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Political Party Stability and Performance in the Philippines
The document discusses the performance and stability of political parties in the Philippines. Mainstream parties like the Liberal Party and Lakas have high levels of organizational performance but lack autonomy and coherence. They maintain the traditional political order which is elitist, patronage-based and personality-oriented. Non-mainstream parties like Akbayan and Bayan Muna have stronger ideological tendencies and links to society but weaker organizations. The political system and culture in the Philippines hinders the development of programmatic and institutionalized parties.
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Political Party Stability and Performance in the Philippines
- 1. Political Party Performancein the Philippines Stability and
- 2. supposed to servethe purpose of interest aggregation , leadership formation and candidate-selection However, in some countries like the Philippines, parties have largely been a mechanism to facilitate patronage and personality-oriented politics. political parties
- 3. partiespolitical Because of its weaknesses, the party system has failed to offer meaningful policy choices—and so to provide for orderly change. (Almonte, 2007) Philippine-style democracy provides a convenient system by which power can be rotated at the top without effective participation of those below. (Hutchcroft & Rocamora, 2003)
- 4. Why are PoliticalParties MAL-DEVELOPED? 2. (Timberman 1991; Lande 1965; Aceron, et.al. 2009) 1. 3. 4. The weak linkage of political parties to citizens .
- 5. Country Report PHILIPIINESBaseline the organizational performance and stability of selected political parties. Comparative points to elucidate on the overall picture of party performance of selected political parties. Key informant interviews Analysis of official party documents Review of literature Media monitoring
- 6.   ShortParty History Institutionalization Raison d’etre, philosophy, ideology, program Important leaders and their main contribution Management of the party, including finances Target Groups and Main Support Groups Among Voter Main campaign strategies and why they have been successful or not Coalition capability of the party International relations, membership in a political family Main contributions to the nation’s progress inclusion of women and youth in the party Specific features of political culture Role in reform projects to develop the political system Candidate selection within the party Public Relations and general image National comparison Regional comparison   tool
- 7. Organizational Level Management& Finance Democratizing Practices External Relations Performance Coalitional capability Effectiveness of Strategies Contributions to Nation’s Progress Track Record in Political Reform political culture Institutional-legal context Roots in society Autonomy Coherence Stability
- 8. Organizational Level Management& Finance Democratizing Practices External Relations Performance Coalitional capability Effectiveness of Strategies Contributions to Nation’s Progress Track Record in Political Reform political culture Institutional-legal context Roots in society Autonomy Coherence Stability
- 9. 1) a fewmembers holding elected posts in the government (in this case, only in party-list and local governments), 2) cannot field a complete slate in the national elections, but are with national prominence through advocacies and coalition-building, and 3) there is also perceived distinct ideological tendencies among these parties, at least in paper. 1) members in highest elected positions in the government, 2) they became once a majority party, and 3) normally, they field in almost a complete slate of national candidates in the elections mainstream non-mainstream
- 10.
- 11. political party governmentsystem electoral system party system political system History Ideology (Vision, Mission) Membership Leadership Management and finance Decision-making processes Political education and capability-building program Platform development Campaign strategy development Support base & public relations Candidate selection Accountability and disciplinary processes democracy presidential Plurality system multi-party system Party’s “Success” Indicators Contributions to nation’s progress Role in developing the political system Performance of standard/ generic functions Level of institutionalization Others winner-take-all system that does not encourage power-sharing the president becomes the center of gravity of political negotiations the institutions of power are accountable to the people
- 12.
- 13. clamor for anindependent republic reaction to the growing force of the CPP engage current political dispensation engage post-EDSA 1 democratic space fermentation of liberal ideas; manifestation of US influence
- 14. Linked to politicaland economic elites Linked to civil society and grassroots
- 15.
