The Long View
What’s at stake in the Senate race
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:23:00 03/15/2010

OVER the past few years the only real obstacle to the President’s ambitions has been the Senate. The Senate we elect in May can either hinder or help the next administration, depending on two things: who is elected president, and whether that president will enjoy the support of a cooperative majority in the upper house. Put another way, the next president has to have a working majority in the face of what will surely be a committed opposition coming from the supporters of whichever of the two main contenders loses (including one of the two main contenders who, if defeated, will remain in the Senate) plus the bloc of the current administration which might position itself as a critical swing vote on bills and the chamber’s leadership.

The conventional wisdom, backed by the example of every administration since 1935, is that the House will be controlled by the next administration, with the Speakership essentially determined by presidential patronage. This was the case even in the era of the two-party system, when the ruling party lost the presidency but retained the House (in 1953, when LP incumbent Quirino lost; in 1961 when NP incumbent Garcia lost; and in 1965, when LP incumbent Macapagal lost, the administration party in these instances maintained its control of the House). By midterm of the Magsaysay, Macapagal and Marcos administrations, House control had shifted to the incumbent’s party. President Arroyo wants to deny the next president the Speakership—a bold bid indeed.

The Senate, on the other hand, goes into 2010 with 12 senators with terms until 2013: two independents, Escudero and Honasan; two Liberals, Aquino and Pangilinan; two Lakas Kampi-CMD, Arroyo and Zubiri (who is already being touted as the leader-in-waiting of the Frankenstein Coalition since the President will be going to the House and Teodoro’s chances are slim); two from UNO, Lacson and Trillanes; two NP, Alan Cayetano and Villar; an LDP, Angara; and an NPC, Legarda. In reality, the blocs might be more like this, based on the two front-runners: the Aquino bloc of four (Aquino, Escudero, Lacson, Pangilinan) versus the Villar bloc of five (Arroyo, Cayetano, Legarda, Trillanes, Villar) with Angara, Honasan, Zubiri up for grabs depending on who else gets elected.

If Aquino wins, the Liberals and allies will start off with three in the Senate; if Villar wins, then the NP and friends can count on four to start with, unless Legarda also wins, in which case the starting count can be four or three, depending if the NP tandem wins or not.

Veteran senators Pia Cayetano (NP), Drilon (LP), Enrile (PMP), Estrada (PMP), Sergio Osmeña III (affiliated with LP), Recto (LP), Revilla (admin) and Santiago (PRP) are widely expected to win: that’s already eight, leaving only four slots for the rest, including Lapid of the admin and Sotto of the NPC, and first-timers, of whom, for now, the ones with the best chances seem to be Guingona and Biazon of the LP, Marcos of the NP, De Venecia of the PMP: in the latter’s case, one can only hope (properly, to my mind) that he’s poised to be suitably rewarded for his whistle-blowing efforts by election to the upper house.

If we assume the top eight as shoo-ins, this expands the respective LP and NP blocs from four to seven and five to six. The wildcard bloc, so to speak, would go from three to seven, but more likely disposed to collaborate with the LP than the NP.

But the LP could considerably improve matters if it manages to get Guingona and Biazon elected (with Hontiveros-Baraquel and Roco still having a fighting chance at this point), which is the challenge confronting Francis Pangilinan, the LP campaign manager for his party’s senatorial ticket. At stake is his future within a party long uneasy about his past closeness to Villar, and his prospects as either a potential Senate president or even vice-presidential contender in 2016. Either he will actively seize the reins, barnstorm the country, move heaven-and-earth to get the resources needed by the LP ticket to get at least four more from its ticket elected, or he will have to take the blame and the corresponding dilution of his political clout, if the slate he manages fails to achieve its electoral potential.

The NP, on the other hand, can still work on getting Gwendolyn Pimentel and Gilbert Remulla who remain viable contenders; if the LP manages to elect two more, its bloc would reach nine; the NP could conceivably elect eight in total.

