Boo Chanco in his column Saving Democracy writes:
Social media and technology have a lot to do with how our election turned out, but do not explain everything. Sociology and economics played a big role too.
It all starts with the masa feeling victimized by the elite who took most of the benefits of a fast growing economy since EDSA. They, on the other hand, are still where they have always been, at the bottom. So, they are blaming the leaders of EDSA, mother and son, for failing to deliver perceived gains equitably.
Technology was expertly used to exploit this simmering resentment, which made it easy for the masa to identify with a candidate who also claims to be a victim of the same Aquino mother and son and their minions.
If the economic gains since EDSA were more equitably distributed and we had a more educated and larger middle class, maybe the resentment wouldn’t have been as extensive and sticky?
Cory kept on saying her mission was to restore democracy and that’s all. The rest was up to us. Maybe democracy shouldn’t come ahead of economic development?
I am reminded of the late Washington SyCip who thought successful tigers like South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore emphasized economic freedom ahead of political freedom.
SyCip believes that as income levels rise, democracy will come naturally when people are no longer hungry and are better educated. He cites the Philippines and India as examples of countries with all the democratic institutions while its masses remained poor.
Then again, in response to Mr. SyCip, we had our taste of authoritarianism during the martial law years, but it didn’t do us any good. We didn’t become a South Korea or a Singapore. We just got mired deeper into our tar pit of corruption and poverty.
We shouldn’t have to sacrifice political freedom to attain economic growth. But yes, it takes a certain kind of political leadership to make both happen at the same time. Unfortunately, we haven’t had that kind of leadership yet.
You do not need to be a genius to figure out that it was not really Cory which restored freedom and democracy. It was good old Uncle Sam with Cory as a pawn. She acted in the best interests of the US and the oligarchs and not for the Filipino.
The “revolution” could have been the opportunity for a reboot to correct all the past mistakes from the “revolutioni” of Emilio Aguinaldo to that of Marcos and his Bagong Lipunan. But her best and brightest only produced the 1987 Constitution. Thirty-five years after, look at where the Philippines is. We are still not at par with our more progressive regional neighbors. Even Vietnam has overtaken us.
There is that debate about which is better, the Asian way or the Western way? Our more progressive Asian neighbors do not have the same kind of freedom and democracy we have. Just look at Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. We have the “freest” everything in the region but we have not moved past the stage where we poverty is down to the bare minimum.
Our population has doubled in less than thirty years in one generation. We are unable to produce enough food for our needs. Every program that was in place under Marcos was junked by Cory and her minions and they were not replaced with more improved versions. This is why we do not have food and energy security. We have not made basic needs within the reach of all Filipinos, such as electricty and water.
The Roman Catholic Church is against birth control and so there was no control over the population. We multiplied like rabbits which increased the demand for social services. We have free education now but our public education is in such bad shape that our learners are falling far behind in test scores. Even private education is not at the same level that it used to be since mediocrity has become the norm.
While there should have been a separation of the Church and State, it had been a practice in the past of the State to avoid riling the Church in order to gain its support during elections. Today, it is not an issue anymore of the Church being an influence but Filipinos being responsible by limiting the number of children they have. Sadly, the masses cannot discipline themselves. They continue to procreate wantonly without any consideration about the future of their children.
Last week, Sheila Coronel, a distinguished Filipina journalist who once led the journalism program in Columbia University, delivered a commencement address to the graduating class of an American college. She talked about saving democracy.
“I believe,” she said, “that freedom and democracy are not writ in our stars. They are not destined. They are instead the product of human striving…
“Democracy is vulnerable to authoritarian assault because it is a promise that is hard to keep. If people fall for the Golden Age fantasy, it’s because democracy itself seems like another fantasy. Democrats – with a small “d” – make lofty speeches about freedom and equality, but the reality falls far short.”
She points out this important lesson of May 9 for our democracy:
“lt requires the taming of self-interest and greed so there can be equity and inclusiveness, dialogue and mutual respect. Democracy cannot flourish if the soil from which it rises is poisoned by injustice and division. It requires constant tending, especially in the seasons of discontent.”
