President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. believes that a political party should not merely be used for elections purposes but must stand for an ideology.
Marcos stated this as he sworn in the new members of the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) in Malacañang on Thursday, Aug. 24.
The President ran under this same party during his presidential bid in 2022.
With his landslide victory, Marcos said the party, which was a minority party in the political spectrum, has turned into the "majority party now in the country."
"And that is because not only for political convenience, not only to prepare for elections but because the true – there is an… I have always been of the belief that a party must stand for an ideology," Marcos said in his speech during the oath taking ceremony.
He stressed that without ideology, a political party will not prosper. Its members will end up going from one party to another, which, he said, has been happening in Philippine politics.
"[T]here has to be a central tenet and a central principle to what we are doing. And that is – we were talking here about federalism and what we have started to do," he said.
"So, we are doing the first step of the federation – federal government for the Philippines in all but name, and that is what we will continue to do," he added.
The Chief Executive pointed out that the stability of a political structure is "much more reliable" when it has many power centers, explaining that a party will easily fall if its power centers only belong in Manila.
He also reiterated that the call for unity he has been championing since the elections is "not a slogan" but the truth.
"Yun talaga ang magiging solusyon sa ating mga problema (That will be the solution to our problems)," he said.
The PFP was formally accredited by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in October 2018. Marcos stood as the party's standard-bearer during the 2022 national elections.