The opposition

It’s an indication of the weakness of our party system that the congressional minority is not necessarily the political opposition.

The squabble over the minority role in the House of Representatives is looking mainly like one between the winners and losers in last week’s leadership coup. When the dust settles, perhaps today or sometime within the week, the “super majority” that supports President Duterte may approve in plenary the designation of the losers as the minority bloc.

Twelve members of the former ruling Liberal Party who did not support Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s installation as Speaker have elected Marikina Rep. Romero Quimbo as minority leader. Batangas Rep. Vilma Santos, who like her husband Sen. Ralph Recto is an LP member, is not one of the 12. She told me the other night that she was open to joining the House majority under GMA.

When Pantaleon Alvarez was speaker, Quimbo’s LP group itself joined the super majority; Quimbo became deputy speaker. This, Quimbo said, was to protect the LP’s leader, Vice President Leni Robredo, from impeachment, which he said Alvarez wanted last year (a “Lie,” Alvarez told The STAR – yes, with a capital L).

So ACT party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, a member of the seven-member left-leaning Makabayan bloc, says, “we are the real and true opposition.”

Magdalo party-list Rep. Gary Alejano, one of the House “Magnificent 7” led by Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, says the same thing, and stresses that they will not join any “minority” that counts Alvarez among the members. 

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At this point, what looks clearer than the fate of the minority is the disintegration of the ruling PDP-Laban.

Back in 2016, the LP also saw a rapid mass exodus of its members to the PDP Laban, President Duterte’s party.

Quimbo remembers cautioning some PDP-Laban stalwarts at the time against expanding too fast, without screening the defectors (OK… the turncoats) for their stand on various issues.

Politics may be addition, but those who can switch alliances and jump to another political party at the drop of a hat can abandon it just as fast.

Defections that aren’t based on shared values, advocacies or positions on raging issues make for tenuous party loyalties. Quimbo warned that the PDP-Laban could suffer the same fate as the LP.

Today, Quimbo can say “I told you so” to the PDP-Laban. The party is breaking apart as political realignments continue in the House of Representatives following GMA’s coup – and not because of those folks who held a breakaway meeting last Friday, dismissed by Sen. Koko Pimentel, PDP-Laban leader, as “fakes” and “usurpers.”

The real threat to the PDP-Laban, even in the Senate and local governments, is the new party formed by Duterte’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, together with special presidential assistant Christopher “Bong” Go, which is drawing more members every day. The mayor is widely believed to be the force behind the ouster of Alvarez as speaker.

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With the ouster, is Alvarez now part of the minority? Lawmakers have confirmed that he and his deputies are seeking recognition as the new minority bloc.

It’s no minor designation: the minority leader is an ex-officio member of all the standing House committees, and minority members get to sit in these panels. In terms of media exposure – critical in an election year – they get sought out for their views on administration policies, programs and pronouncements.

This has to be why the minority leader under Alvarez, Danilo Suarez of Quezon, has said there is no vacancy. The only problem is that Suarez is a GMA supporter and was reportedly the first to sign the petition for her installment as Speaker. And House rules, according to opposition members, stress that anyone who votes for the speaker cannot belong to the minority.

Quimbo, Tinio and Alejano faced “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News last Friday, when arrest warrants were issued for leftist leaders Liza Maza, Satur Ocampo, Rafael Mariano and Teddy Casiño in connection with the murders of two farmers in Nueva Ecija during the Arroyo presidency.

Tinio deplored the arrest warrants, calling the charges baseless. Alejano is a former member of the Presidential Security Group whose Magdalo party celebrates its anniversary on the day mutinous soldiers launched the 2003 Oakwood mutiny against GMA – July 27, which also happened to be the date of our interview. He told us he had information that the murder charges were valid.

After those remarks from his colleagues, Quimbo turned to us and remarked: see how complicated it can be to put together a minority coalition?

Tinio stressed that their independent bloc, which voted against GMA’s installation as Speaker, didn’t need to join the minority to perform the role of a genuine opposition.

Under Duterte, who portrays himself as a socialist offering the communist party the “last chance” for peace, the left has also been warned against lying down with canines and ending up with fleas. Tinio, however, stressed to us that his group has been “consistent” in its opposition especially to the anti-poor policies of this administration. 

The public, dismayed by that spectacle at the House last week, can hardly care about the battle for minority recognition. People have tuned out and are just waiting for fisticuffs or hair-pulling to break out at the House.

For the public, the minimum expectation of the political opposition is to provide checks and balances in our shaky democracy – and there’s a lot to watch out for in this administration. From what is shaping up at the House, however, this cannot be expected of the group that the plenary is likely to recognize as the minority bloc.

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Sleeping on the job: Manila cops must have taken the Sunday off. On a sunny early afternoon yesterday, young children were out in full force along Roxas Boulevard from the US embassy to Rizal Park, armed with pails of dirty soapy water and wet rags that they slapped on car windows as they begged for alms. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen such “cleaning teams” in this part of Metro Manila. Other children sat on the traffic center islands. Several adults with other children sat watching in the shade on the sidewalk.