I was the Liberal Party (LP) Deputy Director for Education and Formation from 2016 to 2022. Though the title referred to my principal task of orienting new members and preparing them for party work, it was an all-around task. This meant that I also took on the party’s role of coordinating alliance work and representing it in various mass movements and networks that sprung around the many issues that were raised against an intolerant administration. In sum my political task was to organize the chapters wherein members can find their place in the party, equip them with the skills needed to undertake the organizing work and management of chapters and, as well, mobilize them to participate in the protests actions and later, prepare them for the electoral work ahead.
My initial involvement in the party began when the late Chito Gascon, then LP Director General, asked if I could help him with party work. I agreed to take on the communications task and subsequently found myself active in the buildup of the MAR presidential campaign in 2009. Political work was not new to me as I had been doing organizing work among students and community youth since I was in high school. This deepened to organizing among urban poor communities as part of our involvement in the University of the Philippines-Student Catholic Action (UPSCA) and even beyond the university where more challenging political work obliged us to play cat and mouse with a dictatorship.
The party’s desire to be more rooted in the grassroots and become more ideologically and programmatically – defined started even before the People Power Revolt in EDSA. Senator Jovito Salonga, then the party president, set about writing the Program of Government of the Liberal Party. He brought this home with him from exile in the US, and he began the reorganization of the party in earnest. He was ably assisted by then Party Secretary – General Rep. Raul Daza.
The Program of Government became the subject of Basic Orientation on Liberal Democracy (BOLD) seminars to new members of the party. Initially, many of the participants came individually. Most were from grassroots sectors. Eventually, as the party was becoming more revitalized, politicians began to go through the BOLD. Later on, so did members of their local political organizations. This latter development would become a more pronounced activity rather than those that were organized among the sectors. The difference being that, with the latter, party membership was a more personal thing as it identified with their own values and agenda. With the former, many of those who took their oaths did so with their local leader in mind as their primary audience. Thus, party membership and loyalty were more a consequence of the local leader’s decision in view of the party’s relevance to his agenda.
This was a more pronounced norm in other parties which provided some form of legitimacy to politicians with a non-state agenda. In the LP, party leaders strove be more inclusive as to provide space for non-politicians to be involved in discussions and input on decision-making.
Senate President Frank Drilon, during his time as LP president, conducted strategic planning meetings with the goal of creating a roadmap to political victory in the national elections, which included other players from civil society, media and academia.
Perhaps, that the party, at some point, was derided as a “Volkswagen party” is a backhanded compliment to this practice as the presence of non-politicians in these discussions provided a much more nuanced and studied stance in response to issues of state.
It was in Sen MAR’s presidency of the party when the space for ordinary citizen-members became institutionalized. He introduced changes that included ordinary citizens, who just wanted to become involved in party work. Then on January 2011 in its first NECO during PNoy’s first year in office, and still in MAR’s term as party president, the party constitution was amended to provide representation of five sectors, the workers, farmers (sana rural poor na lang) women, urban poor and youth. It also provided for the appointment of vice-presidents to represent their sectors in the executive committee of the party, as well as ensured the inclusion of 20 per cent of the sectors in the NECO and other such assemblies of the party. Collectively, the sectors called their space, the Mamamayang Liberal. Though not formalized in party documents, they were recognized as such.
Thus, with the institutionalization of non-politician participation, the party became much more accessible to civil society and in many alliances, networks and movements, Mamamayang Liberal (ML) became the representatives of the party’s participation in extra-parliamentary actions and advocacies. This, however, was shortlived as the ML ceased to exist because it decided to become a party-list group despite the short preparation time to participate in the 2016 national elections. As such it lost its track as the party space for non-politicians.
In the term of Sen Kiko Pangilinan, the party would take the organizing to another track. Following the massive exodus of politicians from its ranks in the wake of Duterte’s ascent to power, the party saw itself dwindle to its “Volkwagen” status. The true Liberals stayed as most of those who joined the party during PNoy’s term left and sought to protect their agendas by joining the administration party. Thus, there was ample space to recruit those who still believed in the Liberal Party. Many of these were the Mamamayang Liberal and others in civil society who were looking for a place to channel their angst at the turn of events in our politics.
Following the January 2017 NECO, Cong Teddy Baguilat’s post on social media announcing the LP openness to accept members spurred much interest such that our webpage was filled with emails of ordinary people wanting to join up. In mid-2017, we held the first orientation and oath-taking from among those who signified their intention to enlist for party membership. Most of these came from our sectors and from the middle forces, the professionals and those similarly situated.