- 16. mainstream politicalparties temporary patronage-based during elections scattered efforts owing to reform-oriented leaders Link to society
- 17. Parties weak vis-a-vis political elites autonomy is hardly felt identity, direction and performance dependent on most famous members level of autonomy varies; there are efforts to party assert autonomy
- 18. How they selectcandidates And how they form coalitions Weak autonomy Boils down to candidates and personalities All the mainstream parties claim presence at the local level, but generally, they are only active during elections and are largely hinged on local candidates or member-politicians in the locality
- 19. Engagement/connection with CSOwho have governance advocacies and political reform agenda there are efforts to solidify and operationalize their ideology In terms of being programmatic prevailing political trend remains personality-oriented; diluted by political horse-trading provision of services directly to the poor seems consistent: economic liberty first before political rights
- 20. PARTY-SWITCHING: InstabilityCANNOT BE ABATED Unless serious structural change is introduced
- 21. 1998 1999 Numberof Votes and Seats of Non-Mainstream Parties 9 M votes 3.9 M votes 3.5 M votes Akbayan! Bayan Muna Election Votes Seats Votes Seats 1998 232, 376 1 2001 377,852 2 1,708,253 3 2004 852,473 3 1,203,305 3 2007 446,000 2 979,039 3 2010 1,057, 370 2 746,019 2
- 22. Dynamics interms of ideological tendencies Challenge: establish clear link between advocacies and tactics to grand ideological vision and goals Sustained connection to grassroots Integral to party’s operations and survival non-mainstream political parties weakness in translating their ideological resources to programmatic options that are politically palatable in electoral and governance arena. NO party-switching Only defections
- 23.
- 24. Management Has aheadquarters administered by the Director General with the Deputy Directors and a lean support staff. has the most progress in maintaining the basic org requirements Has a headquarters managed by the Secretary General with some staff. org structure and its efficacy is still hard to assess given their new structure after the recent merger Headquarters is adjunct to the office of Villar Foundation, without demarcation of responsibilities for staff. poorest organizational condition as they see no need for it
- 25.
- 26. Estimate: 2,000,000 cardbearing mems there is hardly any way this can be validated Estimate 100,000 to 150,000 it also lacks a more systematized accounting, as it does not also maintain a database More than 40,000 registered as of 2010 as evidenced by chapter rosters across the country Conservative Estimate: 10,000 changes at an undetermined rate due to the fluidity of party loyalty amongst its members Membership
- 27. Finance For theNacionalista Party, finance is known to depend on Party President Manuel Villar’s largesse.
- 28. Finance Funding fornon-mainstream parties is also a problem, which they address by collaborating with affiliate NGOs and international partners This however is no without problem because of lack of consistency and problems on sustainability.
- 29. Membership Fees LPwas able to make arrangements with the salary system of its elected members in Congress where contributions are automatically deducted somehow successful in getting support, but efficiency of the scheme is still unknown collects fees from members occupying national seats while the local chapters are left to collect fees from their local members collection is hardly enforced
- 30. largely relies onits local chapters to implement their own schemes in charging and collection dues by-laws prescribes a minimal annual membership dues determined according to financial capacity of its members, which are to be collected from the local chapters Membership Fees collected fees are harldy substantial to fund party operations this is not strictly enforced as well
- 31. Decision-making processes Evenif they have officers, these positions are vague and have no clear-cut definitions; primarily ad-hoc.
- 32. Decision-making processes Membersat the barrio level is organized into Municipal and City Chapters. Municipal and City Chapters are represented in the highest governing body of the party called the National Convention, which meets every 3 years or as decided upon by the National Council. The National Council elects the National Executive Committee. National Congress (held every 3 years) is composed of the party leadership and representatives from local branches. Top officials can only be elected by the National Congress. The National Executive Council is formed through the National Congress, with the election of 7 representatives per geographical region, 5 representatives for the National Capital Region, 8 sectoral representatives, 3 representatives from locally-elected members, 1 party ombudsman/arbiter, and all their elected representatives in Congress.
