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The mad, mad world of Philippine
politics
By Marco
Garrido
MANILA - The slate of hopefuls for
the Philippine presidential election in May would seem
illustrious indeed if only half the candidates weren't
mad.
In filing his candidacy, Rigoberta Madera
Jr, 56, listed "Messiah" as his occupation. He signed
with his "real name", Nanjnaan Nallalasnkeyjgodn
Narmannahaisn, or NNN for short. NNN also claimed to be
the six-star general "Ace Diamond Commander-in-Chief".
Presumably, if elected, he would assume this persona to
serve out his presidential term.
Salve
Ruiz-Bush, 47, claimed that George W Bush persuaded her
to run for president of the Philippines. Bush, she
claimed, is her fiance.
German Valladarez, 61,
boasted an ingenious plan for abolishing poverty: He
would replace the Philippine peso with the US dollar.
And just to be sure that everyone was affluent, he would
give P1 million each (which, presumably, would be
converted into dollars) to the unemployed as gratuity
and P1 million to the employed as bonus every year, plus
free electricity and water. Valladarez, an irrepressible
fount of ideas, also claimed to have found a way to
reincorporate the country's communist and Islamic rebels
into the mainstream. He would allow each insurgency
control of the military and police one day every week.
Luisito Bacani wanted to abolish Congress,
Philip Morriss Samson claimed to be a prophet with a
master's degree from the "School Career College of
Mystery", and Ferdinand Emmanuel Marcos Jr proclaimed
himself ruler of the "H-World Piunfeo", while Andres
Ugboc humbly gave his occupation as "natural-born
construction employee".
These characters lead
the list of the 79 "nuisance candidates" the Commission
on Elections (Comelec) has disqualified this year for
want of financial means and credibility. But while the
five remaining candidates are credible insofar as they
possess the means to launch nationwide campaigns - that
is, credible as presidential contenders - whether they
would likewise be credible in the role of president, as
characters of presidential mettle, is becoming
increasingly arguable.
Nuisance
politics
The Comelec counts five contenders: an
economist, incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
(GMA); a movie star, Fernando Poe Jr (FPJ); a lawyer,
former Department of Education secretary Raul Roco; an
ex-cop, former Philippine National Police chief Panfilo
Lacson; and the spiritual leader of the born-again group
Jesus is Lord, Brother Eddie Villanueva. Barring any
major upheavals in the electoral landscape, however, the
race is really a showdown between GMA and FPJ.
If at first it seemed a contest between
experience and popularity, with GMA marshaling the
advantages of incumbency against FPJ's command of the
masa's affection, ruthless politicking has
muddled the distinction. Both sides have tried to
balance out their appeal in their choice of allies.
GMA has chosen Noli de Castro as her
vice-presidential pick and running mate. One can be sure
that her selection had more to do with de Castro's
popularity as a newscaster - being the only candidate
able to top movie star FPJ in the polls - than with his
record as a senator (two bills in 30 months). Likewise,
she has made room for two movie stars and a former
basketball star in her senatorial slate, and gone so far
as to dub her new coalition "K4" (by yoking four
Filipino "K" words), an apparent allusion to the
Taiwanese pop quartet F4.
FPJ, on the other
hand, has surrounded himself with old hands to project
an image of competence. The shadow of deposed president
Joseph Estrada looms largest, a shadow Poe seems
anxious, but unable, to shake. Estrada's son Jinggoy,
initially left out of Poe's senatorial slate, was
quickly reinstated once Jinggoy got his dad to pout
publicly.
Poe's coterie includes Ferdinand
Marcos stalwarts such as Juan Ponce Enrile, Eduardo
Cojuangco, and Gringo Honasan. These men bring not only
experience but historical baggage to the campaign.
Enrile was the dictator's martial-law administrator and
defense chief; Cojuangco, a Marcos crony, was
purportedly behind the attempt to impeach the chief
justice last November, just as Honasan, a veteran
destabilizer, was accused of having encouraged last
July's botched coup attempt. Already, Enrile has hailed
FPJ as "the new Marcos" - although, he quickly
clarified, "the Marcos of 1965" (pre-martial law).
Poe has also conscripted Loren Legarda as his
running mate. Legarda, like de Castro, began as a
newscaster, but because she is widely regarded as
issue-oriented and progressive, her choice as
vice-presidential bet is staked to add the appearance of
competence to FPJ's bid.
Legarda's inclusion on
the Poe ticket is something of a coup for his camp.
Really, she defected. Legarda cut an iconic figure in
the run-up to EDSA 2, the people-power movement that
deposed Estrada in 2001. She was "the Crying Lady" who
burst into tears when the Senate voted not to open the
envelope purportedly showing Estrada to be Jose Velarde,
his alias enbling him to plunder.
