Why I'm voting for Kapatiran

http://archive.inquirer.net/view.php?db=1&story_id=65724

First posted 01:27:41 (Mla time) May 14, 2007
Melba Padilla Maggay
Inquirer




THE SOCIAL WEATHER STATIONS finding that 77 percent of the people would vote according to conscience whether or not the candidate will win is welcome news to those who wish to see the end of the "segurista" (sure thing) mentality that keeps qualified candidates from winning simply because they do not, at first instance, figure in the survey ratings.

If in today's elections our people do vote according to conscience, there is some chance for marginal parties like Kapatiran. A strong showing by its candidates will send a strong signal that there are people of conscience out there who can be a healing force in our diseased politics.

This possibility is like a drop of rain in a long summer season of drought and political discontent. This election has seen the collapse of an already fragmented party system into free-floating groupings of vested interests.

The hope that it would be a sort of referendum on the legitimacy of the Arroyo administration has been dashed by the lack of clarity and coherence in the stance of major parties on issues needing closure.

There is great doubt that the will of the people will truly surface, mainly because of widespread fear of fraud in the actual vote count, presided over as it is by a Commission on Elections tainted by the "Garci" scandal and headed by a chairman with proven ethical pliability.

Yet at the same time, quite softly and without much fanfare, an alternative that may turn out to be historic has presented itself.

Kapatiran, the party which alone has a clear platform, has managed to resonate among those seeking a way out of the morass of our morally greasy politics. One wonders why savvy politicians with some remaining shreds of idealism had stayed away from it. What would it be like if the Kapatiran is taken a little more seriously as something more than a quixotic blip on the radar screen of politicians and voters alike?

Preference for personality

A long lament over the state of our politics is this pronounced preference for personality rather than platform. Kapatiran stands for a politics of principle, and because of this it has dared to put up candidates that are not known and have no name recall, but are competent and have the character to match their brains and the published aims of the party.

Zosimo Paredes, Adrian Sison and Martin Bautista will not be noticed if they walk down the corridors of a mall or a grocery store. They are known only to colleagues and friends who witness their daily walk of faithfulness in the big and small things they are called to be responsible for.

In this they are similar to the many faceless men and women in this country who have what it takes to rule this country well, but remain in the margins because they do not push themselves forward.

But then these days these Kapatiran candidates have taken a step that is distinctly out of character with the rest of this country's talent pool.

Unlike those who migrate or are content to sit on the sidelines, these men have been prepared to be thrust into the mess of politics and leave their careers, their comfort zones and quiet pursuits to obey a call to "put God at the center of politics." Precisely because they are not your garden variety politicians, it is not without sacrifice that they put themselves forward in the service of the larger good.

Politics of virtue

The possible effect of a "politics of virtue" is not to be scoffed at in a time when our people are utterly sick of our political elite, perceived to be mostly scoundrels merely taking turns in seizing power.

The huge crowds that surfaced in the rallies of Eddie Villanueva, the religious leader-turned-presidential aspirant in the election of 2004, is sign enough of a latent electoral power that could be summoned given a cause of some moral credibility.

The fact that this crusade for "moral governance" frittered away quite quickly in the aftermath of the elections is also an indication that our people are discerning enough to decisively withdraw support and turn away disenchanted once they smell the faintest whiff of moral rot.

Research shows that our people gravitate toward leaders who combine in themselves genuine charisma and moral authority. Leaders of millenarian movements, like Hermano Pule, are of this type; there is a great deal of longing in the culture of men and women who will lead with spiritual integrity.

It is not an accident that the brunt of resistance against Spanish and American colonialism had been waged by leaders of such quasi-religious movements. We should not be surprised that our religious leaders today have an almost medieval power over their flock, and tend to have more credibility than politicians. It also explains the very low trust level accorded those who currently occupy seats of power and by past choices or "lapse in judgment" have soiled themselves.

Fusing political, spiritual goals

As in our wars of independence, there is a long tradition of fusing the political and spiritual in our national affairs. The Kapatiran is a contemporary example of this impulse.

Far from conjuring images of Rasputin and Cardinal Richelieu from the muddled history of Church-State relations in the West, the Kapatiran is a national political party, not of clerics but of lay people seeking to make a difference in this country from their faith perspectives.

Having learned from failed socialist experiments that love of neighbor without love of God ends in killing fields, they believe that all change begins from the inside, even as they also know that injustice can be entrenched in structures and need confronting systematically.

I have no illusions that the Kapatiran candidates will make it. It will take a major miracle for any of them to land in the top 12. But then, I am not voting for success; I am voting for change. And who knows? If the 77 percent who said they will vote according to conscience really did so, they may stand a chance. So remember: Paredes, Sison, Bautista. Para Sa Bayan ito.