The Long View: Power

The Long View
Power
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:57:00 02/24/2010

BACK IN 1998, TEODORO L. LOCSIN JR. wrote an essay for the literary journal Pen & Ink, and quoted some lines from one of Danton Remoto’s poems:

But in the empty palace,

He walks slowly…

Everything, everything’s gone

Save this long hallway

That seems to have no end.

Locsin recalled, “I was there, that very evening, in that hall, right after Marcos fled. It felt exactly like Danton Remoto says it in his poem.”

Some years earlier, Locsin had mercilessly mocked the TV mini-series “A Dangerous Life” for incongruous scenes of Sri Lankans making the “Laban” sign while chanting (as Locsin put it) “Curry! Curry!” after a Sri Lankan chief justice with a velly, velly, Indian accent administered the oath of office to Laurice Guillen, who portrayed “Curry” Aquino. Yet who can forget that powerful scene in which Ruben Rustia as Ferdinand Marcos, preparing to depart the palace, bestowed a solemn kiss on his desk in his last few minutes in the country?

Lord Acton famously observed, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Marcos viewed himself as a great man; his country ejected him as a bad one.

In the time of the Caesars, as they rode in triumph, someone would be tasked to whisper in their ears, “Memento mori,” or “Remember, you will die.” A feature of papal coronations was the interruption of the litter bearing the pontiff three times, so he could be presented with a staff on which was a piece of slowly burning cloth, with the injunction, “Sic transit gloria mundi!” (Thus passes the glory of the world!)

In 1981 Marcos was mercilessly mocked when Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” was performed at his “inauguration”—at the time for the astounding vanity of it all but later on, in the fully Greek (Ancient, that is) sense of a chorus that informed theater goers of the hidden meaning or true feelings of the protagonists in a play. And the lines—

And He shall reign for ever and ever,

For ever and ever, forever and ever,

King of kings, and Lord of lords…

—became the musical foreshadowing of the hubris (extreme haughtiness or arrogance) that, as the ancient Greeks also loved to point out, results in nemesis (divine retribution). The nemesis being, first, Ninoy Aquino, then Cory Aquino.

Marcos had achieved fame because of an assassination—the killing of his father’s political rival Julio Nalundasan, for which the young Ferdinand was convicted although the sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court—and achieved infamy because of another, that of Ninoy Aquino. He maneuvered to keep people guessing about his actual culpability for both, and yet they will always define the start and finish of his political career, and his underlying attitude to power: whatever the veneer of legality applied to his acts, all relied on buttressing wiliness with force.

The ultimate lesson, as Marcos himself crowed in his diary after his martial law gamble succeeded, was that “nothing succeeds like success!” (itself an expression coined by Sir Arthur Helps in 1868). The best that might have been expected was that violence simply begets more violence, and in that case, holding a plenitude of armed might, Marcos would always succeed. And so it was for so long, as his opponents confronted him with armed resistance.

This is not to disparage those who resisted martial law by means of armed struggle. But it is to point out that collectively we seem to hold those who resisted peacefully but still paid the ultimate price for their integrity through martyrdom, in the highest esteem of all: Rizal, Abad Santos, Aquino. It could be, as the Spanish intellectual Miguel de Unamuno put it, writing of Rizal as both the Tagalog Christ and Hamlet, that a people used to being powerless but longing for redemption have always known the futility of fighting fire with fire; or who believe that it requires a “great soul” (which is what the reference to Gandhi as “Mahatma” means) is the most effective nemesis to hubris.

This day reminds us, then, that in the face of what the desire for power and the ruthless use of it in order to keep it does to leaders and the led, it is rare, indeed, for leaders who have clawed their way to the top to listen to the Lincolnesque “better angels” of either their or their people’s nature. Yet surely it is a cause for deep pride and even deeper humility that time and again we, the people, have held up holding true to that better nature as the more authentic expression of our national characteristics and beliefs.

A blogger, Scriptorium, once observed, “The Edsa ideal, that the people can and must battle injustice by peaceful means, remains the public ideology, a part of the political climate that any leader must reckon into calculations. The Center as Center, guarded by Church and People, is even now stronger in the Philippines than elsewhere in the world (where Left and Right tend to possess greater force), and remains the popular base of truth and justice against lies and tyranny.”

