Clientelism and party politics in the Philippines

Abstract

Introduction For more than four decades, much of the academic work on Filipino elections and party politics continued to be a postscript to the patron-client factional framework (pcf ) advanced by Carl Lande and other scholars in the 1960s. The basic argument of the pcf is that “Philippine politics revolves around interpersonal relationships – especially familial and patron-client ones – and factions composed of personal alliances” (Kerkvliet 1995: 401). While the pcf has endured time and continues to be cited by political analysts, it has also been criticized for reifying the role of socio-cultural values in structuring politics first in rural and peasant-based economies, and later, in modernizing urban communities (Kawanaka 2002, Sidel 1999).1 However, clientelism has proven to be resilient and highly adaptable to a range of political, economic, and cultural settings (Hicken 2011). Especially, though not only, in developing polities, clientelism plays a crucial role in the process of continuity and change associated with the growth – and decline – of political institutions (Archer 1989). In the Philippines, clientelism continues to shape the organization of party politics to a great extent. Since 1987, an average of 33.5 percent of all lower house representatives elected to Congress has switched parties in pursuit of resources allocated through clientelistic networks. Tellingly, 60.2 percent of these party switchers usually jumped into the party of the sitting president thereby producing monolithic (albeit short-lived) political behemoths. Fueled by presidential patronage, these monolithic parties have dominated Philippine politics under the past five administrations, notably the Laban ng DemokratikongPilipino (Struggle of Democratic Filipinos, LDP) during the term of Corazon Aquino, followed by the Lakas NUCD-UMDP founded by Fidel Ramos, the Laban ng Makabayang Masang Pilipino (Struggle of the Patriotic Filipino Masses, LAMMP) of Joseph Estrada, and, most recently, the Liberal Party (LP) under Benigno Aquino III. Not surprisingly, 57 percent of the legislators from the dominant party belong to political clans. Around 160 of these political clans have had two or more members who have served in Congress, and they account for more than 400 of the 2,407 men and women who have been elected to the national legislature since 1907. Since the formation of the first political parties under American colonial rule, political parties have continued to exist (in one form or another), even under extremely undemocratic periods of Philippine history such as the Japanese Occupation during the Second World War and the period of dictatorship under Ferdinand Marcos.2 But they never evolved into strong and credible political entities, even after the restoration of democracy in 1986. This absence of strong and credible political parties, caused to a large extent by the persistence of clientelistic networks, continues to exact a prime democratic deficit on the Philippine political system. What accounts for the persistence of clientelism in Philippine party politics? Following recent developments in the theory and practice of clientelistic politics, this chapter will present an institutional view of clientelism and delineate current mechanisms for clientelistic practices by political parties in the Philippines. Specifically, it seeks to provide an overview of how clientelism shapes party organization and how party organization may determine the kind of clientelistic strategies a party would pursue.