That, in one paragraph, explained what happened last May 9. Our country’s ruling class took it for granted that our democracy will take care of itself while they took care of their wealth.
According to Forbes magazine, the wealth of Philippine tycoons surged by 30 percent amid the pandemic, at a time when people lost jobs due to lockdowns and the ayuda from the government were late and inadequate.
Richard Heydarian, a political scientist, noted that countries such as the Philippines have been making clear economic progress at the national level, but have not distributed its fruits equitably.
In a Facebook post, Heydarian noted: “at the height of economic growth in the 2010s, the 40 richest business families in the country gobbled up 76 percent of newly-created growth.
“These extreme levels of inequality largely explain why, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center survey, almost half of Filipinos said that ‘most elected officials do not care’ about ordinary citizens.
“Unsurprisingly, one authoritative survey showed that only 15 percent of Filipinos are fully committed to liberal democratic politics, while the majority have expressed openness to authoritarian leaders, who have no regard for institutional checks and balances.”
Think about that. Only 15 percent of Filipinos are committed to democracy. That is what we are up against. The vast majority are sick and tired of democracy’s failure to improve their quality of life.
The elite Filipino liberals who compose the opposition continue to be blind to their culpability. They were in power from 1986 – 2016 and did not achieve significant gains in improving the quality of life of the average Filipino. I doubt very much if Duterte would have won in 2016 if this was not case.
But in that election cycle, the continuity of leadership was represented by Mar Roxas. Those promising change were Duterte, Binay, Poe and Santiago. Poe capitalized on the brand equity of FPJ but would have been helpless once in power dealing witht the one ton gorilla that is the government bureaucracy. Miriam was ill. Logically, it should have been a race between Duterte and Binay, but the latter only managed to finish fourth. Duterte won because he was the novelty. The provincial hillbilly who dared to go up against the establishment.
The opposition cannot hear themselves nor the masses when they speak. You cannot apply concepts of mature democracies where poverty is not as widespread as it is in the country. The masses are not concerned with ideologies but more with their daily survival and the betterment of their lives.
What the social elites have accomplished is to keep the masses impoverished to keep them dependent on politicians who exploit them for their votes in exchange for social amelioration programs which the Filipinos, as a whole, pay for in terms of taxes.
We are only deluding ourselves by wanting to believe that there is such a thing as a free lunch when what is more important is a government with an efficient bureaucracy which delivers services and caters to the needs of the public.
The opposition continues to lay blame at everything and everyone except themselves. What they fail to realize is by being deaf and blind to their errors in judgment, they have handed over the government to Marcos without any opposition in the Legislative to act as a fiscalizer.
This is the direct result of the public having had enough of their antics which focused on negative campaigning, exclusivity and the continued attacks on the Marcos’ when they have no concrete achievements to show to the public to convince them to vote for their candidates.
Simply put, the public realized, at the height of the pandemic, that without what the Marcos’ put in place during their twenty years in power, the country would not have been able to ably cope with the effects of the pandemic. It boiled down to a simple issue of credibility during the campaign.
Bottomline, the opposition has to start practicing what they preach and not proselytize about the tenets of demorcracy as what most of them did during the campaign and continue to do so up to now.
Seeing as how Leni Robredo is still the top opposition figurehead and their leader, the change has to begin with her if they want to have better chances in the next election cycles. Otherwise, their descent into oblivion is not a probability but a certainty.
The more effective strategy of keeping power for the opposition was a more equitable distribution of wealth resulting in the minimization of poverty. If they made good on their promises after Marcos was ousted and managed to provide a better life for the greater majority of Filipinos, the Marcos’ would not have been able to make a comeback.
The window of opportunity has closed and the opposition has to come to terms with the reality that they are back at square one. It will take some time before the voters will take a liking to them again and that is made more difficult by their being out of power completely.
We can expect them to continue with the same narratives about Marcos and Duterte and what the future of the country will be under them. The Marcos administration cannot afford to fail. About the best chance the opposition has for a comeback is to take up Marcos’ offer of unity. But this will not likely happen any time soon.
To begin with, this would not have been their fate if they were not delusional to begin with.
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