The tyranny of today is both more insidious and bolder than that of the Marcos years. The lying, cheating and stealing, as the phrase popular since 2005 puts it, have relied on the Marcos playbook—divide and conquer and proclaim always you represent the “silent majority”—as modernized by the Republican playbook of the Bush years, which relies on mobilizing minorities and ignoring the politics of consensus.

After all, the negative consensus has been there since 2005, but until recently, a positive consensus couldn’t form. Put another way, almost everyone agrees on what they are against, but most have been hard put to agree on what they are for. It remains to be seen whether in May the country can achieve a majority consensus by means of its choice of leader.

The Long View: The promise

The promise

TIMOTHY Garton Ash, writing in the New York Times Review of Books, contrasted violent revolution with People Power (or Velvet Revolution, in the Eastern European sense) in this way: “In old-style revolution, the angry masses on the street are stirred up by extremist revolutionary leaders—Jacobins, Bolsheviks, Mao—to support radicalization, including violence and terror, in the name of utopia… In new-style revolution, the masses on the street are there to bring the powerholders to the negotiating table. The moment of maximum mass mobilization is the moment of turn to negotiation; that is, to compromise… For also characteristic of [Velvet Revolution] is that it often takes a long time to succeed, after many failed attempts, in the course of which opposition organizers, but also some of those in power, learn from their own mistakes and failures—as, for example, in Poland, Serbia and Ukraine. Protesters ‘fail again, fail better,’ to adopt Samuel Beckett’s memorable phrasing. Both sides do it differently next time. Eventually, the moment comes when there are two to tango.”

This, as Ash puts it by way of Ernest Gellner, comes at a price— “the price of velvet,” because revolution is negotiated; there is no such thing as a winner-take-all situation where the losers, besides losing their property, lose their lives. In turn this produces what Ash calls a “postrevolutionary pathology”: “As the years go by, there is a sense of a missing revolutionary catharsis; suspicious talk of tawdry deals concluded between old and new elites behind closed doors; and, among many, a feeling of profound historical injustice.” Ash proposes two antidotes to this: in the first place, a Truth Commission on the South African model, where responsibility and blame can be assigned, and admitted; and second, the rule of law must be put in place or restored, with the realization that corruption corrodes the rule of law.

Frederick Hayek defined the rule of law as follows in 1945: “Stripped of all technicalities, [the rule of law] means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand—rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge. Though this ideal can never be perfectly achieved… the essential point, that the discretion left to the executive organs wielding coercive power should be reduced as much as possible, is clear enough.”

If you consider the times people have taken to demonstrating sustained opposition to the authorities—twice in 2001, from 2005 onwards against the present administration, and against various proposals to amend the Constitution for self-interested reasons—what they had in common was disgust over official impunity with its corresponding disregard for public opinion. In these situations, those who’d been in positions of authority during the martial law years, the most sustained period of impunity in living memory, proved the more likely to submit to public opinion, if only to buy time.

Much to Jose Almonte’s frustration, when people rallied against proposals to extend Fidel V. Ramos’ term, the plan was abandoned, although to this day Almonte is convinced they could have won a plebiscite. In 2001, President Estrada did everything by the Marcos playbook: first, in response to protests he organized a large loyalist rally; then he submitted to constitutional procedures confident he could master them; then he proposed a snap election and tried to buy time to rally support from the provinces. When he finally left the Palace, he refused to formally resign, and declined to go into exile. His arrest four months later proved just how dangerous it might have been had Marcos stayed in the country in 1986.

But what is important is the continuity of attitude of the Marcos-era veterans with the methods of the present dispensation. It has increasingly relied on the same methods: divide the clergy, divide the opposition, play off urban versus rural, maximize built-in advantages in a cowed bureaucracy and compromised judiciary, all the while using the military and police as the ultimate foil. Both in the streets and in terms of populating government with generals who’ve developed a taste for political power, blurring the lines between civilian and military authority ultimately serves to neutralize public opinion.

Which is not to say public opinion is always right or that leaders shouldn’t exercise leadership by going against public opinion: but always for a purpose larger than the tactical interests of leaders who defy their own public merely to pursue the personal profit of themselves or their friends. Leaders who believe they can do what they please, regardless if it pleases the public or not, on the certainty that they control all official forums, are precisely the kind who push people to take their grievances to the streets.

In turn it is the promise contained in peaceful non-violent protest that denies leaders the consolation of telling themselves, their people, and history, that might makes right.