In both cases even if they lose a senator because Aquino or Villar becomes president, the nucleus of an administration majority is there: with the Estrada (PMP) and PaLaKa blocs angling to decide the actual leadership of the Senate. Any bloc with 13 members determines the leadership of the Senate and the prioritization of bills. A bloc of 16 will be as iron-clad a majority as one can ever hope for, enabling constitutional amendments to pass, for example. Any bloc with at least nine members can block things quite effectively, including a shift to a unicameral parliamentary system; a bloc of eight can’t, on its own, stop things, but makes a case-to-case coalition to stop specific legislation quite easy, not to mention keeping the leadership on edge about coups.

The electorate, conventional wisdom also says, likes to cherry-pick its choices for the Senate on the basis of promoting a kind of informal checks-and-balances by not giving any slate too strong a showing; balanced, in turn, by a mischievous combination of electing senators either on the basis of solid qualifications or merely for entertainment value. Considering the challenges ahead, a critical choice, at least for supporters of the two leading contenders, is to ensure their presidential bet also obtains a working majority in the upper house.

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Free Press editorial cartoon, circa 1965.

In a sense, the campaign is over for many voters: at least, this is the impression I get. The surveys seem to agree that the undecided number about 6% of the electorate, which can make or break the chances of either of the leading candidates. The campaigning then, as it enters the middle period (the home stretch comes after Holy Week), focuses on three things: keeping the base, chipping away at the base of other opponents, and convincing the undecided. But the respective bases of the two leading candidates seem to be fairly stable and much as the campaign has taken an increasingly aggressive tone, the bases don’t seem to be shifting so much. This makes for a campaign in which those bases will probably tend to tune out, having made up their minds.

This is particularly true because the big push for many candidates took place before the official campaign even began: in the November-February period.

Normally, the formalities surrounding party conventions and the nomination of official candidates was supposed to take place in January, followed immediately by the presidential campaign itself in February. Because of automation, the filing of candidacies was moved to November and there was supposed to be an artificial hiatus until February, except the Supreme Court decided there would be no hiatus so to speak, which meant that essentially an extended pre-campaign period took place from October to February.

This was particularly crucial for the candidates in terms of TV and radio advertising. See the Pera’t Pulitika cover letter to Ricky Carandang, explaining its data, and see the Pera’t Pulitika data on November-February ad spending and February-March spending with legal limits kicking in (you can compare these figures with the Nielsen Index report on ad minutes for the 2004 candidates).

In chronological order, here are the latest surveys.

I. The first reported out was Pulse Asia, February 21-25, 2010 (released March 5, 2010):

The survey tells us that at the time it was conducted, Aquino enjoyed an overall 7 point lead over Villar nationally; leading in the NCR (16 pts.), Balance Luzon (2 pts.), Mindanao (19 pts.) and very slightly in the Visayas (1 pt.); and among Class ABC (8 pts.), Class D (8 pts.) and Class E (3 pts.)

This was remarkable because it answered two questions pending since the January surveys:

1. Would either of the main contenders show a game-winning trajectory? From his earlier, spectacular, numbers, Aquino has settled on a percentage in the high 30’s; after a herculean effort, Villar shot up but seems to have lost some steam. If, however, Aquino had slid and Villar, in turn, had actually overtaken Aquino, then a bandwagon effect might have been created. But neither before, when the resources that could be poured into the effort were limitless, and since, when a much more strategic effort is required, has Villar managed to actually overtake the frontrunner.

2. Did the C-5 Controversy have any effect? It seems it has.

See the following:

II. Next came the Manila Standard Today survey,February 20-26, 2010:

Again in terms of plotting the trajectory of the candidates, see the following:

This survey has a wealth of interesting data (see also messaging section below): it tells us Aquino leads Villar in the NCR (9 pts.), in South Luzon (7 pts.), in the Visayas (5 pts.), in Mindanao (3 pts.) and among Economic Class ABC (6 pts.), Economic Class D (4 pts.), Age Group 18-24 (2 pts.), Age Group 35-44 (12 pts.), Catholic Voters (4 pts.), Born Again Voters (2 pts.), among Urban Voters (9 pts.), among Female Voters (4 pts.) and barely ahead among Male Voters (1 pt.).

