The country’s dominant political coalition—the Lakas-Kampi-CMD—faces disintegration as its leaders admit that up to 40 percent of its cadres have defected to join two minor parties, the Liberal Party (LP) and the Nacionalista Party (NP) that are staging a revival following their abolition by the Marcos dictatorship in 1972.

Should the defections turn into a landslide, the ruling coalition is in danger of following the fate of the “big bang” crash of the patronage-fed LDP (Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino), the political machine of then Speaker Ramon Mitra Jr. in the 1992 presidential election at the end of the term of President Corazon Aquino, who did not seek reelection.

This grim picture of the coalition’s prospects in the May 2010 elections was presented by Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, the party’s vice president for Mindanao, as the coalition proclaimed resigned Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. as its presidential candidate, and actor and TV host Eduardo “Edu” Manzano, as his running mate.

The proclamation at the Philippine International Convention Center on Thursday before 3,000 party faithful took a surreal color as President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo handed over the coalition’s chairmanship to Teodoro and urged the party faithful, “Let us transform the Lakas-Kampi-CMD Party of the present to become the party of the future.”

She said that party had been the dominant force in 15 of the last 17 years, with members comprising 72 percent of national and local officials. She said that since the merger of Lakas-CMD and Kampi (Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino) had been upheld by the Commission on Elections, it was “now time to consolidate our ranks and fortify our party for the electoral battle ahead.”

Ms Arroyo added: “Let us get them elected with as big a mandate as you our leaders in the countryside and urban centers can win from our people.”

Glaring cracks

As the President spoke, glaring cracks in the façade of the monolithic party structure appeared to throw doubt on the party’s invincibility and to expose the hollowness of its structure.

Former President Fidel Ramos, who founded Lakas as his political vehicle to win the 1992 presidential election, the first after the ratification of the 1987 Constitution, with a narrow margin of 24 percent, was conspicuously absent at the proclamation of the party’s presidential-vice presidential team.

The 1992 election was a benchmark for the introduction of the multiparty system as a backlash of the one-party regime to the Marcos dictatorship. Ramos had denounced the merger of Lakas with Kampi as an alliance that was dictated from the top and that did not represent a consensus among the party’s rank and file.

Last week, the coalition was rocked by high-profile defections to the LP of former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto, his wife Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos, Quezon City Mayor Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte, the party’s vice president for external affairs, and Caloocan Mayor Recom Echiverri.

Belmonte, one of the key supporters of the succession of former Vice President Arroyo to the presidency after the impeachment of President Joseph Estrada in 2001, left the majority coalition to support the presidential candidacy of Sen. Benigno Aquino III.

Belmonte is running for a congressional seat in Quezon City. He was one of congressmen who pushed the impeachment of Estrada in 2000. It is notable that the flow of the defection was away from the government party to the minor parties, but there were no crossovers from the LP to Sen. Manuel Villar’s NP, though both were beneficiaries of the desertions from the majority coalition.

Infirmities

In this election, the infirmities of the multiparty system established by the 1987 Constitution are being highlighted by the defections and realignments in the minor parties.

The LDP, the third biggest party headed by Sen. Edgardo Angara, last week decided to endorse the vice presidential candidacy of Sen. Loren Legarda, but withheld support for her presidential teammate, Senator Villar, president of the NP.

However, the LDP endorsed the candidacy of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada and Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Pia Cayetano, Ramon Revilla Jr., Lito Lapid and Richard Gordon.

An outstanding weakness of the multiparty system, whose viability is now under test in the 2010 election, has emerged: None of the parties, notably the ruling coalition, has presented a full ticket for the 12 vacant Senate positions. Even the Lakas-Kampi-CMD alliance cannot fill more than six seats.

Neither the LP, NP nor the LDP has a full lineup and all parties running presidential-vice presidential candidates have been forced to offer the same names in their respective tickets, giving rise to what may be called “jeepney coalitions,” with the parties acting as political conveyances to mixed passengers all going in the same destinations.

Polarization sharpens

This has become a distortion of the Philippine party system in a shambles as it appears to be going back to the pre-martial law two-party system as the polarization sharpens as the election draws closer. The parties have become a paradise for political turncoat recruitment.

But the case of Loren Legarda is an odd spot. She is a member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), not of Villar’s NP. She is not bringing the NPC with her to coalesce with the NP.

An odd man out is Sen. Francis Escudero, who declares himself nominally opposition but has withdrawn from the NPC. He abandoned his presidential ambitions, describing himself as “partyless.” He is toying with the idea of running for vice president, but in whose ticket?

The majority coalition labors under the deadweight of an unpopular presidency.

In 1992, when the multiparty democracy was first tried as a political experiment of a democracy in transition from dictatorship, Ramos had no political baggage from the outgoing Aquino administration. Indeed, he was endorsed by Aquino, who was a popular leader. That helped him a lot.

Today, Teodoro and Manzano have a heavy burden to bear with the legacy of the Arroyo administration. In this election, the dichotomy between the opposition and the government party is blurred.

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