It is the promise inherent in elections, too: they “are not just, so to speak, the tribute vice pays to virtue,” as Ash points out; they are beloved by dictators and democrats alike because dictators can manipulate them but they also foster “Hubris, based on past successes [that] helpfully nudges such rulers down the road to nemesis.” So it was that Marcos proclaimed he would win in 1986, and why his acolytes trumpet a similar boast in 2010. They believe that in 2010 as in 1986, they have it all figured out.

Maybe they do: but only for now, and never in the long run. That’s part of the promise of People Power, too.

The Long View: Invisible platform

The Long View
Invisible platform
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:08:00 02/17/2010

FOR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS, THE BASIC foundation of a campaign is the party or coalition platform, or what non-political types might be more familiar with as mission and vision statements: the shared goals that unite leaders and followers. The candidates basically had three options with regard to providing a mission and vision—or a platform—for their campaigns. Refer to an existing one for their party or movement, or present a new one either at the time they formally filed their candidacy papers in November last year or when the campaign formally began last Feb. 9.

Richard Gordon, for one, was prepared for a presidential bid with or without the nod of Lakas-CMD. His Bagumbayan Movement’s “Manifesto for Change” was unveiled as far back as Dec. 30, 2007 and is the core document of his campaign. JC de los Reyes subscribes to Ang Kapatiran’s “Passport to a New Philippines” which has been the party’s platform for years. Joseph Estrada undertook all the rituals of nomination and acceptance though curiously has never publicized the platform he announced he was adopting during his Tondo rally last year. Nicanor Perlas unveiled his “Six Pillars” platform when he announced his bid for the presidency, and Jamby Madrigal announced her “Reclaim and Regain the Wealth, Sovereignty and Dignity of the Filipino People and Nation” late last year as well.

As I have pointed out previously, Benigno Aquino III published his “Social Contract with the Filipino People” platform on the day he formally filed his candidacy papers, and he has put forward the operational details of his platform before various audiences, including a 10-point basic education program and a four-point anti-graft and corruption strategy.

His main rival, Manuel Villar Jr., has opted to put forward a platform that is purely symbolic because it doesn’t actually exist unless you confuse references to it with the existence of an actual platform.

In mid-December, the Makabayan Coalition announced it had entered into an agreement (“In Response to the People’s Concerns”) with the Nacionalistas. At the time, the NP hadn’t published a platform, whether for itself or its presidential candidate, and this document could have been put forward as the broader coalition platform for the whole campaign. And yet Makabayan itself carefully insisted it was strictly a document to formalize its alliance with the Nacionalistas, while the NP refrained from publicizing the document in its own or it’s candidate’s websites. However, the statements of its campaign spokesmen made references to a “platform,” most recently in connection with the Calamba, Laguna, launch of the NP campaign proper on Feb. 9.

The NP said, “Others will read their platforms from teleprompters. We’d rather recite ours from the heart in front of the statue of Rizal. The NP platform of government is anchored on winning the war against poverty. The party believes that this war can be won with a platform of equality for all and the sharing of responsibilities as well as opportunities.”

It added: “The program of governance to be pursued will be anchored on issues such as preventing rapid increases in prices of basic necessities, eradication of graft and corruption, reducing poverty, creating jobs and livelihood among others.”

Still, whether at the time its standard-bearer filed his candidacy papers for the presidency or the formal kick-off of its national campaign, an actual platform the public can read and point to, before and after the elections, hardly seems to exist outside of references to it in press releases.

This presents concrete political advantages, of course. On one hand, while its coalition partner, Makabayan, can say it clearly understands the parameters of the electoral partnership, the NP itself, by keeping its own platform (if it exists) close to its chest, can give itself wiggle room later on down the line. The public, too, cannot seize on any specifics but has to rely, instead, on the party and its candidates’ commercials and statements to piece together what, if anything, the campaign really stands for or hopes to accomplish. This also provides wiggle room: no categorical statement, potentially embarrassing down the line, has to be given concerning things like the affiliation with the NP of local candidates like “Joc-joc” Bolante.

Since Aquino published his platform on the day he filed his candidacy, those without published platforms can harp on what they put forward as that platform’s shortcomings without their own bluff being called. Three days before the campaign formally began, Alex Magno intimated in his column that Gilbert Teodoro’s platform was a “work in progress,” and sniffed that Aquino’s was “hollow, superficial and a mere restatement of the 1987 Constitution.” Yet the start of the campaign came and went and no Teodoro platform has been unveiled. So at best it leaves such negative assertions hanging—and raises this question: Outside the close advisers of the candidates who have so far refrained from publishing and publicizing their platforms, who can say, either from the point of view of their committed supporters or the voting public at large, what the candidates really stand for or hope to accomplish?