- 33. Accountability Mechanisms The LP and Lakas Constitution provides for specific disciplinary actions and procedures for removing or suspending officials on certain grounds. The party members’ dependence on Villar serve as an informal mechanism for control. The party itself claims that it recognizes the autonomy of its member politicians in making decisions. Akbayan’s strong social movements pressures leaders to account on the agenda agreed upon by the parties. Bayan Muna also has records of sanctioning some members who violated rules, although such incidents were rather isolated, which the party attributes to their strong disciplinary mechanisms.
- 34. to be acandidate of Nacionalista Party’s, one must already have had a solid, personally-built base in one’s locality. Capacity building seminars of Lakas are usually given to position-bearing members or running candidates Bayan Muna highlights Track Record An incentive for members in Akbayan party to internally organize is proportional representation Majority of the 46 parliamentary seats won by LP in the 2010 elections were won by entrenched political families Mainstream Parties focus on resources and Winnability in Candidate Selection Non-Mainstreaam Parties have Democratic Process but Shallow Pool of Leaders
- 35. YOUTH in theParty
- 36. Nacionalista Party doesnot have an automatic representation of women in its organizational structure. Women in the Party Akbayan is the only party that ensures automatic allocation of seats to women, 30% of seats, in all structures and bodies of the party. Bayan Muna has an affiliate women group, Gabriela. The Liberal Party and Lakas, recognizes the need to work more on women participation in the party and in politics as a whole.
- 37.
- 38. Relating with thePublic Mainstream parties are catch-all in scope and are therefore not specifically catering to certain sectors or segments of the population based on a program. Non-mainstream cannot be classified as catch-all parties, owing to their ideological underpinning and program There is no indication that the votes garnered by the candidates are consisting of the base of supporters of the mainstream political parties Campaign strategies remain personality-based and are more often just about packaging the party candidate, since hardly does the electoral respond to party-based campaigning
- 39. Relating with thePublic Senatorial Elections Results for 2010: Highest and Lowest /Party LP Candidates Lakas Candidates Parties/Elections ’ 98 ’ 04 ’ 10 NP President Candidate - GMA 12,905,808 Manny Villar 5,573,835 LP President Candidate Alfredo Lim 2,344,362 GMA 12,905,808 Noy Aquino 15,208,678 Lakas-Kampi-NUCD JoeDV 4,268,483 GMA 12,905,808 Gibo Teordoro 4,095,839
- 40. Campaign Strategies Strategiesthat the parties employ during elections are largely personality-oriented Even the non-mainstream in the 2010 elections had to contend with personality-oriented brand of politics in the Philippines Weak Coalitional Politics
- 41. Contribution to Nation’sProgress & Track Record on Party Reform There are hardly any significant advocacies won by the mainstream parties as a party Non-mainstream parties have many advocacies that are party-driven CARPER Cheaper Medicines Peace Human Rights
- 42. Contribution to Nation’sProgress & Track Record on Party Reform Liberal and Lakas, however, were observed to have stronger drive towards reforms than Nacionalista that only sees political reform possible with economic liberty Party Reform Bill Proponents Charter Change Local Government Code of 1992 Akbayan consistently supported but w/ less fervor BM: reform proposals not solving the problem 2 out of 42 Bills passed
- 43. Contribution to Nation’sProgress & Track Record on Party Reform Patronage politics is accepted as a norm in some parties Non mainstream parties consciously veer away from patronage politics but are not free from it
- 44. Contribution to Nation’sProgress & Track Record on Party Reform The political system that is present in the Philippines and its resilience to change, can be attributed to mainstream political parties, especially to the two oldest parties Post Martial Law Reforms Decentralization Policy Party-list System Comprehensive Agrarian Reforms Program National Anti-Poverty Commission Breaking of economic monopolies
- 45.
- 46. non-mainstream politicalparties presence of strong party-based politics autonomy coherence link to society organization
- 47. mainstream politicalparties autonomy coherence link to society organization Scattered efforts of leaders (LP & Lakas) Absence of conducive institutional-legal framework and prevailing political culture which hinders efforts
- 48. mainstream political partiesTraditional Political Order elitist patronage-based personality-oriented Establish Maintain
- 49. bright spots MAXIMIZEpolicy advocacy build support constituency cross-party dialogue
- 50.
