The number of presidentiables will destroy us all
In a post dated January 4, 2008, I said the following of the US presidential election:
1. America seems to want change, which is good because that’s what Filipinos want, too.
2. America wants to vote for the candidate who says what s/he believes, and practices what s/he preaches.
3. America needs a polarizing president.
I would revise these for our local setting:
1. Filipinos want reform, not change. The Philippine political party system is a bigger farce than American Idol. What is change? Replacing the administration with opposition, the opposition with administration? It’s the same merry-go-round of corrupt faces; there is no such thing as party loyalty in this country. (More thoughts on that here.) (The only person to date who has managed to buck the odds, running his own campaign as an independent and actually winning, was Senator Kiko Pangilinan; I remember thinking back in 2007 that he may have been a little crazy, running beholden to no one and not abiding by the padrino system that the political party system has become. His win softened the blow of the loss of Sonia Roco, who ran on an educational reform platform and whose late husband was one of my political heroes.)
Why couldn’t we kick GMA out of office back in ’08, even when it was painfully obvious she held little to no mandate on the presidency? It was the viable lack of an alternative. If not GMA’s cronies and minions, who then, Estrada’s band of merry men? Please! Even as I look at the presidentiables now, my heart is ready to sink. The short list of people who have tried and tested public service on the kind of micro-level that shows they have the cojones to make things work is appalling: Grace Padaca, Jesse Robredo, Among Ed Panlilio. (Well, Bayani Fernando made it work for Marikina; Dick Gordon did wonders in Subic. I wonder why I feel differently about them today.)
What is the difference between “reform” and “change” anyway? This isn’t necessarily a question of semantics, but for me, anyway, reform implies an overhaul of faulty parts of a system; it’s improvement, evolution, growth. The problem with change is that it implies a discontinuation of the incumbent system, and as a result, a discontinuation of many processes that need time to work. The damage wrought by 30 years of disjointed administration cannot be solved by a simple overhaul and carting of corrupt people off to jail (that would leave no one left in government, ha ha). We’ve seen that dead horse beaten so many times. Aquino’s work discontinued by Ramos. Ramos’ work discontinued by Estrada. Estrada’s work discontinued by Arroyo. Arroyo’s work… wait, what work? (Joke again. I’m on a roll!)
I think a reformist attitude implies a willingness to work with what one has. It is under-promising and over-delivering. It is not so much an optimistic viewpoint as much as it is a realistic awareness of what can be achieved when we work together.
This, however, is the sad state of Philippine political cooperation. Graft and corruption may be one of the greatest evils ever to befall the Philippine government, but there are two other related evils that are just as insidious and just as deadly: the padrino system and the utang-na-loob system. It’s the automatic assumption that Politician A will work only with Politician B if it benefits the former’s career. It’s the whole “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” “The Godfather” implication. When you’re beholden to someone else, it’s hard to feel free.
If we don’t want to work with GMA’s people, and we don’t want to work with Estrada’s people, we’ll gladly take a third option. However, in a miraculous situation that an alternative rises and actually wins, we still end up in stalemate if GMA’s people and Estrada’s people refuse to cooperate with the alternative.
Barack Obama is so blessed. He has the presidency and the Democrats hold the majority of Congress. Nakakainggit.
2. We want a president whose actions speak louder than his words. Integrity is everything.
3. The Philippines needs a majority president. Can you recall the last time a Philippine president was elected to the presidency via majority vote? If you don’t count Corazon Aquino’s rise to power in 1986 as an actual electoral victory, it was 1965, when Ferdinand Marcos defeated Diosdado Macapagal. That was 44 years ago. Since then, we’ve elected presidents who were never actually voted into office by the majority of the Filipino people; the best we could muster was Joseph Estrada’s nearly 40% “landslide victory” in 1998. (We all know where that president brought us.)
Without that important majority mandate, we will always question a president’s right to the office. Without the mandate, we cannot rest assured s/he has the people’s support for the kind of actions that need to be taken to lift our nation out of the economic doldrums.
With less than 400 days to go, will we have a majority-voted president? Don’t count on it. According to YVP, ten viable candidates are currently soul-searching: Bayani Fernando, Chiz Escudero, Gilbert Teodoro, Jr., Jojo Binay, Loren Legarda, Mar Roxas, Manny Villar, Noli De Castro, Ping Lacson, and Dick Gordon. My goodness! Talk amongst yourselves and choose just two! If you really want the best for the country, throw your support behind someone who can unite, not divide! Trust the people to choose based on issues, not winnability. Please don’t underestimate the Filipino voter.
We need to work together, but with the current Philippine political climate, I just don’t see that happening. Not with ten presidential candidates. If you take the presidential race as a microcosm of our general national mindset, then we’re doomed. If ten political personalities can’t set aside their egos and political differences to work together for the common good, we will never achieve reform, and we will never see sustained economic growth, and the vision of a solid national unity borne of united communities – neighborhoods working in towns, working together in barangays, working together in provinces, working together in regions, working together as a solid nation – will continue to remain a farfetched reality.
(My good friend Nines has written 26 questions she would like to ask the presidentiables. I think this is a good exercise; political bloggers, including my heroes MLQ3 and Dean Jorge Bocobo, would do well to probably create their own lists. Then, when the opportunity presents itself and forums are made available between presidential candidates and bloggers (Senator and presidentiable Roxas and Senator Pangilinan, who is polling well for vice-president, have already offered bloggers one-on-one time), we can ask them these questions out of a genuine sincerity to learn of their plans, not to one-up or embarrass them. Come on, presidentiables, talk to us!)