I have heard it said that Teodoro played a central role in formulating the NPC platform and he himself has been saying things that suggest familiarity with a draft platform. This has been particularly true in recent weeks, coinciding with the period work on a platform has been taking place, as Magno mentioned. The term “subsidiarity” that he mentioned at a recent forum is a vintage Christian Democratic one and is, surely, a hint of what the Lakas-Kampi-CMD platform might put forward. This inability to publish a platform means the ruling coalition believes Prospero Pichay’s statement that their candidate will win because of party machinery and not public sentiment.

The Long View: Sobriety versus Wowowee

The Long View
Sobriety versus Wowowee
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:05:00 02/14/2010

THE two leading candidates, Aquino and Villar, have taken turns facing the Makati Business Club to put forward their views concerning business and the economy. Their views present an interesting study in contrasts.

Both seem to agree that, as Aquino put it, the country’s tax-to-GDP ratio must be raised to at least 15 percent, close to the 1998 levels of 17 percent, from the current 13.4 percent level, if a significant dent in cutting the budget deficit is to be made. Back in mid-January, Villar, speaking at the Romulo Foundation forum, referred to similar figures and said, “We lost about 3 to 4 percent; that represents about P250 to P280 billion [in lost taxes].”

At the time, Villar also said the answer was to focus on corruption and implement more efficient collection. He also proposed better use of the pork barrel, and what he called strategic borrowing to bring about economic stability (“I really feel we have to borrow for our Department of Health obligation of the state,” he said in the forum).

But that was then and this is now. On Jan. 21 Aquino spoke before the MBC, followed by Villar on Feb. 11. Where both seemed to have similar messages in mid-January, by early February Villar had more starkly differentiated his approach from that of his main opponent.

While both agree that the next president will inherit a substantial, even crippling, deficit from the present dispensation, Aquino pegged it at “P272.5 billion, or 4.1 percent of GDP” as of November last year; Villar, on the other hand estimated that the “deficit this year is projected to balloon to over P300 billion or about 3.5 percent of GDP.” So Aquino for one pegs the deficit higher than Villar percentage-wise.

Yet Aquino pledged: “We will refrain from imposing new taxes or increasing tax rates,” while Villar cautioned that “I cannot promise no new taxes … It would be irresponsible of me to limit my options knowing the magnitude of the problem.” Instead, he said he would push to raise revenues and spend wisely, but “as we have seen, raising revenues is not a simple matter.”

In the first place, Villar pointed out, the country already has one of the highest tax rates in the region. Let me venture that in the second place, Villar knows he’s saddled with legislation that has helped reduce revenue collections to provide perks for specific industries. For example, back in July 2009, Villar had taken pride in being one of the principal co-authors of RA 9640 which lowered amusement taxes from 30 percent to 10 percent of admission fee gross receipts: he said it would provide a boost to the film industry.

So Villar set out to dampen expectations and, along the way, differentiate himself from his main rival by contrasting the can-do optimism of his nemesis with a heavy dose of his own, pragmatic, reality: “there is no country in the world that has been able to eliminate [graft and corruption] completely,” he told the MBC, although “I will make clear that there will be zero tolerance of graft and corruption,” and, furthermore, “I will work hard to reduce it significantly.”

The former was a meaningless platitude while the latter immediately served to dampen any expectations he might’ve raised.

In contrast, Aquino’s earlier pronouncements were more sober: “In addressing the looming fiscal crisis, good governance and the drive against corruption are critical components in our strategy,” and, “I strongly believe that we can collect more taxes at the BIR and higher duties at Customs if we become more serious in curbing and punishing tax evasion and smuggling.”

Why do I say Villar was rhetorical where Aquino was sober?

Villar, in vowing zero tolerance of corruption, refrained from giving specifics. On the other hand, Aquino pointed to actual programs that already existed but hadn’t been implemented: “The ideas to improve tax administration and to control smuggling have been there for some time and some programs have been initiated in the past. One of these successful programs was the RATE or Run After Tax Evaders. In fact, some of the people at the Department of Finance and the BIR who have tried to implement reforms before are with us now, and together with reform-minded career executives, we intend to put their commitment and talents to good use under my administration.”

