Once a respected political party founded by Aquilino Pimentel Jr., who, many times during the Martial Law and post-Marcos period, stood alongside known nationalists like Renato Constantino, Lorenzo M. Tañada, Alejandro Lichauco, Joaquin ‘Chino’ Roces, and other activists; today, the PDP-Laban has degenerated into a club of political dynasties and oligarchs.
According to friends, who are now senior members of PDP-Laban, the party is a progressive organization. It is rooted in the “masa” and the middle class, always critical of oligarchs, advocates for federalism, and struggle for the demands and interested of basic sectors.
Dan Alcoriza, a veteran of the party in the Western Visayas, who is tasked with providing political education among members, said they wanted to build the PDP-Laban as a “mass party of democrats and nationalists.”
“That’s why they always require candidate members to go through pre-membership activities, like completing party education, joining party circles, immersion with ‘basic masses’ in rural and urban poor areas, and undertake organizing and mobilization activities on various social issues,” he added.
However, Alcoriza said, in recent years, with the PDP-Laban under the leadership of Aquilino Pimentel III in the Senate and Pantaleon Alvarez in the House of Representatives, the party is making a major turn and becoming an elitist party of the oligarchs and political dynasties.
Veteran leaders and organizers have been marginalized and replaced by brokers, public relations specialists, demagogue politicians, and landed big business oligarchs.
In Negros, PDP-Laban is now ruled by old faces and cliques molded in feudal patronage politics; political figures who survived different administrations by betrayal and “turncoatism” by conveniently switching parties and affiliations.
With the ascendancy of former Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, PDP-Laban has taken a further plunge. Since it was a smaller and much-weakened party compared to others at the onset of the Duterte administration, the Pimentels and other party stalwarts forged new alliances in order to assert greater influence on the news administration and advance a reform agenda.
Their good intentions, however, did not yield a desirable result as instead of consolidating veterans and core leaders, with some new officials led by old oligarch and “trapo” politician Alvarez, they embarked on sweeping and borderless expansion, creating a so-called super majority bloc in Congress.
This super monster party of old and new oligarchs represent the main political dynasties ruling most of the provinces. Their chief is now a bullying everyone that crosses their path, hoping it will ingratiate himself with the president in order to get whatever he wants.
The bullying tactics of a degenerating party have started to backfire.
In Cebu and number of other provinces, the PDP-Laban has broken into factions squabbling for authority and influence. In Negros and Panay, the “masa” and the middle class, once a strong base for the party, are distancing themselves from a party now perceived as one for the elites and old oligarchs, which is bringing more problems for the Duterte administration.
Even worse is the open and harsh criticism of Alvarez by Davao City Mayor Sarah Duterte on his “bullying,” “arrogance,” “deception,” and “divisive leadership.”
The cracks have begun to show, which could lead to many more and may result in Duterte dislodging the speaker and building his own party.
Lessons from other party experiences show a party founded on hollow unity, political expediency, and anti-people and anti-democratic programs is bound to implode. This is what is happening with the PDP-Laban – unless well-meaning leaders like the senior Pimentel decisively expel Alvarez for unprofessionalism, opportunism, and demagoguery.
The change promised by the party and the administration are still far from being accomplished – as one blog aptly described it, “changescamming.”
Better watch for the PDP-Laban in your area to unfold or implode.
I encourage veterans, and new members sincere to the party’s platform, to make their voices heard and prevent it from becoming a “party of partidas and partidos.”
In addition, the Duterte campaigners and financiers who rode the PDP-Laban, and other campaign organizations, have already forgotten the “masa” and changed the platform they campaign on as they now have elevated positions in the administration. Meanwhile, the true party veterans have since been sidelined and marginalized by opportunists turned “born-again change reformers and federalists.”/WDJ