Villar leads in North Luzon (9 pts.), among Economic Class E (2 pts.), and among Age Group 25-34 (3 pts.), Age Group 45+ (1 pt.), among Iglesia ni Cristo Voters (12 pts.), Aglipayan Voters (11 pts.), Protestant Voters (12 pts.), Voters with “Other” Religious Affiliations (6 pts.), Muslim Voters (6 pts.) and among Rural Voters (2 pts.).

III. And finally, Social Weather Stations, February 24-28, 2010, which used the simulated ballot for the first time.

In terms of the two leading contenders, Aquino leads in the NCR (by 22 pts.), Visayas (5 pts.), and Mindanao (2 pts.), and Class D (the largest class, by 4 pts.); Villar leads in Balance Luzon (4 pts.), among Class ABC (3 pts.) and Class E (2 pts.).

(see also Marichu Lambino)

Background reading

The real contenders and Why SWS Presidential Survey Does Not Add Up To 100% But 300%, both October 14, 2009;

The blog Alphanumeric makes for interesting reading, see Pulse Asia: Preferences for Presidentiables January 2010 Update and Pulse Asia: Preferences for Presidentiables February 2010 Update.

As for the use of surveys to test political messages, see Arroyo pollster commissioned SWS to test political messages, April 27, 2006.

While the Pulse Asia survey tells us the main divisions are between those voting on the basis of a candidate not having a corruption record and those putting forward caring for the poor:

It’s interesting that the Manila Standard Today survey (run by the same fellow who used to undertake in-house surveys for the President) asks a lot of questions focusing on messaging. Look at the slides on voter conversion, on their awareness and favorability, and their slogans, and so forth.

Manila Standard Today Feb 21 to 26 Survey

See also the following interesting slides: Second choices of already-committed voters (i.e. if Estrada were to drop out, his vote would be split between Aquino and Villar; if Teodoro dropped out, more of his votes would go to Villar than Aquino, etc.); Levels of commitment of voters to their candidates.

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The Long View
To take the lead by leadership
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:51:00 03/10/2010

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The Long View
Social justice
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:22:00 03/08/2010

SOCIAL justice, a President once said, “IS far more beneficial when applied as a matter of sentiment and not of law.” Point XI in the Nacionalista Coalition platform in 1935 was, “When the resources of the country so permit, we shall begin the expropriation of great estates, so that they may be divided into lots and sold to private citizens, preferably their actual occupants. We shall encourage the formation of small land-ownership, which is the bulwark of democracy, the guarantee of public order, and a stabilizing force. It is our desire that every Filipino shall own his own land, the house in which he lives, and the farm which he tills.”

But the devil, as they say, is in the details. On the one hand, there was the active hostility of landlords to state expropriation; in the middle was the state itself, far more dependent in those days on the income generated by the sugar industry than it is now; and on the other, the conservatism of the peasantry itself even as radicalism made inroads among the peasantry. In his classic book, “The Huk Rebellion,” Benedict Kerkvliet says the problem arose when traditional expectations among farmers clashed with the businesslike attitudes of a new generation of landlords: “To the modern landlords, their relationship to their tenants was a business proposition—the peasants were laborers who would be employed as long as they helped turn land into profits.”