In other words, if fixing the revenue problem requires fighting corruption, then the logical first place to look is where efforts have succeeded in the past—or failed because otherwise good anti-corruption plans and programs ended up moldering on the shelf because the present dispensation in turn dispensed with fighting corruption. As Aquino told the MBC, “In this effort, we will not be starting from zero. Be assured that those smugglers and evaders are not faceless and unknown entities.”

Villar, on the other hand, declined to be specific, granting himself a crowd-pleasing rhetorical latitude without giving anyone any means to pin him down later on down the line.

At the heart of that study in contrast is their view of what a president’s approach to fighting corruption should be. Again, Aquino was specific: “My budget team estimates that for 2009 alone, around P280 billion of our national budget was lost to corruption. If we take the years 2002 to 2009, the total estimates exceed one trillion. Estimates vary, but everyone agrees that the numbers are huge,” he told the MBC. Villar sidestepped the issue altogether: again, he preferred to float around on the level of the purely rhetorical.

He did put forward political Wowowee: “If elected … Large contracts can be bidded out and televised for all to see. This would send a message that we mean business.” In this, he at least displays a kind of consistency: to substitute media fanfare for authentic institutional scrutiny.

(You can read Sen. Benigno S. Aquino III’s January 21 and that of Sen. Manuel Villar Jr’s February 11 speeches to the Makati Business Club online.)

The Long View: Showdown

The Long View
Showdown
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:29:00 02/10/2010

THIS MONTH IS HEAVY WITH MEMORY.

In 1986, on Feb. 5, Jaime Cardinal Sin warned that Catholics would employ civil disobedience measures if the election proved fraudulent. On Feb. 7, the snap election was held. The Commission on Elections claimed Ferdinand Marcos was leading while the National Citizen’s Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel, now denied accreditation by the same institution for the 2010 elections) reported that Corazon Aquino was winning.

On Feb. 8, Aquino, who was ahead on the Namfrel count, claimed victory. The next day, on Feb. 9, 30 computer workers at the Comelec tabulation center in the Philippine International Convention Center, protesting the tampering of election results, walked out and sought refuge in Baclaran Church.

On Feb. 13, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines issued a pastoral letter condemning election fraud, essentially withdrawing the “mandate of heaven” from Marcos. Two days later, on Feb. 15, the Batasan Pambansa in stormy session proclaimed Marcos the winner, and opposition assemblymen walked out to protest massive cheating during the election.

On Feb. 16, the “Tagumpay ng Bayan” took place, when Cory Aquino led a mammoth rally of more than two million people at the Luneta where she launched a nationwide civil disobedience campaign and the boycott of Marcos-crony firms to force him to concede defeat. People gave up beer and ice cream, and stopped paying their electric bills.

On Feb. 22, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos revolted against Marcos and holed themselves up in Camp Aguinaldo. Thousands of people formed a human barricade against the expected advance of Marcos’ troops (but they were so tightly jampacked around the Palace that the troops ended up immobilized). Sin appealed over Radio Veritas for people to send food and help guard the barricades.

On Feb. 25, in separate ceremonies, Cory Aquino took her oath of office at Club Filipino as president of the Philippines while Marcos was sworn in at Malacañang. Later that evening, Marcos fled to Clark Air Base en route to Hawaii. The next day, President Aquino formed her Cabinet.

An entire generation has grown up after these events, but memories of those February days must be particularly vivid for those who are currently seeking the presidency.

In the great showdown of 1986, Benigno Aquino III’s mother was contesting the presidency; Manuel Villar Jr.’s father-in-law, Filemon Aguilar, was the KBL incumbent mayor in Las Piñas; while Richard Gordon and Joseph Estrada were both KBL mayors and would find themselves refusing at first to vacate their post in the aftermath of Edsa. Gilbert Teodoro Jr. was a KBL provincial board member, after ending his stint as president for Central Luzon of the Kabataang Barangay the year before.

The Aguilars returned to power in 1987, with Aguilar becoming congressman, later bequeathing his seat to his son-in-law in 1992, who in turn bequeathed it to his wife in 2001. Gordon affiliated with Vice President Salvador Laurel and helped reestablish the Nacionalista Party in opposition to Aquino. Estrada joined Enrile in opposition to Aquino and was elected to the Senate under the Grand Alliance for Democracy. Teodoro re-entered politics under the auspices of his uncle Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. when the latter returned from exile and became leader of a faction of the Nacionalista Party, now known as the Nationalist People’s Coalition.

