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Issue Number 24, August 2004
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 23, August 2004
MORE OF THE SAME
OLD SAME OLD
2004 Election Brings Precious Little Change
- Murray Horton
The 2004 Philippine
election was unique in the nearly two decades since the
Marcos dictatorship was overthrown by People Power 1. To
prevent a recurrence of that self-perpetuating
dictatorship, the post-Marcos 1987 Constitution limits
Presidents to a single six year term (and that's how long
that Presidents Aquino and Ramos held office). However,
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was not elected to
office, she only came to power by dint of being Vice
President to the heroically corrupt President Joseph
"Erap" Estrada. He was overthrown by People
Power 2, in January 2001 (see Kapatiran 19,
August 2001 for details) and Gloria was sworn in, as the
unelected President, on the same date as US President
George Bush (a man who came to power in even more dubious
electoral circumstances). Estrada (who remains in genteel
custody, undergoing what is supposed to be a trial for
his life on capital charges of gargantuan plunder) still
had more than three years of his 1998-2004 term to run.
The accepted wisdom was that as Gloria was unelected, and
was simply fulfilling her Vice Presidential role in
replacing a President who could no longer do the job,
then the years 2001-04 would constitute her single term.
But it was a Constitutional grey area, and one not helped
by Macapagal-Arroyo's humming and haaing. First she was
going to run for President in 2004, then she wasn't, but
then she announced that she was.
The Huge Advantage Of Incumbency
So, what was unique about the 2004 election was, that it
was contested by an incumbent President (the first
incumbent since Marcos to run for election. Note - not
re-election, as she wasn't elected in the first place).
Philippine politics, under any circumstances, are
dominated by patronage, pork barrels and outright
flagrant corruption. With a generous helping of violence
tossed in, to make sure that people vote for the
"right" candidate or that, at least, the
"wrong" candidates or party activists get
killed or frightened off. Incumbency adds an immeasurable
advantage to that.
It's important to realise too, that although the
Philippines inherited the American political system from
its former coloniser, it has not inherited the party
system to go with it. There are no Democrat or Republican
parties (definitely no National or Labour parties), and
no contest of policies. Philippine elections are
personality-centred, with shifting alliances of factions
and personalities who constitute and reconstitute
themselves into temporary parties as circumstances
necessitate (the best organised and most truly national
party in the country would have to be the Communist Party
of the Philippines but it doesn't contest elections).
Dynastic ruling families (who are invariably huge
landowners, the very people who have ensured that genuine
land reform has never happened), movie stars (Estrada was
one), showbiz, TV and sports personalities have dominated
recent elections. In a Third World country with an
enormous disparity in wealth, a predominantly rural
population, and politics dominated by the heavily armed
and very rich ruling class, name and face recognition is
vital. So, if you're a movie star, TV news anchorman,
basketballer, or the offspring of the local clan that has
run your province for generations, you have a running
start. Even better if you're the incumbent President,
with all the trappings of power, public money and State
propaganda at your disposal.
Once she announced that she would, in fact, stand for
election, Macapagal-Arroyo was the front runner. And
there were plenty of well-founded accusations of unfair
advantage in her use of patronage, State finances and the
media during the campaign. Her main opponent, Ferdinand
Poe Junior, exactly met the celebrity criterion needed to
be a trapo (a derogatory term meaning
"traditional politician". It is also the
Filipino word for a cleaning rag, which shows how much
Filipinos think of their politicians). He was the
Philippines' leading action movie star, and an old mate
and protégé of Estrada, himself a former action movie
star. There were five Presidential candidates, the most
sinister of whom was Senator Panfilo "Ping"
Lacson, former police chief, systematic human rights
violator, killer and crook par excellence (see Kapatiran
20, January 2002; "There's A Horrible Pong About
Ping"). His many critics see him as another
potential Marcos, in all ways.
World's Slowest Election; Systematic Cheating
The election was held on May 10 - and proved to be
possibly the slowest in the world. Votes have to be
written in manually by the voter, and the ballot papers
counted manually (Macapagal-Arroyo had not kept her
promise to computerise elections). Counting dragged on
and on and on. The deadline for the President,
Congressmen, Senators, Party List Representatives,
Governors and Mayors, etc., to be declared was June 30.
