each other’s pates.

We don’t have political parties with specific political ideologies or economic programs. Not anymore unlike the years of yore. We have persons, individuals, names. They can switch from one party to another without losing face. We have Fernando Poe Jr., GMA, Raul Roco, Panfilo Lacson, Noli de Castro, Loren Legarda, Franklin Drilon, Nene Pimentel, Jose de Venecia, Teofisto Guingona, Tito Sotto, Edgardo Angara, Lito Osmena, Renato de Villa. And yes, we still have Joseph Ejercito Estrada. The political parties they still claim to represent have long gone to the political scrap heap, dead as a long dead dodo.

Also long gone is the Philippines of two major political parties, the Nacionalista and Liberal. When President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial rule September 1972, he torpedoed all existing parties after installing his dictatorship. It was then that we entered the one-party government of the KBL (Kilusang ng Bagong Lipunan). From then on, we never recovered. The social and political equilibrium we inherited from the Commonwealth Period (1935-40) –the two-party system – started to disintegrate. As a hangman, Marcos had no peer.

And now, in the face-off to the 2004 elections, the party system is stripped completely naked. It doesn’t even have a fig leaf.

We talk GMA, we don’t talk Lakas. We talk FPJ, we don’t talk LDP. We talk Raul Roco, we don’t talk Aksyon Democratiko. We talk Ping Lacson, and the hell with the political party he represents. What all this means is that our so-called system of representative democracy with the political party as its fulcrum has breathed its last. At least for the nonce.

And that’s why, according to the latest information, FPJ doesn’t give a hang as to whether the LDP will swing open its doors to him as its official presidential candidate. Ronnie Poe will run as an independent. And so long as he gets the support of Erap Estrada and Eduardo (Danding) Cojuangco, and mayhaps the Marcoses, that’s all that matters. The masa, we are told, doesn’t give a good hoot if FPJ can read the constitution or not, knows what globalization is all about or not, or can spell Constantinople or not.

The masa, they say, will gather in great frightening numbers like the sands of the sea. Then FPJ will hit May 2004 like Erap Estrada did in 1998, and blast through to Malacañang with gale force. If he is cheated, so the formula goes, the masses will storm the streets and force GMA out of Malacañang. Raul Roco threatens to do the same thing. "At my command," he just said, if cheated of the presidency, the Roco forces would assault the palace. Ah, this is a different Roco I am hearing now! He is throwing moderation to the winds, and breathing the fire of those who burned down the Reichstag.

Suddenly, the Philippines is entering a Napoleonic era. And the only torch lit is that of Frederich Nietzsche’s superman. It’s terrifying. It is also the philosopher Thomas Hobbes taking over, depicting a nation where life is nasty, brutish and short. There is no social contract and every man is at war with every man. All this talk of national unity is thus balderdash.

In this light, we also figure that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has thoughts of converting Malacañang into an impregnable fortress. She also figures, based on the latest Pulse Asia survey, she will win in 2004. And a plague on those who dare to seize the presidency from her. She has a corps of loyal generals who will botten down the hatches. And if the streets should seethe, smoulder and conflagrate, Malacañang will dispatch its storm troopers, and force will be met with superior force. Thus spake Zarathustra?

This is the Philippines we are living in today.

The system that has governed the nation for more than half a century since the Second World War is fast cracking apart. We talk democracy without knowing what democracy is all about. And for the first time, we shall stage elections next year with utmost trepidation. For the first time, presidential candidates are vowing they individually and not political parties – will take matters into their own hands and foment mob violence if this should prove necessary.

And if matters should get worse, I kid you not, there will be no elections next year. Bombs will just explode and NO-EL takes place. In both cases, elections leading to mass protests and violence, or no elections, the system would have finally broken apart, lock, stock and barrel. I have been saying this for years and I think the time has come.

This is the raison d’etre for BANGON! This is why I immersed myself in this movement. I had long figured our political system would come to this impasse. I had long feared that if this came, the extremes of Left and Right would vie for mastery of the streets and succession. This would have to be avoided. And those in the middle who loved their country would have to stand up to be counted. And their banner would have to be nationalism. A nation in times of fear needs to wrap itself in the flag, summon its inner strengths, develop intense love of country and march through hoops of passionate fire.

There are those who would now cavil at BANGON! and accuse it of plotting a coup, a junta, arm in arm with some generals. Stuff and nonsense! And some contend it has a projectionist economic philosophy because of its nationalistic armature. How stupid can they get?

Read BANGON’s manifesto. It is sworn to non-violence, to finding a way out of any maelstrom that could come, to deter the military precisely from posting the skull-and-bones flag of Mars in Malacañang. The godless communist left can never take over in the Philippines. They know that and we know that. What’s more, BANGON is also sworn to protect the sanctity of the ballot, and the integrity of the electoral process. Protectionism? Precisely, BANGON! seeks to race down the mountain pike so the Philippines can catch up economically and join the economic tigers of Asia. Here, Information Technology and education are a must. Also a must is the formation of a huge corps of technocrats who can vastly improve productivity, get the Philippines into the world market.

Just two weeks away from its launching Nov. 20 and already BANGON! is catching fire. Applications for membership have come in a flood, from here and abroad. What we can promise everybody is that BANGON! will stay the course, come hell or high water.

* * *

We have waited many years. And now we do expect the Supreme Court, for which this column has fought tooth and nail in many a battle, to do the right thing by a person called Hubert Webb. This son of former Sen. Freddie Webb has languished in prison for about seven years for a crime he never committed. I say this in all sincerity. I say this with what I believe is intimate and extensive knowledge of the so-called Vizconde massacre. And I say this putting whatever prestige I have as a journalist on the line. And I’ve been a journalist for well nigh over 50 years.

This little piece is what they call in our profession an "advancer".

I shall write a much longer piece in the near future. Suffice it to say for the present, that never has a single criminal case consumed the attention and exertions of this writer. I took the cud-gels for Hubert Webb at a time virtually the entire country was a lynch mob. I learned what it was to be hated, reviled and spat upon. I was accused of toadying for then Senator Webb, receiving millions from him deposited in my bank. Hate letters descended on my head. Some even contained obscene figure scrawls, comparing me to you-know-what. Some dared me to a duel. Others summoned me to meet them at such and such a place and threatening to tear me limb from limb.

Oh, yes, I went through that kind of hell for the first time in my life as a journalist. But I never wavered.

My only fault, if fault it was, was to openly disagree with Judge Amelita Tolentino, and declare to her face that the boy was innocent. And so did I take acrimonious issue with the NBI, accusing it of rigging the case, of relying on one person alone, Jessica Alfaro, a confirmed drug addict and chronic liar, to hound Hubert Webb to a life time in prison. Right now, I am going through a refresher. In a matter of days, I shall write a more substantial piece.

And I trust that in due time justice will take its course.