Cory Aquino would end up clashing with Ramos when he tried to extend his stay in power. She clashed with Joseph Estrada during Edsa Dos, and then Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on a similar question of executive accountability. Ramos then took Arroyo’s side, but now seems to support Teodoro, who in turn abandoned his uncle’s party and joined the President’s coalition as its standard bearer, a distinction achieved after fighting it out for the coalition’s nod with both Gordon and the latter’s running mate now, Bayani Fernando, under their own movement, Bagumbayan. Villar was bequeathed the Nacionalista Party by Salvador H. Laurel and all, in turn, are arrayed against Aquino who has always been with the LP, the party that never collaborated with Marcos.

In the great showdown of 2010, you have Aquino on one side, and arrayed against him are those for whom an Aquino victory in 2010 would represent another repudiation on the scale they had endured in 1986. The ruling coalition has to contend with being in a position similar to what the KBL found itself in in 1986: entrenched locally and despised nationally for many of the same reasons that Marcos’ machinery was hated. The other contenders, in turn, belong to a political line that can be traced back to the showdown in 1986 and opposition to the Aquino administration and Cory herself over the years.

I don’t think the grudge-match aspect of the present presidential race should be discounted. Then, as now, the hallmark of official impunity was what Marcos himself, in his private diaries, dismissed as “technical legalism,” combined with brute force, electoral manipulation, the power of the pork barrel and a dismissive attitude toward public opinion, all the while insisting that national leadership is about credentials and not about integrity. It took a bar topnotcher, after all, to engineer a legal system that put a premium on the appearance of legality while ignoring the court of public opinion, substituting it with the blunt reality that possession is nine-tenths of the law.

The late Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez, one of the traditional politicians who knew how dangerous Marcos would be and tried to derail his climb to power, once said, “In the long of time, we shall success!” Success is impermissible for those for whom an Aquino victory in 2010 would permanently consign them to the wrong side of history as in 1986.

The Long View: Opportunities hidden in the numbers

The Long View
Opportunities hidden in the numbers

By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:06:00 02/08/2010

YESTERDAY this paper reported there are 50, 723, 734 voters registered for the May 10 elections. These voters will be organized into 329, 389 voting precincts organized further into 75,471 clustered precincts in 37,226 voting centers.

The Comelec expects a relatively high voter turnout—80 percent or 40.5 million voters. If we use the income classes advertisers and pollsters use, this translates to: 4,057,898 voters from Classes ABC (10 percent of voters); 30, 434, 240 from Class D (75 percent); 6, 086, 848 from Class E (15 percent).

What could this mean in actual votes?

Without fussing with margins of error, the January surveys put Aquino anywhere from 36 percent (Standard), 37 percent (Pulse), 42 percent (SWS); Villar—35 percent (SWS, Pulse), 36 percent (Standard); Estrada—2 percent (Pulse), 13 percent (Standard, SWS); Teodoro—4 percent (SWS), 5 percent (Standard, Pulse); Villanueva—2 (all); Gordon—1 (Pulse, Standard), 2 (SWS); Madrigal—0.4 (SWS), 0.5 (Pulse), 1 (Standard); De los Reyes—0.2 (SWS) 0.3 (Pulse), 05 (Standard); Perlas—0.05 (Pulse) 0.1 (SWS), 0.3 (Standard).

SWS puts the undecided at 2 percent or 811, 579.744 voters, Standard says it’s 5 percent or 2,028,949 voters, and Pulse, 6 percent or 2,434,739.

Pulse has the freshest numbers. If honest elections had been held on Jan. 22-26, the results could have been: Aquino—15,014,225 votes; Villar—14,202,645; Estrada—4,869,478; Teodoro—2,028,949; Villanueva—811,579; Gordon—405,789; Madrigal—202,894; De los Reyes—121,736; Perlas—20,289; and nuisance candidate Acosta of the KBL—81,157.

Put another way, had the election taken place on the survey dates, over a million votes would have separated frontrunner Aquino from his leading contender Villar.

SWS (Jan. 21-24) has Aquino at 42 percent and Villar at 35 percent, a seven-point difference that translates into a lead of 2,840,529 votes. If the difference is actually 5 percent, the lower end of the margin of error, that’s an Aquino lead of 2,028,949; if it’s 9 percent, the maximum end of the margin of error, that’s an Aquino lead of 3,652,108.