Editor's Notes
- #3Â The role of political parties in making democracy work is well-discoursed and, at least in theory, is also well-accepted. In the Philippines, much of the studies on political parties discuss how the lack of functioning political parties and under-developed or mal-developed party system weakens democratic practice.
- #4Â Studies on political parties have established the negative impact of wrongly-developed and underperforming political parties on democratization.
- #5Â Other Philippine literature on political parties focus on explaining mal-development and under-performance of political parties giving reasons such as the lack of conducive legal-institutional framework, the weak linkage between parties and citizens and prevailing political culture.
- #6 There is very little attention given to how exactly political parties operate organizationally. The generally-accepted notion that parties are underperforming or non-performing implies weak organizational life; hence, the futility of studying them.  The study conducted by the Political Democracy and Reforms Team of Ateneo School of Government aims to baseline the organizational performance and stability of selected political parties in the Philippines. From the parties’ profiles, we extract some comparative points that allowed elucidating on the overall picture of party performance and stability in the Philippines.  Key informant interviews were conducted with representatives of the party. Official party documents were analyzed, related literature reviewed and up to some extent actual party functions were observed.
- #7Â The research and data-gathering tool used was based on the research design of Dr. Wolfgang Sachsenroeder for the regional study on Party Stability and Party Performance in Southeast Asia, which the study is part of.
- #8Â The diagram shown organizes and synthesizes the relationship of variables that were studied for this research. It is designed inductively from the findings on the five parties profiled.
- #9 The political party’s roots in society determine its autonomy from personality or particularistic capture, which in turn determines its level of coherence. These three factors constitute the level of stability of political parties, which affects (and is affected by) the organizational level of political parties. This includes the parties’ management and finance, democratizing/ democratic practices and relating with the public. Both the stability and organizational level determine the performance of a political party: its coalitional capability, the effectiveness of its strategies, contribution to nation’s progress and track record in political reform.
- #10Â There are five parties profiled selected purposively. The parties are combination of what are perceived as mainstream or major and non-mainstream parties. In selecting samples from the mainstream, the common knowledge that mainstream parties hardly have any organizational processes or structures became the take off point. Hence, alternative parties that are assumed to espouse a counterculture among political parties (if common knowledge applies) were included. Â In selecting which of the mainstream and non-mainstream parties were sampled, access to data and respondents in a short period of time for the research (Mar 2010-January 2011) became the basis, hence prior engagement of the research team was critical. While the focus is the operations of the parties from the period covered or during the 2010 elections, party history was also reviewed, particularly focusing on performance from 1998 to 2010 elections. Â
- #11Â [The parties profiled]
- #12 In looking at the organizational performance and stability of parties, it is very critical to underscore that parties do not operate in a vacuum. Political parties operate in a politico-institutional context that affects their performance and is affected by their performance and operations.   [click] The Philippines has a plurality electoral system in a multi-party system. It’s a winner-take-all system that does not encourage power-sharing and hence affects party politics, for the losing party, even with a substantial number of votes garnered, will not have a share in governance. The only course is for its members to switch parties. Party coalition is highly unlikely between fierce competitors because the winner-take-all environment usually brings out the worst in political competition.  [click] We also have a very powerful presidency that could undermine checks and balance. The immense power of the presidency, especially in a personality-oriented political culture, does not facilitate party politics as the president becomes the center of gravity of political negotiations. This partly explains why all jumps to the president’s party every after elections, totally undermining party-based politics.  [click] The Philippines is a democratic state, which means that the institutions of power are accountable to the people and are expected to advance democracy. However, generally, the Philippines has been described as elite democracy. Â
- #13Â Looking at the five parties profiled, what is the level of organization, state of stability and performance of political parties in the Philippines?
