Cartoon By: Aaron Paul C. Caril
EDITORIAL
Has turncoatism become the new normal?
Under Article XII, Section 10 of the 1973
Constitution, no elective public officer may change
his political party affiliation during his term of office,
and no candidate for any elective public office may
change his political party affiliation within six months
immediately preceding or following an election.
Political turncoatism, guest candidacy, and
opportunism were then abhorred as pernicious
practices that must be eliminated from the Philippine
political system. To implement the above
constitutional provision, Presidential Decree No.
1661 was enacted on January 3, 1980 to uproot the
pernicious practice of political turncoatism and guest
candidacy. Under this decree, it was unlawful for
any registered or accredited political party to
nominate and/or support as its official candidate any
person belonging to another accredited or registered
party unless he has affiliated with the nominating
party within six months before the election.
PD No. 1661 was later amended by PD No. 1667
which provides that no elective public officer may
change his political party affiliation during his term
of office, and no candidate for any elective public
office may change his political party affiliation within
six months immediately preceding or following an
election.Several candidates for elective posts were
found guilty under the foregoing laws and were
disqualified from assuming their elective positions.
Unlike the 1973 Constitution which encourages
the growth and development of political parties’
distinct programs or platforms of government, the
1987 Charter encourages the formation of new
political parties as can be gleaned from its Article IX
(Constitutional Commissions), Section 6, Paragraph
C on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) which
reads: “A free and open party system shall be
allowed to evolve according to the free choice of the
people.”This new policy under the present
constitution has radically weakened the party system
in the country, paving the way for formerly strong
political parties to yield to personality politics. Never
mind what principles and programs a candidate has.
Winnability coupled withmassive campaign funds is
now the name of the game.
Barely a few days before the filing of the
Certificate of Candidacy set by COMELEC on October
1-8 this year, we have seen an exodus of political
butterfliesor candidates who can easily change the
colors of their attires so they can choose the most
flowery political party–normally that of the leading
candidates for the top two elective posts in the
country.
During the Fifteenth Congress, Senator Juan
Miguel F. Zubiri introduced a bill defining and
punishing political turncoats. The bill’s purpose is to
effectively curb the current rampant political party
switching. It would ensure that membership in
political parties will be relatively permanent, and the
advocacies, principles, and promises of these
government officials upon which their political party
is grounded can be expected, if not exact.
The bill, introduced by Senator Juan Miguel F.
Zubiri during the Fifteenth Congress, aimed to
define and punish political turncoats. Its purpose
was to effectively curb the rampant political party
switching and ensure that membership in political
parties would be relatively permanent. However, the
bill was never passed into law, not because Senator
Zubiri was wrong with his observation but possibly
because our democratic system has been corrupted
by what some scholars of political science refer to as
a political virus.