EDITORIAL - The difference is the same

 Just a few short decades ago, you cannot put the Liberal Party and the Nacionalista Party on the same stage, much less on the same ticket. In those few short decades ago the American two-party system was very much a swirl in the political veins of the Filipino.

Then martial law happened and a dictatorship ensued. To thwart any opposition and make everybody happy, at least on paper or wherever alliances of convenience are written, a single humongous party — KBL — was created to swallow up everyone but the most hard-nosed oppositor.

But the “good times” never last. The dictatorship fell and the dictator fled. In its place came a new government determined to be the exact opposite of what it replaced. Among other things it felt it had to swing the other way was in the matter of party politics.

Thus the multi-party system was born. Where once there was one (KBL), now there were many with more coming, depending on the birth of the next inspiring message to weave into an acronym. But the Filipino never stops when in the groove. The party-list system introduced even more.

Including the party-list system, which claims to represent the entire human creation — from toothless fairies to people with hairy nostrils — there must now be dozens upon dozens of political parties in the Philippines.

But with no distinct platforms other than the promise to help the motherland, all have become so indistinguishable that the inevitable had to happen. Parties no longer shunned one another. Instead they have banded together.

Not in the manner of the KBL where there was only one humongous party, bound by at least a common goal (to thwart any opposition and make everyone happy, remember?) but an amalgam of many distinct and different parties driven to a common commonality of ambition and greed.

As parties and what they stood for got compromised, out the window flew character. When Teddy Casiño of the leftist Bayan Muna ran in the rain to invite attention to his senatorial bid, you knew exactly what this article is talking about. Napakatuwid na ng daang tinahak ng lahat.