Localized

Earlier this week, nine political parties entered into an alliance with Sara Duterte’s Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP). The nine were predominantly local or regional parties.

This development signals a change in the template of our electoral politics. The old template, centered on nationwide political parties, is destined for the dustbin.

In the old template, party politics were shaped by powerbrokers based in the National Capital Region. Since 1986, these parties were organized to support presidential candidates. They were funded mainly by big electoral financiers rooted in the corporate sector with an interest in shaping national economic policies to their favor.

Presidential campaigns, in turn, were expected to help fund local candidacies. This made national-level campaigns very expensive – and not very cost-effective.

As the reforms toward market-driven economic policies took root, there was less and less incentive for oligarchs to invest in elections. Large, richly funded electoral machineries became unsustainable. Sooner or later, without public funding for political parties, they would go the way of the dinosaurs. That moment appears to have arrived.

The only way for large electoral party formations to persist, it seems, is to form de facto alliances with drug or gambling lords. In the age of Rodrigo Duterte, however, that has become less rewarding. For the drug and gambling lords, the investment is worthwhile only if protection for their activities is assured.

Without financing from the grey economy, it was hard to keep the national party formations afloat. National politicians needed to constantly “seed” their grassroots supporters. The cheapest method for doing this appears to be the PDP-Laban’s quasi-foundation for sending humanitarian assistance to beleaguered communities. This method, as we see from the “ruling” party’s dwindling ranks, is not very effective in keeping grassroots support.

The new template, signaled by the alliance formed this week, calls for smaller, localized party organizations. These smaller political creatures are easier to sustain. Like the lowly cockroach, they will likely survive a resource-scarce environment.

All those political parties involved in the alliance, we should note, are anchored on persistent political clans in the locality. Hugpong centers on the Dutertes. The Solid North is anchored on the Marcoses. The party based in Northern Mindanao is sustained by the Jalosjoses. The Pampanga-based party is supported by the Pinedas.

The national parties involved in this alliance depend on wealthy political patrons. The Nacionalista Party is funded by Manuel Villar. The Nationalist People’s Coalition is Danding Cojuangco’s tightly knit political fraternity. The National Unity Party (composed of stragglers from the old Lakas and Kampi parties) is said to enjoy the patronage of tycoon Enrique Razon.

Our political party system has been weak to begin with. They are not institutions rooted in deeply held ideological beliefs. They are personality-centered phenomena. Politicians shift party allegiances as easily as they change socks.

Even during what might be called the golden age of party politics during the fifties and the sixties, when the two-party system was at its height, the electoral formations were dependent on the patronage of wealthy plantation owners. There was the so-called sugar bloc pitted against the tobacco-bloc. They conveniently alternated in power, never threatening the feudal political economy on which they relied on.

Our political economy changed dramatically over the last few decades. The plantation sector withered in the face of a more diversified economy. Rural votes declined in importance as the population became predominantly urbanized. The old warlord clans can no longer broker electoral outcomes.

Money, it is said, is the milk of politics. When the economic power of the plantation-based elites declined, urban-based moguls took over the task of electoral financing. When the incentive for underwriting political contests diminished, our electoral politics began to depend on grey economy financing. For a while, we teetered on the brink of becoming a narco-state.

Today, only miniature party formations are sustainable. Sara Duterte has seen the trend. She has successfully roped together the local party formations to shape forthcoming electoral contests. She has more insight into the drift of things than she is usually credited for.

Entrenched

All politics is local. In our case, that truism literally carries into the realm of party politics.

Federalism may or may not happen, after all. But our electoral politics has moved forward and become federalized.

The local powerbrokers are ineradicable. They thrive on clan branding, resurgent regional tribalism and on what is left of command voting.

Localized political parties are easier to maintain. Therefore, they are easier to reproduce. They are rarely threatened by inner-party factional struggles as we saw in the case of the PDP-Laban. They are more persistent political organisms.

If we do move into a federal arrangement, this will empower the local elites and further entrench their localized party expressions. Local vested interests will have their own piece of the state. The result can only be variant policies across the regions. That will be a hindrance to investments.

I cannot grasp the argument that a federal arrangement will be good for inclusive growth.

Federalism may be good for the wealthier regions like the NCR, Central Luzon, Calabarzon and Central Visayas. These regions have per capital incomes comparable to Malaysia’s. Federalism will enable them to move much more quickly ahead of the others, having been relieved of the responsibility for looking after the poorer provinces.

The poorer regions, for their part, will fall even more tightly under the grip of entrenched political lords. These centers of local power are already expressed in the regional party formations.