METRO CORNER
By ERIK ESPINA
Erik Espina
When a theoretical construct of European origin disjointed from domestic experience and historical reality, is politically injected by presidential fiat with the cooperation of a House Speaker, chances are it is bound to fail. As if the multi-party and party-list system was not tragic enough, as introduced in -- 1987 “yellow” Constitution -- the trashing of RA 1700 Anti-Subversion Law opened the floodgates for the legalization of communist sectors under the National Democratic Front, shoe-horned into the current party-list scheme.
Opening the Congress to the Reds, they thought, would encourage them to lay down their arms and join the political struggle.
Sufficient historiography from the era of Ramon Magsaysay Sr., Ferdinand Marcos, and later, Erap Estrada, shows this was not a policy direction we should have adopted. Knowledge of the cathartic ideology of communism is a basic in Sun Tzu’s “know the enemy.” Today law and order, is flouted by militant labor, farmer, youth, women, etc., party-lists. They remain the unmitigated threat to our democracy, hiding behind the cloak of legal struggle with our government paying their salaries, offices, and multi-million-peso projects to favor suspected armed alliances. The multi-party system created a climate of diminished majorities most significantly in the election of presidents and senators.
With reported 200-plus parties in existence, the cauldron for more confusion, fratricidal dis-unity, plurality of mandates, etc., is evident. The worse kind being the death of what was a seminal-evolution of principled alliances, consensus building, and vetting of brilliant and capable candidates in the time capsule of the Nationalista and Liberal parties. This was a defined and disciplined political structure, a working system, tinkered with by men who thought they were better.
P.S. I will be taking a Sabbatical up to May 15 see you all by then.