The realignments of forces among the country’s major political parties are definitely under way and are expected to get in earnest as the official campaign period for the 2010 polls approaches.

So far, the biggest shift in party affiliation came about just the other day when Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. abandoned the ruling Lakas-Kampi-CMD to join the opposition Liberal Party.

Belmonte, a stalwart of the administration party being a member of the Lakas-Kampi national executive committee, led a majority of the Quezon City’s elective officials in a mass oath-taking as new members of the Liberal Party.

As vice-president for external affairs and chairman of the Quezon City chapter of Lakas-Kampi, certainly he is a big loss to the administration and a good fortune for the Liberals.

His presence in the LP, no doubt, raises the quality of the party as well as the standing of the candidates that it offers to the public.

It must be made clear that Mayor Belmonte does not only command respect in his own Quezon City turf; the sphere of his influence transcends its boundaries and includes large parts of the country. In fact, much earlier, he was being bruited about as a serious presidential possibility.

In Quezon City, his supporters are of varying political persuasions.

Before the Belmonte group, Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos Recto together with her husband, former Senator Ralph Recto, jumped over to the Liberal Party in support of LP bets for president and vice president Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas, respectively.

Ralph Recto became President Arroyo’s economic adviser when she appointed him Secretary General of the National Economic and Development Authority.

There has been no reason given to explain what caused the shift of party affiliations of Quezon City officials, except the speculations that President Gloria Arroyo would be seeking the House speakership should she win the congressional elections in her district in Pampanga which, they say, she is seeking.

And that’s the conflict because it is known in Quezon City that Mayor Belmonte is also eyeing it, the reason he is going back to his former district to run for Congress. And the President knew it all along, he said.

Belmonte had been House Speaker, however briefly, before he was elected Quezon City Mayor.

If all these speculations were true, then there was no way the change of heart by Mayor Belmonte could be stopped. But precisely that’s the trouble: Speculations could be wild and cruel. Very often, they are true.

One thing is sure – the action taken by Mayor Belmonte and his in-crowd will surely have consequences not only in Quezon City but in the wider sphere of his influence and the popularity of his cause.

People in the know define democratic government in terms of competitive party politics. Nothing new, really.

(zhern_218@yahoo.com)