In the course of my long stay in Britain as a student, I developed a liking and respect for certain British traditions, practices and institutions. One of the traditions that I especially got to like was the tradition known as “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.”
Through most of its modern history the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – the UK for short – has been governed by two political parties, the Conservative (Tory) Party and the Labour Party, which have alternated at holding the levers of governmental power. The Liberal-Democratic Party (Lib-Dem) came into the picture towards the end of the 20th century, but Labour and the Conservatives have together accounted for almost the entire 528-person membership of Parliament.
The UK has a parliamentary system of government, and under that system a government may have its electoral mandate cut short by the approval of a motion of no-confidence. A general election then ensues. The governing party may win the election and have its mandate renewed, or the other party—known officially as Her (or His) Majesty’s Loyal Opposition—may be favored by the electorate and move into the driver’s seat at Westminster, where the Parliament is located.
What I like about the phrase Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is the word ‘loyal’. The members of Britain’s political parties know that their party will not win every election and that the party will then be out of office. Win or lose, in office or out, the members remain loyal to the party. When out of office, they remain with their party and Her (or His) Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. No member leaves the Parliamentary party except for policy differences or personal principles.
Nor is the concept of loyal opposition considered a trivial matter by the British political system. The salary of the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is an item in the budget for the Parliament.
What a contrast is presented by the aftermath of the recent election in this country. Indeed, the contrast could not be starker. In the election’s immediate aftermath the nation has seen the quick decimation of the Liberal Party, which had around 114 members and was the head of the pro-Aquino administration coalition prior to the election. Around 80 Liberal members of the House of Representatives have either formally joined the President-elect’s party, the Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban (PDP-Laban) or indicated an intention to enter into a coalition with that party. Two days ago the former Liberal Speaker of the House of Representatives and 17 other Liberal members of that chamber indicated that they would be entering into a coalition with PDP-Laban. With that move by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., the once-dominant Liberal Party has become very much a minority party.
In this country, there has not been a loyal opposition since 1972, when President Ferdinand Marcos installed a martial law regime. Up until then political dominance was contested by the two giant parties, to wit, the party of Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmena (Nacionalista Party) and the post-Commonwealth party founded by Manuel Roxas (Liberal Party). Though there was no deep philosophical division between the two parties, discipline did prevail, although there were occasional convenience-driven movements by certain members from one party to the other.
After the 12-year martial law regime that began in 1972, party discipline fell by the wayside and the era of naked political convenience-seeking began. Convenience took the form of access to the powers-that-be and to priority in the financing of local projects, especially those involving infrastructure. During the post-Edsa revolution heyday of Speaker Ramon Mitra it was LDP (Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino) that almost all the politicians wanted to join. When Fidel V. Ramos defeated Mitra in 1992, the incoming president’s Lakas-NUCD became the political magnet, and when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo elbowed Joseph Estrada out of Malacanang in 2001, it was the coalition between Lakas-NUCD and Arroyo’s Kampi that the mercenary political class gravitated to. More recently, a resuscitated Liberal Party became the honeycomb when PNoy Aquino ascended to Malacanang in 2010.
With no philosophical North Star to guide them, LDP, Lakas-NUCD, Kampi—and the martial law KBL before them – lost political favor upon their electoral loss, and now the Liberal Party is about to follow them to political decrepitude. Six years from today—or, who knows, sooner— PDP-Laban is bound to suffer that fate too.
The persistent pursuit of a political philosophy, or a firm set of political beliefs, was what led to the establishment in Britain of a tradition known as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. And the absence of a guiding political philosophy is what led to the development in this country of the practice of disloyal political opposition.
In the UK a united Labour Party headed by the State-paid Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition has been working, in united fashion, to bring down David Cameron’s Conservative government and dominate Parliament once more. In this country, by contrast, we have the spectacle of members of all the existing political parties ‘coalescing’ with the incoming administration in order to get as many scraps of budgetary food from Malacanang’s kitchen.
Very bad for this country’s political soul. Worse for its governance.
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com
