Turncoats, defectors, butterflies

It was the first time to have Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III as guest in our Kapihan sa Manila Bay that we hold every Wednesday at the Cafe Adriatico along Remedios Circle in Malate. Actually, Pimentel first attended the Kapihan sa Manila Bay in March 2016 when he was still one of the ordinary Senators during the previous Congress.

At that time, Pimentel was already the president of the once rag-tag ranks of the PDP-Laban, which boldly fielded former Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte as presidential standard-bearer in the May 2016 elections.

As the administration of President Duterte turns two years old by June 30 this year, Pimentel placed the number of card-bearing PDP-Laban members at around 300,000 nationwide. During our breakfast forum the other day, Pimentel disclosed that more people are joining the PDP-Laban obviously because it is now the party in power. Pimentel, however, clarified the PDP-Laban national leadership will still sieve through the new members to eliminate those included in the “narco list” of President Duterte.

Nonetheless, it does not slow down the bandwagon of defectors and political butterflies going to the PDP-Laban.

Pimentel revealed to us that President Duterte furnished him a copy of his “narco list” to help him prevent anyone with links to illegal drugs trafficking and trade to make fast-break attempts to join the PDP-Laban ranks.

But for now, President Duterte reportedly has ordered Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) director general Aaron Aquino to release to the public, before the holding of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections on May 14, the “narco” list that purportedly included 211 incumbent barangay officials involved in the illegal drug trade. Hence the “narco list” given to the PDP-Laban presumably included only elected officials in national or local government.

According to Pimentel, the cleanup of their party membership will have to be completed before September this year when they plan to hold the PDP-Laban party convention. This is the ideal time, he cited, for the selection of their national and local candidates in the coming mid-term elections in May 2019.

At the national level, Pimentel is only too happy to report the PDP-Laban has earlier come up with a “long list” of probable senatorial ticket. The problem, he conceded, is how to whittle it down to a 12-man Senate ticket with so many qualified candidates in the ranks of the PDP-Laban and their allies from other political parties collectively called as “super majority” in the 17th Congress.

For starters, there are six out of seven re-electionist Senators in the “super majority” who, he said, really deserve to be included as administration-backed Senate candidate. Led by Pimentel himself, the five other Senators seeking reelection are Cynthia Villar (NP); Grace Poe (Independent); Sonny Angara (LDP); Nancy Binay (UNO); and Sen. JV Ejercito (PMP). The current opposition group led by the Liberal Party (LP) has Sen. Bam Aquino as their only re-electionist candidate.

As PDP-Laban president, Pimentel invokes the equity of the incumbent in choosing Sen. JV Ejercito over the latter’s comebacking half-brother ex-Sen. Jinggoy Estrada to be included in their Senate ticket. The estranged brothers are sons of former president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada.

Jinggoy is currently the president of the PMP, or Pwer-sa ng Masang Pilipino party of the Estradas.  Aside from the issue of political dynasty, Pimentel cited that the PDP-Laban frowns at having the brothers, who both belong to PMP, edge out others currently jockeying to get into the 12-man senatorial line-up to be endorsed by President Duterte.

Incidentally, Pimentel also mentioned ex-Mayor Alfredo Lim – who is eyeing to make a comeback bid at Manila City Hall – just joined the PDP-Laban ranks. Pimentel though clarified Lim’s PDP-Laban membership does not automatically mean the latter would be the Duterte’s administration mayoral bet to run against the re-election bid of Mayor Estrada.

Mayor Estrada who turned 81 years old last week earlier beat Lim in the past two mayoral races. On the other hand, jumping to the PDP-Laban is not a first time for the 87-year-old Lim. The last time he run but lost to Estrada, Lim was with LP. Lim also once belonged to the People’s Reform Party when he first run and won as Mayor of Manila.

Mayor Estrada also once belonged to LP when he became Senator in 1987. But in 1991, he broke off from LP and formed his own PMP.                               

Instituting the multi-party system is one of the criticisms raised against the country’s 1987 Constitution as this brought about the spectacle of constant changing and shifting of party affiliations among Filipino politicians. Given the instability of this multi-party system, Pimentel vows to ensure the PDP-Laban after President Duterte bows out office in June 2022 would not suffer the same fate that befell ruling parties before, like the LP.

The PDP-Laban president supports the strengthening of the political party system in our country’s democratic set-up. Pimentel noted with optimism that the Constitutional Commission (ConCom) organized early this year is now drafting proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution toward this direction.

The ConCom has reportedly agreed in principle to include “revolutionary provisions” that will ban politicians from switching political sides and to make the ban against political dynasty self-executing instead of waiting for Congress to pass an enabling law. The ConCom voted last week to prohibit “turncoatism,” which means banning members of a political party elected to a public office from changing parties during their term. The proposed anti-turncoatism provision would apply from president down to city councilors.

Turncoats, defectors, butterflies and their ilk uncannily are also the ones belonging to political dynasties in the Philippines. They have remained in power through these years. We may not see the end of them in the near future.