Playing with politics

Manny Valdehuesa

SENATORS Grace Poe and Chiz Escudero are running without bothering to establish a party, movement, or group as their institutional mechanism for their campaign or for governing if they win.

It’s as if Grace Poe is exploiting her persona as a foundling—someone with no family, home, or household, thus open for adoption by any or all parties or political movements or groups.

Banking on popularity to catapult them to the highest positions of leadership in our republic, they run as individuals on the platform of continuing an alleged “legacy” of Fernando Poe Jr.

What “legacy?” Fernando Poe’s movie fantasies? His binges with his beer-guzzling barkada? His non-connection with the social or political issues of his generation? Except for movie-making, the guy was never into serious undertakings, social, economic, or political.
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Fernando Poe was never a factor in government or movements of significance. He ran at the insistence of his friend Erap who needed badly to have someone in Malacanang to restore him to respectability.

It’s this “barkada politics” that sinks our system to the vortex of confusion and corruption, bastardizing the role of a party and the party system. What’s happening in Malacanang—and in our own City Hall— show how this kind of politics keeps our system immature and susceptible to manipulation by presumptuous individuals.

Senator Grace claims to be a graduate of political science and yet she belittles the basic role that a political party plays in a democracy, substituting fantasy and popularity in its place.

That a candidate should enter politics without a party, its essential framework, is a disservice to our society, preventing it from maturing as a polity. What she and Chiz are saying is they don’t need a team and an institutional framework for their administration if they win. They can govern all by themselves.
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In disregarding the necessity of a management team and teamwork in the bureaucracy, they show their political immaturity. There are thousands of positions to fill, thousands of issues and concerns that need to be addressed, and thousands of groups and communities to mobilize.

During the campaign, a party helps organize activities, mobilize people, generate positions on issues, and manages public appearances. It simplifies processes for a candidate, for an administration, and for society in constant need of clear issues and platforms.

But they seem determined to carry on as a two-person team aided by families, friends, and sycophants. Our party system will never stabilize or mature with such immature politicians.

(Manny Valdehuesa is PPI-Unicef outstanding columnist awardee, author of books on governance, and national chairman/convenor of the Gising Barangay Movement Inc..

E-mail: valdehuesa@gmail.com)