However, Kerkvliet continued, “The peasantry, meanwhile, wanted traditional patronage more than ever, lest they succumb not only to such usual hazards as poor harvests and sickness, but also [because] ‘Progress’ had not brought even modest economic gains to the peasantry, while at the same time severing numerous ties with their landlords that peasants wanted to retain and to which they felt entitled. The traditional landlord-tenant relationship included far more than a simple exchange of labor for money, so peasants wanted to keep it. They wanted the landed elites to acknowledge those ties and the obligations entailed. The stage was thus set for a conflict…”

In the first State of the Nation Address in 1936, a modification of the Coalition Platform was announced. In brief, land would be opened up for settlement in Mindanao and other relatively underpopulated areas, while the redistribution of land would be limited to “the expropriation of those portions of the large ‘haciendas’ which are urban in character and are occupied by the houses of the tenants. With the opportunity to own their own homes thus assured, the settlement of the present difficulties of the tenants relative to their farm lands might no longer be of urgent necessity.”

This did not turn out to be the case. The same President told an American communist, Sol Auerbach, in 1937, that he had warned landlords, “I tell them, if you know what’s good for you better improve the conditions of your tenants. You do not have enough sons for the army, so we must conscript our soldiers from the poor. We put guns in their hands and teach them how to use them. If you are not careful they will use those guns against you. If you want to save what you have, give them 10 percent of it or they will take it all.”

By the late 1960s, agrarian unrest, effectively crushed in the early 1950s, resumed on a large scale, as population growth closed off the social safety valve of resettlement (and sparked new problems in Mindanao between Christians and Muslims). Macapagal attempted land reform but was foiled by the landlords; Benigno Aquino Jr. proposed corporate collectivization as a middle path: preserve economies of scale for sugar while transferring ownership to farmers and landlords proportionally by means of shares of stock.

President Marcos aimed to score propaganda points at the onset of the New Society when he proclaimed the entire country under land reform. But he decreed the redistribution of rice and corn lands and left the sugar estates alone, focusing, instead, on creating a state sugar cartel which led to the collapse of the sugar industry in 1984.

After Edsa, radicals demanded the immediate expropriation of estates while landlords threatened civil war if this was done. President Aquino in her last days of full lawmaking powers issued two executive issuances, the first placing all lands under land reform (thus removing the Marcos-era exemption for sugar land); the second, giving 10 years for redistribution to take place: but the details were left to the incoming Congress. Civil war was prevented by giving landlords a seat at the bargaining table, but rebellion was perpetuated by giving radicals a justification for confrontation.

From 1987 to 1992 a total of 898,420 landless tenants and farm workers became legitimate recipients of either land titles or free patents and support services. Under President Aquino, 2.6 million hectares or 33.3 percent of the total CARP scope of 7.8 million hectares were redistributed. But Hacienda Luisita submitted, instead, to another kind of redistribution, which was the Stock Distribution Option or SDO.

Overlooked in the debate over this scheme is that it represented one alternative to outright redistribution among tenant-farmers of hacienda lands and, at the time it was proposed, a possible way forward to preserve economies of scale while attending to Social Justice concerns. Other landlords such as the Arroyos were more clever: they promised to redistribute but bogged down the process in legal red tape, ensuring neither stock option schemes nor redistribution. For the middle path, the situation finally came to a head when both radicals and the government clashed on Luisita, eliminating SDO as a viable option in terms of public opinion for what is now a “sunset industry.”

See also my entries, Planters and Millers (2006) and The Return of the Sugar Bloc (2007) and my 2007 Arab News column, Philippine Economy: A Cautionary Tale.

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The Long View
Do not enter
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:34:00 03/03/2010

RECENTLY THE US STATE DEPARTMENT, IN ITS international narcotics control strategy report (which helps congressional oversight with foreign aid) cited our government’s own apprehensions (as voiced by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) over the possibility that drug money might affect the outcome of the May elections—or, for the cynically-inclined, at least provide a pretext for a post-election crackdown on selected targets.

In 2008, the blog Third Wave began to warn of the influence big-time drug lords would have on the 2010 elections. In January 2009, Mon Casiple and editorials in this paper and in the Negros Chronicle pointed out pretty much the same thing. Last July, Babes Romualdez tipped off his readers about America’s concern, conveyed through CIA chief Leon Panetta, about drug money being used to finance terrorism. At the time, Romualdez estimated illegal drugs to be a $7.5-billion-a-year industry; the State Department report estimates it at $6.4 billion to $8.4 billion annually.