In the case of the President, that deadline was only just
met. Delays included a filibuster by various
grandstanding Senators and Congressmen who wanted to
dispute the results. The Philippines had 35 million votes
to count. Contrast this with India, the world's largest
democracy, which held its election at about the same
time. It had nearly 400 million votes to be counted.
Voting was computerised and the results were announced
within days.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was proclaimed the winner, by a
respectable margin. So she can finally claim a mandate
and her 2004-10 term gives her a total of nine years in
office, which will be the longest Presidency since Marcos
(20 years, most of that without bothering with
elections). Poe refused to concede defeat, producing
plenty of convincing evidence that there had been
systematic cheating, and his supporters staged sporadic
protests up to, and including, Macapagal-Arroyo's
Inauguration. This is all par for the course in
Philippine elections, namely the cheating, refusal by
losing candidates to concede defeat, and protests,
sometimes violent, by those candidates' supporters.
Electoral fraud is such an ingrained part of Philippine
political life that it has its own terminology. Dagdag-bawas
is the Filipino expression meaning, literally, to add or
subtract i.e. to manufacture or disappear votes. The
conclusion of most analysts was that Poe was a dud
candidate, who shot himself in the foot by his behaviour
during the campaign, and who offered nothing by way of
policies.
Nothing much changed in the composition of the new
Congress and Senate. There was an intake of movie stars
and those from dynastic political families into the
latter. The most notorious new Senator is Jinggoy
Estrada, son of the imprisoned former President, Joseph
Estrada, and himself a co-defendant at his father's slow
motion trial (Jinggoy was himself initially held in
custody. He replaces his mother, Loi Estrada, in the
Senate. All in the family).
"Never have so many relatives run for public office
as in this election. It is as if a dam has been breached
and family dynasties are flowing over it in a flood. And
new ones are being born with every election. Incumbent
officials whose three terms have run out unashamedly make
their spouses, children, brothers and sisters, fathers
and mothers, nephews and nieces, cousins and
grandchildren run for the positions they will vacate and
for other positions in their territories. They already
have the political machinery, they might as well make
them work for as many members of the families as
possible" (Philippine Daily Inquirer,
26/5/04; Opinion; "New Faces In The Senate",
Neal H Cruz). And the Congress and Senate are openly a
stamping ground for the rich. Of the 225 Congressmen in
the outgoing Congress, 219 were (peso) millionaires. Not
a few would also be $US millionaires. The six who
weren't? The Party List Representatives from Left parties
such as Bayan Muna, specifically elected to represent the
poor (who comprise the overwhelming majority of the
country's population).
The Party List Vote
Violence and intimidation are routinely used in every
Philippine election campaign. The 2004 one was the most
deadly since Marcos was overthrown in 1986, with more
than 140 killed and another 50 or so wounded. Some of it
involved fighting between the traditional ruling clans in
the provinces, but the bulk was directed at the Left
parties, such as Bayan Muna and Anakpawis, contesting the
Party List vote. See Nick McBride's article elsewhere in
this issue, detailing that campaign of murder and
intimidation, primarily against Bayan Muna (which had
nearly 50 activists murdered in the period April
2001-June 04, according to figures compiled by KARAPATAN,
the leading human rights organisation).
Despite that, Bayan Muna ended up with three members of
Congress - the maximum allowable, so it did very well in
the Party List vote, particularly as the field was so
crowded with "parties", some of which were very
dubious indeed. 2% of that vote is the necessary minimum
to get one seat. Former veteran May First Movement (KMU)
union leader, Crispin Beltran, (who PSNA toured through
New Zealand in 1999) returned to Congress as one of the
two Party List Representatives of the new Anakpawis Party
(Anakpawis translates as "toiling masses"), the
other one being veteran peasant leader, Rafael Mariano.
Longtime GABRIELA women's movement leader Liza Maza is
the sole Representative from that Party. There was a Left
bloc of six parties, which got six Representatives in
Congress. Three of those parties - those representing
youth, overseas workers and Muslims - got nothing.
