Philippines: Whither People
Power? By Miriam Grace A Go
MANILA - The crowd was sparse when the
Philippine government last Wednesday observed the 18th
anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolt, a stark
contrast to the half-million civilians who gathered on
Metro Manila's major highway to force dictator Ferdinand
Marcos out of Malacanang Palace.
Making the poor
attendance more ironic was the fact that the
commemoration was graced by two women who became
president through the so-called people's uprising,
Marcos successor, Corazon Aquino (in February 1986) and
the incumbent, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (in January
2001), and a former president who helped make those two
uprisings possible, Fidel Ramos.
A week before
the anniversary, a rally called for by supporters of
presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr to protest the
disqualification case against the actor due to his
alleged US citizenship flopped. Only a few thousand
showed up at Plaza Miranda, the favorite rally site of
the poor sectors, as opposed to EDSA (Epifanio de los
Santos Avenue), which the middle and upper classes
prefer.
The small crowd of Poe supporters came
as a surprise to many observers, since the organizers,
some of his friends from show business, were tapping the
same sector - the urban poor - that tried to oust
President Arroyo and reinstall former president Joseph
Estrada through a massive protest in May 2001.
So have the Filipinos finally gotten tired of
this extra-constitutional exercise called People Power?
Political veterans say that after feeling the
negative effects of the two EDSA uprisings - such as
social divisions, political instability and economic
uncertainty - Filipinos seem to have realized that
letting constitutional processes take their course is
the better way to resolve leadership issues.
Marietta Primicias Goco, former chairman of the
National Anti-Poverty Commission and a candidate for
governor of the vote-rich province of Pangasinan north
of Manila, observes that voters are more inclined to
wait for the presidential polls less than three months
away for a change in leadership.
"The voters
think that if they don't approve of President Arroyo,
they would not take to the streets. They will show their
sentiments by voting overwhelmingly against her in May.
They will do an EDSA [uprising] through the ballot,"
said Goco, a former party mate of Arroyo who is now
supporting Poe.
The strategists of serious
presidential contenders recognize this voters' attitude,
so they are trying to harness the so-called People Power
by organizing in the communities for their candidates.
These grassroots networks are referred to as "parallel
machines" because they are working independently of the
political parties and the local politicians, but have
the same goal of campaigning and delivering votes for
the candidates.
The establishment of parallel
organizations in the country's 42,000 barangay
(villages) became necessary after the 1998 presidential
elections, the lessons of which all candidates this year
are taking to heart. In 1998, the ruling party's
standard bearer, Jose de Venecia Jr, poured resources
toward local politicians, who were expected to tap their
supporters to carry de Venecia to victory. The
assumption was since these local politicians were
card-carrying members of his party, now called the Lakas
(Power)-Christian Muslim Democrats, their loyalty would
be to de Venecia.
When election day came, de
Venecia lost by about 6 million votes to former actor
and then vice president Joseph Estrada, who was backed
by a far smaller party that couldn't even complete many
of its local slates. It turned out that the Lakas
politicians junked their party mate de Venecia and
delivered the votes to the immensely popular Estrada.
"We made the mistake of putting all our eggs in
one basket. We relied a lot on the traditional political
organization," said Gabriel Claudio, who was Lakas'
deputy secretary general in 1998 and is now Arroyo's
campaign manager. "Now we are exerting extra effort to
harness the support of non-political sectors. We are
strengthening the parallel organization."
Arroyo's parallel organization is called
Pro-Gloria, or the Progressive and Responsive
Organization for Good Leadership, Outstanding Reforms,
and Intelligent Action. It is composed of 20 groups
representing mostly middle- and upper-class interests.
Ironically, while her organizers admit that Arroyo's
appeal is weakest among the lower-income classes,
Pro-Gloria has only one group networking in the poor
communities.
An Arroyo strategist says these are
the groups formed by or linked to persons whose
loyalties are with Arroyo and her husband. "These are
the groups that they can expect to work hard for her
candidacy alone, and not be concerned with Lakas
anymore," the source explained.
A campaign
veteran working with Lakas said: "You have to have a
fallback, so you tap the NGOs [non-governmental
organizations] to work for you at the grassroots level
when the mayors and the barangay leaders won't do it for
you."
Edgardo Pamintuan, chairman of the
National Housing Authority, directs sectoral
coordination for the Arroyo campaign. He said:
"Senatorial candidates will listen to local politicians
when warned against mentioning the president's name
because the residents favor her rival. The parallel
organization will be the ones [who] campaign for her
even in those unfriendly territories. The local
politicians, to boost their own candidacies, will take
credit for the projects initiated by the president in
their areas. The parallel organization will be the ones
to remind the residents that those were the president's
projects."
Arroyo's rivals also dismiss the
traditional notion that local bets are the ones who will
deliver the votes for the presidential candidate.
"Local candidates will just campaign for
themselves. We've seen that in the past two presidential
elections," said former congressman Jose Cabochan, who
is helping the campaign of former senator and education
secretary Raul Roco. "In 1998, de Venecia had all the
local candidates, but he lost. In 1992, [Lakas candidate
Fidel] Ramos had the machinery, but Miriam [Santiago]
almost defeated him."
Roco's camp has 18
volunteer and sectoral groups. It has a combined
membership of 100,000 nationwide to campaign and do
poll-watching for Roco.
Senator and presidential
candidate Panfilo Lacson has only 15 alliances forming
its parallel machine, but his is deemed to be more
formidable than the NGOs and grassroots networks of
other candidates. This is because the groups under these
alliances represent the most sectors from across
socio-economic classes. Unlike the support groups of
other candidates, Lacson's groups do not exist only on
paper, but have verified memberships in the localities
where they are organizing.
Poe, whom surveys
show to be the strongest rival of the incumbent, can
draw huge crowds wherever he goes, owing to his being a
popular movie actor and to the presence of celebrities
who are campaigning for him for free. However,
translating these crowds into votes will require Poe to
have a network of leaders in the villages who will in
turn herd their relatives to the poll precincts to vote
for him.
Poe has a number of volunteer groups,
but only the FPJPM (the Fernando Poe Jr for President
Movement) has verified membership nationwide.
Pamintuan of the Arroyo campaign says people's
groups in the villages, if maintained properly, can be
expected to answer for the 13 million votes than can
make a presidential candidate win, without help from
local politicians. And for the parallel organization to
work efficiently, it will need a budget of P800 million
to P1 billion (US$14.28 million to $17.85 million).
And who is doing the dirty work of knocking on
doors and conducting small group discussions in the
villages to mass support a la EDSA for their
candidates come election day? The former activists, the
experienced organizers who provided the warm bodies in
the past two EDSA People Power uprisings. That should
explain why the EDSA celebration on Wednesday didn't get
much of an audience - they were out campaigning.
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