The most recent Pulse Asia poll (Jan. 22-26) puts Aquino ahead of Villar by 2 percent. (With a different base and methods, the Manila Standard Today survey has the same number.) Much has been made of this statistical dead heat, though it actually means—factoring in the margin of error—that the two leading candidates are anywhere from being tied to 2-4 percent apart. So 2 percent of the expected turnout is a 811,579-vote lead for Aquino or the two could be exactly tied; at four percent, Aquino’s lead could be as high as 1,623,159.

In terms of socioeconomic classes, Pulse has Aquino leading Villar (37-22) among ABC; that’s 15 percent of that class or a 608,684-lead in votes. Aquino also leads Villar in Class D (40-34), so that’s a 6-percent lead, meaning, 1,826,054 votes more than Villar; while Villar leads Aquino in Class E (39-31) which means a 9-point lead for Villar or 486,947 votes over Aquino.

This all presumes that if 80 percent do vote, all their votes will be counted, not only properly but also expeditiously.

The problem, of course—in the immortal words of President Macapagal-Arroyo, who moved heaven, earth and Garci to ensure she had a lead of 1 million votes in 2004—is, “’yung dagdag, ’yung dagdag.” Plus, as her subordinates might put it, “yung bawas, yung bawas.” There are many ways to do this without even padding or shaving votes once cast.

In the mock polls (a simulation of the voting, counting of votes and transmission of results) over the weekend (involving 50 voters per precinct in a total of nine precincts in Quezon City, Taguig, Baguio, Cebu and Davao), the Comelec proclaimed there was no problem in the counting and transmission.

Overlooked was, considering the tiny numbers participating, the relatively high number of votes that weren’t accepted for counting. In Quezon City, only 46 out of 50 ballots were counted. (Four were rejected, apparently for “improper shading.”) In Taguig, the machine also refused to accept three ballots. Four out of 50 is 8 percent; so let us assume this is a reasonable number of spoiled/invalid ballots to expect from people not following directions. That’s 3,246,318 votes out of the immediate counting and canvassing.

The Comelec earlier put much higher the percentage of voters who might have problems because of the machines—30 percent, which means it’s preparing for manual counting for 6,086,848 votes.

In either case, if human error alone might put 3.2 million-6 million votes in a grey area (thus requiring further scrutiny and manual counting, with each ballot bogged down in examinations and arguments), then neither of the two leading contenders in a close race could be proclaimed.

As the formal campaign begins tomorrow, Aquino’s lead, while still formidable, gives (a false, I think) impression of being smaller than it actually is when translated into percentages. Villar’s catching up in terms of percentages still has a long way to go when seen in terms of actual votes. On the other hand, neither side can rest easily because neither has a comfortable enough percentage to make them immune to the administration’s ace in the hole.

And what’s the administration’s ace in the hole? It can deny either of the leading contenders victory—unless. Which may be why Gary Olivar has thanked Villar for not hitting GMA; why Press Secretary Jun Icban said that there’s no GMA “kiss of death” despite talk she’s in league with Villar. The enemy of my enemy, the Palace broadly hints, will be my friend.

Notes:

Here is Social Weather Stations’ Jan. 21-24 report in full; here is Pulse Asia’s Jan. 22-26  report. Mon Casiple has an analysis, while Marocharim Experiment has a generation-specific reflection. For background reading, see PCIJ’s report, Jeckyll-and-Hyde Campaign; John Nery’s The 2010 race is set and  my entry,We, the People: How Candidates view The People as Electors, my columns Brains without bodies (2) and Back to the Future, and Pulse Asia’s February 2009 Survey on the May 2010 Elections: The Undecided in Alphanumeric.

The Long View: The battle for the Arroyo babies

In general the surveys break down our population into six age groups: 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and those 65 and above. The surveys tell us (for the purposes of this piece I’ll just focus on the most recent Pulse Asia Jan. 22-26 findings) that between the two leading contenders, Benigno Aquino III is strongest among the 18-24 and 45-54 age brackets (9-point leads, respectively), 55-64 (10-point lead) and 65 and up (a 19-point lead!) age groups. Manny Villar is strong in the 25-34 (10 points) and 35-44 (4 points) age groups.