Despite disinformation efforts to revile and demonize the party, many regarded it as a space for the democratically-committed. This regard was further strengthened when the entire leadership including VP Leni went on a study tour of the Democratic Alliance(DL) in South Africa on how it managed to organize under the same situation that the LP now found itself and specially on how a political party in such a system functions. This was reinforced when the same group again went abroad, to Germany this time, to study how a political party in the so-called “older democracies” organized itself among ordinary citizens and how they participate in party discussions and activities.
The lessons from these trips were distilled and became the guide for our organizing efforts. We streamlined the cumbersome Basic Orientation on Liberal Democracy (BOLD). Working with Rep. Kit Belmonte, LP Secretary General, we were able to conduct the first BOLD from among the those that had already become members. From this batch, came the first efforts to organize chapters in their respective areas. Cavite, Bulacan, Laguna, Quezon City became the first ones to initiate organizing efforts. The organizing team, Karry Sison, the HQ staff and I had our hands full conducting the BOLD seminars they arranged such that we thought of beefing up our orientation teams by training trainors to help us conduct these.
Further, the insights and lessons gained in the study tours were expressed in the way we organized our chapters. We opted to come up with a flatter organization and do away with pompous titles. Instead, we chose to set up a committee that would see to the tasks of the chapters. Members of the chapters took on task-defined responsibilities. As such, Education Officer for the one primarily charged with seeing to the orientation and education of the members. Advocacy Officer for the member who would lead the chapter in participating in advocacy activities. Fund-Generation Officer, so that it would be more active in raising funds for the chapter and finally, the Communications Officer, who would be the secretary and assist the chairperson in coordinating the activities of the chapter. The committee would be headed by the chairperson who is charged with executing the directives and transmissions of the leadership as well provide the leadership with situationers and feedback on the ground.
The chapters did not just come to being. It is the party prerogative to recognize them subject to them fulfilling several requirements such as that there would at least be fifteen members who would have undergone the BOLD and that the chapter would not be in arrears, which is to say, that all of their members would have paid their annual party dues of P250. The last requirement would evolve into a common responsibility in practice of the chapter and not just an individual obligation. Chapters would it upon themselves to raise the funds in order to see to it that they do not owe the party any dues. Finally, when all the requirements would have been met, a Chapter Charter which would recognize the name they chose to register to the party with. As such, LP chapters would be identified with their chosen names as Manila – Matatag or Tipulo for Antipolo City. The charter would also state the day each chapter has chosen for its monthly meeting. This is to see to it that they do meet at said date and not solely at the instance of the chairperson.
All these organizing found expression in the many advocacies and issues that the various sectors and alliances in which we were formally a part of. As such, there was praxis and a deepening of the members involvement in party work. These strengthened the chapters that were in the process of being formed and gave them a direction for their political work. Thus, this found many of our members becoming activists in the various movements that sprung around the many issues that the administration was creating with impunity. They were in the various hubs of Tindig Pilipinas, in the Free Leila Movement in Anti-EJK movement among others.
In the run-up to the 2019 senatorial elections, the party embarked on Project Makinig, which impelled us to activate ML areas which our young volunteers were able to mobilize. The exercise provided us with further ground to interest people and recruit them into the party. As such, at the close of the exercise, we were able to maintain these areas. We trained some of the young volunteers of Project Makinig and turned them into organizers of chapters and equipped them with the skills to conduct BOLDs
At about this time, our organizing efforts were being directed in the National Organizing and Membership Commission (NOMC) now actively headed by Cong. Teddy working hand-in-hand with the Sec-Gen. With the NOMC team beefed up by new trainors, we were able to expand our areas of operation greatly. These areas were in Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, Iloilo, Northern Mindanao (CDO – Iligan area) Zamboanga and the Davao provinces. Likewise, we further built up on the chapters we had in Naga, Batangas, Cavite, Laguna, Hong Kong (our first time to use zoom) and the NCR areas. In the last, new chapters were set up in Manila, Valenzuela, Malabon and Navotas in the North and Las Pinas and Paranaque in the south. Pasay came much later. Marikina and Manila – Matatag were reinforced some more as these were two of first ones to be organized in NCR. Makati chapter was organized much later. Quezon City – Marangal, the one chapter that was star-studded in the sense that they had the most active members and more ideologically formed, agreed to divide themselves into district chapters so as to cover wider ground and avoid being drawn into deeper debates and inaction given that many of them had their own ideas on chapter priorities and directions.