- #14Â Historical underpinnings served as catalysts for the establishment of the political parties profiled, which situates them as historical agents that are or were supposed to play a role in Philippine politics and society.
- #15Â While the parties clearly are historically rooted, they differ in terms of their link to society, with the mainstream parties largely linked to the economic and political elites of society and the non-mainstream being more linked to grassroots and civil society.
- #16Â The elitist composition of the mainstream parties is one of the strongest reasons for their stability and endurance in terms of electoral victory. Â The irony is, the frequent party-switching among these same elites as well as inter-elite bickering are also reasons for instability of the mainstream parties.
- #17Â The link of mainstream parties to society and grassroots hardly exists, with temporary patronage-based engagement happening only during elections when the parties try to mobilize the populace to vote. However, it is significant to note that in recent years, owing to reform-oriented leaders, there are efforts of some mainstream parties to somehow create that party link to civil society.
- #18Â With the political elites as their main base, with lack of State support and unsuccessful membership fee collection, the institutional capacity of the party vis-Ă -vis the political elites that comprise them is weak. Autonomy of the party from personalities and even particularistic demands is hardly felt. Often than not, the identity, direction and performance of the mainstream parties are dependent on their most famous members. Â It is important to highlight, though, that the level of autonomy of the mainstream parties varies. One party seems to have accepted, as a norm, being dependent on the party standard bearer; while the others, owing again mainly to selected reform-oriented leaders, show efforts to assert party autonomy from personalities or to defy being captured by one or few personalities.
- #19Â One manifestation of the weak autonomy of mainstream parties is how they select their candidates and how they form coalitions. It almost always boils down to the candidates and personalities. Especially if the party has a presidential candidate or has won a presidential election, this serves as a magnetic force that attracts all sorts of coalitional possibilities. Although, there is a varying degree of appreciation and practice in terms of selecting candidates through party mechanisms. Â [click] All the mainstream parties claim presence at the local level, but generally, they are only active during elections and are largely hinged on local candidates or member-politicians in the locality.
- #20Â In terms of being programmatic, there have been efforts by mainstream parties to proclaim, solidify and operationalize their ideology. There is something worth considering as significant in these efforts if one would look at the work of some party leaders through partner civil society organizations or think tanks like National Institute for Policy Studies for Liberal and Centrist Institute for Lakas. Â While there have been efforts, the prevailing trend remains personality-oriented and hardly programmatic. Political maneuvering and dynamics of other key actors who are largely traditional for some parties further dilutes the ideology or programs of the parties. Â On the other hand, while one of the parties veered away from defining its ideological persuasion, its behaviors in recent elections and at present of providing services directly to the poor would seem consistent on an arguably ideological premise that there is a need for economic liberty first before political rights can be pursued.
- #21Â In terms of membership coherence, there is hardly any sign that party-switching practices will change among mainstream parties. Party leaders, even those working to strengthen party politics, have seemingly resigned to the fact that unless serious structural changes in the political system are introduced, party-switching cannot be abated.
- #22Â The non-mainstream parties are relatively young and hence are comparatively weaker in stability and endurance (as electoral political parties) compared to the mainstream parties. Â However, as an indicative of the stability of non-mainstream parties, Akbayan and Bayan Muna have been two of the strongest contenders in the PLS, consistently winning seats and gaining votes. They even got to field-in senatorial candidates in the 2010 elections, where one got 9M votes that can be turned in a national constituency. Â
- #23 While the non-mainstream parties are far less stable compared to the mainstream parties in the electoral arena, their historical link to social movements would tender them old and explains the parties’ sustained connection to the grassroots and societal forces (NGOs, POs, CSOs), which seems integral to the parties’ operation and even survival. Their local chapters continue to play roles in the party even beyond elections and for programmatic activities. Because the non-mainstream parties are mass-based with strong link to society, their particularistic capture is not a threat. However, the dynamics within these parties would be in terms of ideological tendencies, with one ideological tendency sometimes “capturing” the direction of the party, which is not necessarily good for the party.  On ideological coherence, the non-mainstream parties seem to be more particular in being programmatic or ideological, although the latter description seems avoided by both because of its negative connotation. However, there is an apparent weakness for the non-mainstream parties to translate their ideological resources to programmatic options that are politically palatable in electoral and governance arena.  There is also the challenge among non-mainstream parties to establish a clear link between their specific and focused advocacies and political tactics to their grand ideological vision and goals.  No party-switching incidents among the members of the non-mainstream parties have been documented. But there have been defections in one non-mainstream parties while several more party-list groups spun off from the other. Â
- #24Â In general, there is a stark difference between the mainstream parties and non-mainstream parties in the aspect of organizational life. The non-mainstream parties can be said to have a healthy organizational processes, with their success dependent on the strength of their party organizational operations. Â
- #25Â In terms of the following: structure of organization/command structure, full time staff and offices, activities between elections, all the mainstream parties exert effort to comply with varying degree. The non-mainstream parties have functional offices and headquarters and organizational structure.