On one hand, voters with the greatest life experience (if you’re 65 you were born after the war ended in 1945, so your memories go as far back as the Quirino years, probably), or who are contemporaries of the two leading candidates (Aquino falls within the 45-54 bracket, Villar falls within the 55-54 bracket) and those with the least life experience (if you’re 18 now, and thus a first-time voter, you were born in 1992) all seem to have a similar perspective in that they are generally for Aquino. Villar’s constituency, age-wise, seems to be those currently just starting to climb the corporate ladder or who are in middle management [or of OFW age]. Villar’s constituency happens to be the most numerous portion of the population. [See this chart a friend prepared containing age groups and significant dates that molded the attitudes of particular generations].

I have had the chance to give talks to groups of university students lately. Belonging to the 18-24 age group, they comprise 14 percent of the voting population. They are at the tail end of what I believe will come to be known as the Arroyo babies, just as my generation is known as the martial law babies (born during the earlier part of the Marcos administration, 8 to 17 years old when Ninoy Aquino was assassinated, and 11 to 20 years old during Edsa in 1986).

There are the Edsa babies, born from 1977 to 1986, the oldest of whom were in primary school when Ninoy was shot, or in primary school when Cory Aquino left office. Politically, they came of age in the presidential elections of 1998 or 2004.

The Arroyo babies are those who have come of age in time for this election and are first-time voters, as well as those who came of age, politically speaking, in the aftermath of Edsa Dos, and voted for the first time in 2004. That is, those who are 18 to 31 years of age. The oldest were around 22, seniors or fresh graduates, when Edsa Dos took place. Perhaps they felt the disappointment of the post-Edsa Dos years (and the panic of Edsa Tres) most keenly—they didn’t go out into the streets during “Hello, Garci” or NBN-ZTE scandals. The middle includes those who were college freshmen during “Hello, Garci,” and who are 22 years old today, fresh graduates who may not have participated in rallies during “Hello, Garci” but who expressed indignation over the NBN-ZTE hearings.

This is a generation, then, that is basically aware of only two presidents: Estrada and Arroyo. Of this generation, a McCann study in 2007 said: “Teens are watching less TV, listening to less radio, reading less books and magazines, are doing less sports, interacting with friends face-to-face less frequently, and spending less money on traditional consumer items…. thanks to virtual connectivity technology like text messaging and the Internet.”

This doesn’t seem to be a generation that can be swayed one way or another by mass media, in that they probably pay attention to the news only in times of natural disaster but without keeping tabs on political developments. They are, however, a generation that may be swayed, particularly effectively, by advertising because when they do watch TV, the ads can touch them, particularly during prime time.

Manuel Villar, for example, during the whole of 2009 and in the first week of January, poured a tremendous amount of resources into ads targeted specifically at those 18 years old and above, belonging to the socio-economic bracket D and E. In 2009, he had 4,710 TV ads, of which 3,944 were 30-seconders. In the first week of January alone, he had 296 spots. More than half of the ads during both periods were broadcast during prime time, meaning more than 90 percent of viewers got to see his ads at least once a day and those seeing his ads twice or thrice a day in the high 80s.

Of course, saturating the airwaves cost a pretty penny: a conservative estimate puts Villar’s 2009 spending at P640 million, and during the first week of January at about P70 million or P240 million for the whole month (Teodoro, by one estimate spent P29.5 million, and Aquino P7.8 million).

What is equally important is that the Villar ads have not only been relentless, but methodical. And they are working. In a month, Pulse Asia reports that Aquino has gone down 8 points, Villar increased by 12, Estrada lost 7, while the other candidates remain basically unchanged with negligible levels of voter support.

At this point, the two leading contenders are now neck-and-neck going into the official starting line of the campaign. Since every election is about the future, the question then becomes, which of the two leading contenders can lay claim to the first-time voters, the Arroyo babies.

Let me close with two opinions from this age group. One who belongs to the older range of the spectrum puts it this way: “Erap was tried and found guilty, hence his current standing. We tolerated Gloria because nothing has been proven. Hence, same with Villar: nothing has been proven, and he says he cares for the poor, so, vote for him.” Another, more in the middle of this age group, says, “The numbers say that we have resigned and accepted corruption as a fact of life since we became very politically aware in Edsa Dos.”

But as for the tail enders, the first-time voters, their views are the most surprising of all. They are the least touched by the question of ethics as a factor in electing public officials.

The Long View: Cabral’s crackdown

The Long View
Cabral’s crackdown

By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:43:00 02/01/2010