But that’s just one hissing head of a many-headed hydra menacing the elections.

In 2008, political scientist Paul Hutchcroft pointed out that “As Philippine elections have become increasingly costly, they have encouraged politicians to become more creative in raising funds, whether through the promise of legislative and regulatory favors, real-estate scams, involvement in gambling syndicates, or links to drug lords and the underworld. In a surprisingly candid moment, Speaker Jose de Venecia said of the system: ‘It’s the drug lords and the gambling lords … who finance the candidates. So from Day One, they become corrupt. So the whole political process is rotten.’” In February 2009, when spectacular bank robberies were hogging the headlines, I recalled Alex Magno’s reminder that the primary sources of political funding are: (1) Drug money; (2) Gambling money; (3) Quotas on customs and internal revenue bureaus; (4) The Philippine National Police.

Aside from claims of police connivance in protection rackets, there are also allegations that warlords use political office to extort tribute from syndicates. The Ampatuans have been tagged as this type of warlords, but PDEA’s Dionisio Santiago remains tight-lipped, saying only that the agency had received reports about politicians in alliance with drug traffickers. Fr. Eliseo Mercado has gone as far as to state there have been four G’s operating in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao: guns, goons, gold and Gloria: with President Macapagal-Arroyo’s patronage allowing the Ampatuans to become paramount warlords and untouchable so that no one could do anything if, indeed, they’d been acting as protectors of various syndicates—from smugglers, kidnappers to traffickers.

Since May 2005, the President and her family have faced accusations of being on the take from gambling syndicates. Her response was to brazen it out, knowing full well who matters, politically. Early last year, as speculation mounted about her possible run for the House of Representatives, her increasing visitations to Pampanga included her conspicuous presence at the birthday party of Lilia Pineda, wife of supposed jueteng lord Bong.

By last June, Pampanga Mayors League (PML) president and Lubao Mayor Dennis Pineda could boast: “There is no need for President Arroyo to campaign. We will give her an overwhelming mandate if she decides to seek a congressional seat.”

Now this could merely be guilt by association. After all, Christ befriended prostitutes and tax collectors, and the President likes to quote the scripture. As she has piously intoned many a time, let he who is without sin cast the first stone (translated into more secular language as the administration mantra, “Where is your proof? Bring it to the proper forum,” most recently quoted by Rep. Mikey Arroyo at Pineda’s birthday). The only ones who get a stoning, legally-speaking, anyway, being the destabilizers like that self-confessed sinner, Jun Lozada.

Meanwhile, Chavit Singson—whose initials might as well be the three G’s—publicly agonizes over who should be worthy of his political support: Gilbert Teodoro Jr. or Manuel Villar Jr., neither of whom seems displeased by the news. But then again, the Frankenstein coalition’s national directorate practically glitters with the names of topnotch warlords, while the Nacionalistas aren’t snobbish when it comes to people like their candidate for governor of Batangas, Armando Sanchez, who knows what it’s like to be tagged as a jueteng lord. It all makes that other NP-affiliated candidate (he seems to be officially under the wing of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD but is on the ticket, in one town, of the NP affiliate) Joc-joc Bolante look strictly like a white-collar candidate for an American country club-style prison.

In the end what this means is that the President’s coterie of thuggish friends are fully intent on continuing to throw their weight about, whether in association with her as she solidifies her petty grand duchy in Pampanga, or with the Frankenstein Coalition of her putative official candidate for president, or even with the Nacionalistas. Every time big fishes pose with the President—or presidential aspirants—it serves the purpose of a neon sign flashing in neon letters directed at PDEA and the press: “Do not enter our turf.”

It does not help that candidate Benigno Aquino III has given fair warning that those engaged in smuggling and other syndicated crimes are known to the authorities. Now, they have the time and incentive to rally around whoever seems best poised to thwart his candidacy.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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