Time has come again when people has to choose those who will govern them. However this time, election is off season, that means only half of the senators, all representatives, governors, vice governors board members, mayors, vice mayors and municipal councilors will be chosen. There had been no news of barangay elections. Barangay officials will have to wait for some time. Those fellows never had it so good. In the next three years, election would go full blast with every elective position up for grabs. Meanwhile, the present exercise would be enough to satisfy the voting population. In any election, there are only three types of candidates, administration, opposition and independents. Needless to say those who run under the ruling party banner are considered administration candidates, those who run against them are the opposition while those who belong to neither party are the independents. A candidate may run under any party without adhering to party ideology. There is none. A Philippine political party is merely a creation of a powerful individual.

Before the Great War, there were only two political parties, the Federalista and the Democrata. One of them was for an independent Philippines while the other was for a Philippines as a commonwealth member of the United States of America . Party switching was practically non-existent, the Federalista and Democrata parties adhere to different political ideologies. When Philippines became a commonwealth of the United States , the Federalista party went out of existence. The Democrata was left and another party, the Nacionalista came to existence. The Philippines still practiced the two party system. With Pres, Manuel Quezon as the head Nacionalista party steamroller flattened the opposition. Every candidate wanted to run under this banner to insure wining an electoral seat.

After the War, the Democrata folded up and since not everybody could be accommodated within the Nacionalista party, Manuel Roxas and company created the Nacionalista Liberal wing to distinguish themselves from the old Nacionalista, which they considered conservative. The Liberal wing evolved into a full-blown party as Liberal Party. Since those two parties have the same ideology – which is nothing at all – party switching is practiced whenever convenient. If a candidate cannot be accommodated by his old party, he may transfer to the other or run as guest candidate. Still the Philippines adhered to the two party systems until the end of the Marcos regime.

The reputations of the two parties Liberal and Nacionalista suffered from the Marocs rule that in the post Marcos Era new political parties rose overnight created by politicos with enough followers and logistics. Only the PDP Laban espoused semblance of a political ideology, that of federalism. Each party was just the expression of the political outlook of the creator, which was to get elected no matter what. Ideologies can go hang. In big political parties, conventions are held to determine who will carry the party banner in the elections. Those who are not chosen jumps to another party or create a new political party. Thus when the LDP choose Ramon Mitra as the presidential candidate, Fidel V. Ramos bolted the party and formed another, which made him a presidential candidate. Ramos won, his move was justified as only winning could justify his move.