We took it slow with Bulacan as it was divided along factional lines. Much of the time we spent there was not so much on organizing as it were to dialogue and find a common ground for everyone. In the South Rizal province took its cue from Angono, which until today provides the leadership and coordinates the organizing and education efforts for the other Rizal towns such as Taytay, Cainta, Binangonan and Jala-jala. Pasig was another notable area of expansion given that many of the recruits traced their initial involvement in the party to their youth days in the time of Senate President Jovito Salonga. We had to take a different track in organizing it as these were already veterans of political work albeit they were of another ideological persuasion at that time.
However, given the varying degrees of skills and motivation of the new trainors, our work was uneven in some areas. This was not helped during the COVID pandemic, when we were forced to take our organizing through social media. On hindsight, most of those who were able to push through with strengthening and setting up of new chapters were those with strong structures in place on the ground when the pandemic hit. Laguna is a notable example because our members there were able to conduct face-to-face (with the requisite social distancing and other health protocols) in their area so much so that they were able to even break into new territory as in Bay, Siniloan, and Sta. Cruz. Other areas, as well strove to organize through social media platforms, notably Zoom and Google Meet. What they would do was to set it up so that our lecturers and trainors could do the BOLD online.
The run up to the elections would be the proving ground for our work and the strength of our organization. Even during the pandemic our chapters and members provided the muscle for the many efforts of the OVP to ease the suffering of our people in the pandemic and address their basic needs. As such “palugaw” and other feeding activities provided us the opportunity to earn some political capital for the season ahead. Nearer to the elections, our chapters formed the backbone for many of the electoral movements and their local area organizations that sprung up. Our chapters and members were in the thick the activities to set up 1Sambayanan and Team Leni Robredo and much later in the Robredo Peoples Councils. We were active in the campaign in many capacities. The challenges we faced in the elections spelled the differences in the formation of our structures and chapters on the ground.
In our swing through the various chapters after the elections for a quick kamustahan, there were many chapters that were left with so many questions after the experience of being in what many them felt were movements that were rapidly set up for an electoral contest. They’d rather that these movements evolve from existing ones so that their more confidence in each formation involved in it as they would know that these actually had people in its formation and not riding on other formations. They also lamented the issue of exclusivity which they said a more established movement could have avoided as lines of responsibility would be more defined.
In any case, where our structures on the ground were more in place prior to the elections was where we were able to contribute more concretely to the electoral tasks. In others, particularly among those organized with less personal encounters and interventions with trainors and organizers, their election activities left much to be desired. In some areas, the elections exposed the “drawings”, many of which were social-media organized and the ones with actual organizations. In Cebu, one of the organizing streams that churned out online BOLD seminars was seen for what it was. It hardly had any warm bodies in its “chapters”. Their primary “organizer” just wanted to use the image of an organized force as a political ladder. In another area, the chapter was only called together to campaign for VP Leni three weeks before the elections. In other areas, the chapters dissipated given the loss of benefactors that they were dependent on prior to the elections.
However, for the most part, our participation in the elections strengthened many of our chapters. Most took the initiative to consolidate their chapters and local organizations and work on their gains in the elections. There were many who became interested in the local chapters after seeing their work. As such, a number of BOLDs were conducted with the primary responsibility of providing the orientation falling on the education officer and the chapter chairperson. In some, they reached out to HQ but as it was still getting itself organized following the elections, they went ahead and tapped others to assist them. To date, many chapters continue and have gone ahead with organizing in their areas. Many are now deep in preparing for the barangay elections set for later this year even as they keep an eye on a situationer and direction to validate what they have been doing thus far.
The chapters have done quite a bit to advance the claim of the Liberal Party being a People’s Party as was the mandate we set for ourselves in the assessment and planning in 2017. There is still much to be done. We have created space for the chapters to participate in party discussions and activities as was the experience, even if online, in the General Assemblies called prior to the elections. There were a number of resolutions passed in those assemblies. Many of those were meant to further institutionalize the space of the chapters and also to proclaim the vision and program of government which we intend to be our milestones towards what we have adapted as the Declaration of 2018, a definitive expression of our Liberal Democratic proposal.
