The party’s over

"Parties die; parties hibernate; parties resurrect; new parties bloom, better, sprout."

Remember the song? “The party’s over; it’s time to call it a day. They’ve burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away.”

 The sad and short stories of our post-Marcos political parties, or even those resurrected from near oblivion after the Edsa revolt—they all litter the scene.

Even before Ninoy Aquino died, the Laurels, principally former Senator and Batasang Pambansa member Salvador H. Laurel, popularly called Doy, began the tedious process of organizing an opposition aggroupment, initially getting leaders of the pre-martial law Nacionalista and Liberal parties to unite. It was difficult, but somehow we managed to come up with a credible group of political figures from all over the country who joined the United Nationalist Democratic  Organization (UNIDO).

Then Ninoy Aquino returned from exile in the United States.  Originally set for Aug. 7, 1983, the homecoming was moved to the 21st for security reasons.

And then, at half past one in the afternoon of Aug. 21, alighting from a China Airlines plane from Taipei, Ninoy was shot at the tarmac, resulting in the accident of fate that eventually pushed Cory Aquino to become the country’s first woman president in 1986.

In the aftermath of Ninoy’s death, the opposition swelled, such that when Marcos called for fresh elections to the Batasang Pambansa, 60 candidates who ran under the UNIDO party banner won out of 180, fully a third of the legislators.

And when UNIDO chairman Doy Laurel gave way to the clamor for Cory to fight Marcos in the snap elections of Feb. 8, 1986, running instead as her vice president, the tandem ran under the banner of Doy’s UNIDO.

But by 1987, after a new Constitution was ratified and new elections called, UNIDO was already hollowed out, when the same politicians who congregated almost daily at the Laurel residence in Shaw Boulevard during the twilight of the dictator’s rule, had already deserted UNIDO and joined Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), the new party which was seen as Cory Aquino’s real political vehicle.

Even Nene Pimentel’s Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino (PDP), which managed to present a rather solid opposition front in Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental in 1980 before the Aquino assassination, was folded into the LDP, with the founding father seeing his party hollowed out by the political monolith similar to Marcos’ KBL that was run de facto by Peping Cojuangco, Cory’s brother.

In the crucial elections of 1992, the factions which “united” against Marcos became dis-united, each running their own candidates.  Monching Mitra was the LDP candidate; Jovito Salonga, the Liberal Party candidate, in tandem with PDP’s Nene Pimentel; Doy Laurel under the Nacionalista Party; Ambassador Danding Cojuangco, through a newly organized party, the Nationalist People’s Coalition, taken like a rib out of the NP; Imelda Marcos using their KBL; Miriam Defensor Santiago with a newly-formed People’s Reform Party; and Fidel V. Ramos, forming Lakas with six congressmen who bolted Monching-Peping LDP.  The political vehicle of the 1986 snap elections, UNIDO, was extinguished.

Come 1998, Estrada won using his own political party, Partido ng Masang Pilipino, which we coalesced into the LAMMP, after getting Ed Angara as his running-mate, and the support of Danding’s NPC.

LAMMP stood for Laban ng Makabayang Masang Pilipino.  Go figure how we amalgamated LDP and NPC along PMP.  After Erap won the presidency, everyone and his mother coalesced with or joined LAMMP.  For two and a half years before Chavit “burst” Erap’s “balloon.”

Lakas-Kampi became the new “party in power” after Erap’s fall in early 2001. Lakas which was FVR’s (and Joe de Venecia’s) party and Kampi, which GMA originally formed with Tito Sotto when they were planning to run in 1998. 

Meanwhile, the splinters re-grouped: Manny Villar was bequeathed the Nacionalista Party by a dying Doy Laurel; the Liberals became stronger because they supported GMA in the Erap take-over, and when they broke off at the Hyatt Hotel after the Hello Garci scandal, they became the voice of the opposition.  PMP was revived by Erap, back to a family and few friends political vehicle; NPC remained steadfast as Danding Cojuangco’s Balete Drive confidantes, more interested in local and congressional fights and not the presidential contests.

In 2010, after Cory’s death in August of 2009, the presidential contest shaped up into a battle of personalities using different political banners as basically personal vehicles:  LP’s Noynoy Aquino; NP’s Manny Villar; Erap’s PMP; Gilbert Teodoro’s Lakas, as GMA’s candidate.

When Noynoy triumphed, everybody turned Liberal, outnumbering the original “yellows”.

Jojo Binay, who won as vice-president, revived the PDP which a retiring Nene Pimentel entrusted to him, later folding it into an UNA coalition for the mid-term elections of 2013, returning the PDP this time to Nene’s son, Koko. 

Then came 2016:  Mar Roxas wore the colors of the LP;  Binay used his UNA; Miriam revived PRP, with Bongbong Marcos as her veep, an NP; while Grace Poe as an  independent with her team-mate Chiz Escudero of the NPC; and Rodrigo Roa Duterte using PDP by substituting at the last minute for their Martin Dino, with NP’s Alan Cayetano as running mate.

So after June 30, 2016, PDP, which used to be a motley group headed by the father and son team of Nene and Koko Pimentel became “the” political party, enlarged especially when Bebot Alvarez became Speaker of the House.

To cut short the narratives of the internal political conflicts prior to and during the mid-term elections this year, PDP still emerged as “the” party, with some 85 or so members in the House, and four members in the Senate, plus a huge number of local officials.

The other day, it was announced that the president’s son, Rep. Paolo Duterte has aligned with the National Unity Party (NUP), an aggroupment that started with the original Kampi stalwarts of GMA harkening to the call of businessman Enrique Razon and former DILG Sec. Ronnie Puno.  It was further reported that Paolo was or would be joined by some 25 or 30 more “disgruntled” PDP congressmen into the NUP.

As we finish this article, the breaking news is about Cavite’s Rep. Pidi Barzaga replacing Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro as NUP president, and the elevation of Manila Mayor Isko Moreno as Vice President.

 Is NUP now the new “in-thing” in Philippine politics?  What will happen to the PDP? How much more fat must PDP shed? Is the Villar-led NP preparing for 2022?  What about the NPC?

Will it engage itself in the presidential politics two years hence? And the Liberals, after the Otso Diretso debacle?  Quo vadis is a question you could ask of every group that styles itself as a party in our politics.

Parties die; parties hibernate; parties resurrect; new parties bloom, better, sprout… like mushrooms after a torrent of rainfall from the detritus of the fallen.