Sure he stings like a bee but does not float like a butterfly atop the ring. He is more like a hornet that zips to his target. One who digs his venomous punches when someone stirs his nest.
But as a politician, Congressman Manny Pacquiao really knows how to float.
Pacquiao recently made a ?homecoming? to the political party he once was a member, albeit he then casted his lot on former Manila Mayor Lito Atienza?s wing of the Liberal Party when he first joined it.
That was way back in 2006, when he first entertained thoughts of running for public office.
Atienza launched a failed ?coup d? etat? against the LP leadership headed by then senators Franklin Drilon and Mar Roxas.
President-elect Benigno Aquino, who will be sworn into office in a matter of hours, was then a congressman but also with the Drilon-Roxas faction of the Liberal Party.
Manny ran in 2007 under Lakas-CMD but lost to Rep. Darlene Antonino-Custodio of the Nationalist People?s Coalition (now mayor of General Santos City).
Shortly after his loss, Manny joined KAMPI, the political party of now former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
But during the 2010 elections, Pacquiao declined the nomination of Lakas-KMPI-CMD and threw his weight behind Manny Villar of the Nationalista Party.
Now he is back to the Liberal Party after Aquino won the presidency.
During Monday?s inauguration of Manny Pacquiao, I huddled with his uncle-in-law General Santos City chief prosecutor Edilberto Jamora. Our conversation invariably drifted toward politics after a cursory exchange of pleasantries.
Jamora said Pacquiao should look into the deteriorating situation in the justice department.
?We lacked workers, prosecutors and judges to resolve the mounting backlogs of court cases,? Jamora said.
Then we touched the multiparty system that the framers 1987 Constitution debated rather passionately.
Unlike neighboring Indonesia and in other parts of the world like United Kingdom and Japan, the multi-party system in the Philippines is a hybrid one.
People still elect individuals running for a political party or independently while a provision in the Constitution allocates 20 per cent of the total seats in the House of Representatives for party-list representation.
Something must be done, however, to prevent political turncoats from hopping from one party to party another as they only defeat the spirit of the multi-party system.
Pacquiao could correct himself and the others by introducing amendments to that provision.
For one, no one should be allowed to switch parties immediately preceding an election. Those who switch political party should be prohibited from running for any post in a scheduled election immediately prior to switching parties. In short, anyone who switches party should take a ?leave of absence? from at least one election.
This will not only discourage political turncoats. This will also strengthen the country?s multi-party system.
A multi-party system works best in a parliamentary form of government, of course. But that is another story.
Manny?s switching parties under the present circumstances is for political convenience and there is nothing wrong if the man wants to deliver his campaign promises by aligning with Malaca?ang (Philippine presidential palace).
It is operative implementation of the multi-party system enshrined in the Constitution that is defective.