- #27 In terms of membership, all recognize the difficulty of maintaining a reliable database. Especially for mainstream parties, there is an influx of members during elections, who become hardly visible after elections. There is an account for how many are card-carrying members, but this is hardly indicative of the party’s organizational strength due to lack of requirements imposed upon card-carrying members and the poor documentation and recording of the party with no validation done whatsoever. A citizen can join or leave a party on his/ her own accord, hence the party cannot oblige strict membership requirements.
- #28Â The mainstream parties rely on their member politicians for financing, which as earlier mentioned, is affecting their autonomy.
- #29Â Funding for non-mainstream parties is also a problem, which they address by collaborating with affiliate NGOs and international partners, which confronts the problem of sustainability.
- #30Â Collecting membership fee is proven to be ineffective in all the parties, though they all tried to implement it employing different strategies with varying level of success.
- #32Â Now we look at democratizing practices There are mechanisms for party-based decision-making and command structures in some of the mainstream parties, but it remains a challenge to make these mechanisms fully operational and effective.
- #33Â The non-mainstream parties have more functional and effective decision-making mechanisms that are linked up to the grassroots. Â Among all the parties, only one of the non-mainstream party has a clear and verifiable record of regularly convening its highest decision-making body that elects its highest officials and determines its party mandate.
- #34Â All parties, except for one mainstream party, have clear rules and guidelines on making their leaders and elected members accountable. However, the effective of these mechanisms is limited to being reactionary to rare extreme cases like that on the Ampatuans in the case of Lakas. There is no proactive and consistent practice of accountability. Â The non-mainstream parties have very strong track record in ensuring that the rules and processes of the parties are followed and agreements of the parties are pursued. Â Financial transparency and accountability is a problem for all the parties. There seems to be no strong demand for parties to make their campaign and organizational financing transparent and accountable, with documents on this being hardly accessible.
- #35Â Upward mobility among members in the mainstream parties is hardly likely. It is usually those with resources that get elected. Â Some level of upward mobility among members is observed in the non-mainstream parties, with the democratic processes inside the party allowing those from below to be leaders. For both parties, the replacement of the top three party-list representatives has been slow and would usually come from the middle class or are educated. The party also has very little capacity to support the candidacies of members, especially at the local level.
- #36Â All the parties give importance to youth participation in the party with all of them having their respective youth arms and youth-targeted strategies and activities. Although among the parties, the youth wings of Akbayan, Liberal and Bayan were observed to be consistently active even beyond elections. How much they weigh in the decision-making of the party remains a question. Only one non-mainstream party has an automatically allocated seat for its youth representative in its executive body.
- #37Â Â Women participation is also viewed important by all parties, but they vary in terms of how they assess the level of marginalization women experience and the depth of their gender lens, hence differ in the kind of preferential treatment provided to women. Only one non-mainstream party has a mandatory 30% allocated seat for women.
