Carvajal’s ‘Masquerade’
Itry to get the gist out of Mr. Orlando Carvajal’s “Masquerade” column published in SunStar Cebu on Nov. 7, 2018. Only genuine political parties are able to formulate a program that only a united government can implement. If a motley lot of individuals wearing the mask of patriots comes up with even a spirited program, they cannot implement it because they have to deal with government agencies not fully under their control.
Mr. Carvajal mentions Grace Poe’s much-hyped 20-point program in her campaign for the presidency. I was amused when she called it a program. As a German, I know what a program of a political party is: It analyzes the problems of a society and describes the strategies to solve them.
Since society evolves they have to come up with an updated program almost every decade. Such a program is the result of the brainstorming of thousands of grassroots party members proposed to a party program commission and sanctioned by the national party delegates’ assembly. In case the party gets a mandate to govern the program becomes the action guideline of government.
Since many common people contribute to the program, it is of high intellectual level and serves those who have authored it: the common citizens.
Nothing comparable exists in the Philippines. Therefore, Mr. Carvajal writes: Individuals (candidates) will always go for short-term projects or, what is even worse, for unrelated activities that they think will help secure re-election.
Filipino politicos rely on the recall of their family name and glorify their ancestors. They say: My father was a famous actor, a great president or my mother was a beauty queen or a mayor’s wife. So vote for me, I will make this country great like what my ancestor did.
But that is not enough: A program must anticipate possible upcoming problems and delineated solutions in case a problem comes up unexpectedly.
Imagine Grace Poe had been president when IS and Maute terrorists attacked Marawi. She would have been at a loss of advice and decision because such an attack was no point in her program.
Only President Duterte, thanks to his far-sighted and well-founded program based on exact knowledge of Mindanao, took the necessary decisions, defeated the invaders and is still battling drug lords, narco-politicians, foreign syndicates and scalawags.
None of the other presidentiables proposed federalization, which works best if strong genuine parties wield the power. Participation granted condescendingly by the rich district-elected individuals to a constitutionally fixed 20% or 40% minority of mostly poorer party-list representatives is undemocratic.
Democracy is the rule of representatives elected in fair polls who are attributed seats in parliament by proportional distribution. Opposition must be based on issues not on personal jealousy and destabilization attempts.
Since no other columnist advocates Mr. Carvajal’s vision, I challenge him to found his genuine party and devise together with his friends an authentic democratic party program.--Erich Wannemacher