A stronger party system for more effective gov’t

The 18th Congress of the Philippines began this July, 2019, with all 300 members of the House of Representatives elected in the mid-term elections in May, 2018, along with 24 members of the Senate, half of them elected in May and half held over from the 17th Congress.

There has been no strong party system in the country since the Liberal and Nacionalista parties were were set aside when martial law was proclaimed in 1972. The members of the House of Representatives in this new 18th Congress are thus mostly local leaders who made it on their own or with local allies. Some are Liberals and Nacionalistas – the old parties –but most belong to a variety of parties – Lakas, PDP-Laban, Nationalst People’s Coalition, National Unity Party, Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, etc., along with several party-list representatives and some independents.

With such a mixed membership, no one in the new House had sufficient support to get elected speaker. President Duterte was thus asked to help and he proposed a compromise solution – Taguig Nacionalista Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano for the first 15 months and Marinduque PDP-Laban Rep. Lord Allan Velasco for the remaining 21 months. A third aspirant, Leyte Lakas Rep. Martin Romualdez, was elected majority leader.

It has now been four months since the start of that arrangement but now Speaker Cayetano has said he is open to setting aside the compromise arrangement and continue serving as speaker. But Congressman Velasco said “an agreement is an agreement” and it should be followed.

It really is all up to the House of Representatives to decide on this issue. The only reason President Duterte stepped in at the start was in response to a request from a widely divided and leaderless House in July. Speaker Cayetano must think he can now carry on with his Nacionalistas and some allies, so that he can set aside the agreement to share the term with Congressman Velasco of PDP-Laban, the President’s own party.

If Cayetano can pull it off, we may have a more solid House of Representatives like that led by former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. which functioned so efficiently decades ago as a partner of the administration and enacted so many significant laws that continue to govern the operations of our country to this day.

But right now, the situation appears so uncertain, partly because of the lack of solidity in the House . This should help encourage efforts to strengthen our parties so they can function more efficiently in the election of capable officials and, therefore, in the running of government.