- #39Â By and large, the mainstream parties are catch-all in scope and are therefore not specifically catering to certain sectors or segments of the population based on a program. The non-mainstream cannot be classified as catch-all parties, owing to their ideological underpinning and program, but they seem to project a catch-all image to attract more supporters and voters.
- #40Â If we look at both the result of presidential and senatorial elections, there is no indication that the votes garnered by the candidates are consisting of the base of supporters of the parties. In all likelihood, electoral results were largely based on the candidates and not the parties. This is clearly shown in the senatorial race where there is a big gap in the ranking of senatorial candidates running for the same political party. Â
- #41Â Hardly do parties figure in campaign strategies, which remain personality-based and are more often just about packaging the party candidate, since hardly does the electoral respond to party-based campaigning. This makes it unnecessary for mainstream parties to differentiate themselves. Â Party differentiation is more crucial for the non-mainstream parties. However, even between the two non-mainstream parties covered by this study, differentiation seems to be a constant challenge. Â Coalitional politics among parties is weak and only happens during elections to support certain candidates and thus are not done in pushing for specific.
- #42 What can be considered success of the mainstream parties were those done by their candidates. There are hardly any significant advocacies won by the mainstream parties as a party. There are a few advocacies related to or are claimed to be linked to the parties, but party politics as the driving force of these advocacies is hard to establish. If the policies are any indication, the agenda pushed by parties are agenda of the member personalities and hardly the party’s.  Non-mainstream parties have many advocacies that are party-driven, but there were very little successes to be proud about.
- #43Â Liberal and Lakas were observed to have stronger drive towards political reform. Nacionalista only sees political reform possible with economic liberty. Akbayan has consistently supported electoral and party reform agenda, but with less fervor compared to its social justice agenda. Bayan Muna has consistently stomped on electoral and party reform proposals branding them as not solving the real problems.
- #44Â Strategies that the parties employ during elections are largely personality-oriented. Parties fielded in candidates that were already popular or nationally prominent and the campaigns largely revolved around the personalities. Even the non-mainstream in the 2010 elections had to contend with personality-oriented brand of politics. Â There is a varying degree of use of patronage-based politics during and after elections, with some of the parties accepting this as a norm that must be employed. The non-mainstream consciously veered away from patronage-based politics, but its coalitional politics seems not free from it.
- #45Â In sum, by and large, with the political elites as their main constituency, the political traditional system that is present in the Philippines and its resilience to change, can be attributed to mainstream political parties, especially to the two oldest parties. Â Interestingly, the combination of Akbayan, the reform drivers of LP and the leadership from Lakas (Ramos) must be credited for the critical reforms after Martial Law, such as the decentralization policy, the Party-List System, CARP, the establishment of the National Ant-Poverty Commission (NAPC) and the breaking of economic monopolies, like the telecommunication industries.
- #46Â To say that parties in the Philippines do not function as real political parties organizationally is a gross generalization and may no longer be true now.
- #47Â Strong party politics with autonomy, coherence, link to society and organization is seen in non-mainstream political parties, but cannot be considered effective yet in achieving political goals. Â
- #48Â There are scattered efforts by leaders within mainstream parties (Liberal and Lakas) to modernize and be full-fledged political parties organizationally/ institutionally and build coherence, link to society and autonomy, but like the non-mainstream, the absence of a conducive institutional-legal framework and the prevailing political culture do not help in facilitating the efforts.
- #49Â Performance of mainstream parties historically has largely been towards establishing and maintaining the traditional political order (elitist, patronage-based, personality-oriented) and only recently that some mainstream parties are putting reform content to their political engagement.
- #50Â These bright spots for reforms within parties, which is largely due to leadership action of a few reform-oriented leaders, can be maximized to enhance the effectiveness of efforts to strengthen and reform the party system in the Philippines, which has been a long-standing political reform agenda of advocates and progressives. Building a support constituency around this leadership action, linking up the efforts through cross-party dialogues and policy advocacy on legal infrastructure supporting party-based politics are some of the possible ways forward to improve the stability and performance of Philippine political parties.