5.23.2007

A Derelict Democracy

This Monday, May 14, the citizens of the oldest republic in Asia will troop to the polls and cast their votes in the country’s mid-term elections.

Many are likely to vote quite willy-nilly, with no great expectations that the exercise will mean something to the vast poor crowding in its rapidly mushrooming slums. It is a political right that has steadily lost its luster since the apparatus of democracy was restored following the “people power” uprising two decades ago.

Months before, this election was seen as a kind of referendum on the legitimacy of the Arroyo government. Just like the US midterm elections, which sent clear signals that the Bush policy on Iraq was way out of line, it promised an orderly way of ascertaining what the people must feel about the unresolved allegations of fraud that has hounded the Arroyo presidency.

It also held out the possibility of recomposing the balance of power in Congress, and with it the off-chance that the fast train bulldozing its way on a wild rush toward constitutional changes could be stopped.

This optimism as to its significance quickly dwindled into disillusionment. The expectation that the battle lines will be drawn along the divide over these critical issues has evaporated. The parties in this contest have come together, not because of a common stand on policy, but because of a common pragmatism premised on the realities of “winnability.”

With the exception of Kapatiran, a rather quixotic attempt at a “politics of principle rather than personality,” the major parties—the administration’s Team Unity and the Genuine Opposition—are bands of miscellaneous rabble glued together by political convenience.

In this election, we see the final dissolution of the party system as more normal democracies know it. This is partly a residue of the Marcos regime, which once dismantled it and turned it into a shadow play, the protagonists totally controlled from behind the scenes. But it is also partly a product of an entrenched political elite, whose dynastic character is perpetuated by the intertwining of power and privilege through a complex system of patronage and a closed network of clan alliances and loyalties.

For some time now, the lack of a clear party system, as seen in the ideological divide between Democrats and Republicans in the US, or the current contestation between socialists and the Center-Right in France, has been bewailed by more reflective elements in Philippine polity.

The pronounced preference for personality rather than ideology on the part of voters has challenged the cultural premises of those schooled in “good governance” as practiced in the West.

The palpable presence of political dynasties and personalism in voting patterns have persisted despite the half a century of direct tutelage in American-style democracy. A former colony of the US, the Philippines was once billed as America’s “showcase of democracy in Asia.” This myth was shattered when nary a whimper was heard from mainstream citizenry when martial law was declared and the iron hand of authoritarianism fell on dissenters in 1972.

The euphoric rise of “people power” as a direct instrument for expressing popular will has briefly fanned hopes of a government that the people can own. This quickly developed a dark underside, however.

“People power” became a tool for those wanting a show of popular support for their vested interests. An example of this was the so-called Edsa Tres, an assault on the seat of power mounted by a ragtag collection of poor people in support of Joseph Estrada who was ousted in 2001 in a second uprising called Edsa 2. Since then, crowds have been mustered for a variety of political purposes.

The fallout of all these has been a deepened disenchantment with the electoral process and the mechanisms of democracy as a whole. There is a perception that ours is a derelict democracy that has lost its way, rendered dysfunctional by the realities of oligarchic power, social monopolies and a political system disconnected from indigenous ways of doing things.

Already, the ghosts of history haunt the political landscape: there are voices wanting a return to the supposed “disciplined order” of strongman rule, and the government’s “war on terrorism” has taken the form of masked men on motorcycles lawlessly gunning down supposed insurgents, dark knights of primitive justice let loose in a general climate of apathy.

The Philippines is America’s oldest experiment in transplanting democracy in an alien setting. Its continuing failure is a patent lesson on why grandiose projects like democracy in Iraq will not flourish. There are deep structures of culture, power and social networks that need to be engaged even before mechanisms resembling democracy can be put in place. While peoples everywhere want freedom and self-determination. American-style systems are not exactly what will work.

The Philippines, like every nation, has to find its own way and fashion a viable democracy out of the dislocations of its colonial history and the aggressive influences of the current global order and polity. To come up with a system that works, it needs to fit and root itself in the traditional culture while negotiating with the demands of effective governance in a postmodern world.

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.