Now, in the
bosom of Estrada's camp, she cuts an ironic figure. Her
defection and the others that have since followed have
diluted the spirit behind each party. The GMA and FPJ
camps, until perhaps recently, represented opposing
sides of the rupture begotten by EDSA 2, the
people-power movement. In a way, the May election was
supposed to continue the debate on who the rightful
president truly was, the one deposed or the one
installed. Now, however, with each party's slate
encompassing both Estrada supporters and opponents, the
debate - if not EDSA 2 itself - seems all but
irrelevant.
Even the distinction between
administration and opposition has been obscured.
Spinning her cross-party poaching as efforts at
"reconciliation", GMA has embraced Miriam Santiago, John
Osmena, and Orlando Mercado, all Estrada stalwarts, as
senatorial bets. Only some weeks ago, before ending up
on the K4 slate, Santiago had sworn off politics and
tried to infiltrate the Poe camp. Filipinos still
remember her directing the EDSA 3 (Estrada loyalist)
crowd to attack Malacanang Palace.
Another K4
senatoriable, Rodolfo Biazon, was last seen cheering on
Raul Roco. Senator Aquilino Pimentel, running on FPJ's
slate, shares the campaign stage with Enrile, the same
guy who had him arrested during martial law and whom he
accused of electoral fraud years later. The sheer
politics of it all is not only dizzying but demeaning.
One commentator has even suggested criminalizing
"turncoatism" or general political promiscuity for
disorienting the public.
Part of the
political culture
But political opportunism,
although especially rabid this year, is quite
characteristic of Philippine political culture.
Filipino political actors are keenly alert to
even the most obscure opportunities attending any
exercise of power. Political scientist Alfred McCoy
notes, "They are prepared to work with anyone who would
work with them." This opportunism translates into
fluidity in the political sphere. Rather than allowing
themselves to be confined to roles determined by
ideological affinities or party allegiances, Filipino
politicians readily and regularly cast about for better
opportunities, whether they are found in new patrons,
new parties, or new positions. Boundaries formulated in
the abstract barely decelerate their flight.
The
Filipino word for this turncoatism is balimbing,
which is a star-shaped fruit that appears the same
whichever way it is turned. The protean quality of
Filipino politicians makes for rather variable politics,
with coalitions in continual collapse and reformation
depending on the sway of political gales, but it also
tends to recycle a certain established cast of
characters. Fluidity is a political survival tactic, a
way to stay in power.
Hence the fact that, in
the present race coalitions are coalescing around
personalities rather than platforms and blatantly
pandering to popularity actually conforms to a
tradition. Conrado de Quiros, editorial writer for the
Philippine Daily Inquirer, observes correctly: "It is
not principle, or morality, or conviction that gives
[the politicians] common cause, it is ambition."
This tradition is, of course, reinforced by
voter preferences. Political scientists Alex Magno and
Randy David elaborate the point.
Magno argues
that Filipino voters select candidates on the basis of
"movie images, tribal loyalties, and the endorsement of
people they owe allegiance to ... The intelligentsia and
the ideologues might moan and groan, complain that the
coalitions that are the real contenders offer the voters
no choices. That is only partly true. The record tells
us that when competent choices were offered, the voters
rejected them."
David argues likewise, that the
poor - the decisive constituency in elections - are
"gripped by ignorance, mesmerized by the mass media, and
paralyzed by poverty ... They do not make a connection
between their personal situations and the social
structures that constrain their life chances. They seek
solutions in patronage and repose their faith in the
all-encompassing power of charisma."
These
preferences necessarily limit the practice of politics,
allowing for little more than a politics of popularity.
Such as it is, de Quiros has quipped: "The most
successful political party in the country today is not
the administration party Lakas-CMD, it is ABS-CBN
Broadcasting Corp."
Of course none of this
explains away the feelings of degradation that have
gripped an electorate dizzied by the spectacle of such
crass politicking. In gambles made to bolster their
credibility as contenders, the candidates have
squandered the faith, perhaps misplaced, that they might
represent a new kind of president, one somehow able to
rise above such wearisome nuisance politics
Nevertheless, such faith seems to persist beside
widespread cynicism. Paulino Corpus, a 44-year-old
pedicab driver, believes he should be president. "I no
longer trust the present leadership because it is no
longer capable. The fact that I don't have money means
that I am more serious in running. I will focus my
efforts on how to develop this country," he said. "But
the other candidates who have money, what did they do?
They made the lives of the people more difficult."
Unfortunately, Corpus also believes he is
"general of the world".
(Copyright 2004 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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