"Street parliamentarian" Teddy Casino, one of
Bayan Muna's new Representatives, said that the Left bloc
had expected to win 8-12 seats and attributed the
shortfall to the Red scare campaign and murderous
harassment detailed in Nick McBride's article in this
issue.
Isabela's Saving Grace
There were some very hopeful developments in the
provincial elections. The biggest was the election of
Grace Padaca as Governor of Isabela, in Northern Luzon.
She defeated Faustino Dy Junior, whose clan had ruled
Isabela Province for more than 30 years (literally a
Dynasty, and very nasty dynasty at that).
"…Faustino Dy Junior is that quaint creature
known as the professional politician. He has made
government his profession and business, having come from
a political clan and inherited the mantle of the late
long-time Isabela Governor, Faustino Dy. He is in fact,
national chairman of the Nationalist Peoples Coalition,
the party that largely revolves around the interests of
Eduardo Cojuangco, a close associate of the late
dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, and other Marcos henchmen.
When he was Congressman, he protected the family's
interest in logging and other businesses when he occupied
the vice chairmanship of the House of Representatives
committee on environmental and natural resources. Dy is
therefore the classic Filipino 'trapo' (traditional
politician) who has made of government and political
positions a family demesne and business. Dy's loss
provides a belated but hopeful note to the vision of the
1987 Constitution to abolish political dynasties that are
the most dominant feature of our feudal and pre-modern
politics. Since then, Congress has not passed a law to
put the constitutional mandate into effect…" (Philippine
Daily Inquirer, 21/5/04; Editorial;
"Hope For New Politics").
Grace Padaca is anything but a trapo. She is single 40
year-old woman and victim of childhood polio, who has to
use crutches. In the early 90s she built a reputation as
a fearless broadcaster on Bombo Radyo, in Isabela (radio
is the most powerful medium in the rural poor areas,
which more often than not, don't have electricity and
therefore are immune to the charms of TV). "More
than ten years ago she was charged with libel by a
provincial official. Standing on principle, Grace refused
to post bail on her own and instead allowed herself to
undergo detention at the provincial jail at Ilagan. When
this happened, Bombo Radyo went on air to announce the
arrest of Padaca and launched a campaign expressing
support and sympathy for the detained radio announcer.
Beyond anyone's wildest expectations, people from all
over Isabela - poor farmers, barrio folk and townspeople
- trooped to the capitol jail in unprecedented numbers.
From Quirino in the south to the northern tip of Cagayan
province, people moved to Ilagan, converging at the
provincial jail. There were those who cried upon seeing
the gentle-looking, polio-afflicted girl who was the
brave voice they heard on the radio.
"Talk about people power - this one beat EDSA* by a
mile. There were no celebrities or leaders like President
Cory Aquino, Jaime Cardinal Sin, Juan Ponce Enrile or
Fidel Ramos to mobilise or galvanise the populace into
action. But from the evening of October 22 to the 24th,
1992, the people with no coordinators or organisers
packed the grounds of the provincial jail in maintaining
vigil reminiscent of EDSA 1986. A collection was taken up
from the crowd, concentrating mainly on the small folk's
contributing one or two pesos each for the purpose of
raising the 20,000 pesos bail money. Politicians who
tried to cash in by volunteering to shoulder portions of
the amount were turned down. Close to 37,000 pesos was
raised, and with the bail money from the people, Padaca
was released from jail…" (Philippine Daily
Inquirer, 29/5/04; Opinion; "Her
Grace, the Governor of Isabela", Ramon J Farolan).
So this is the calibre of the woman that the people of
Isabela overwhelmingly elected as Governor. But the Dys
didn't give up their fiefdom without a fight and they
obstructed her accession to office until the last
possible minute with smear claims that she was the
candidate for the New People's Army (NPA) of the
Communist Party of the Philippines and that the NPA had
intimidated people into voting for her. The Dys and their
network of provincial mayors took court action to try to
overturn the election result but in vain. They had lost
and were out. *EDSA - the main avenue through Metro
Manila (it's actually an acronym, but one by which the
road is universally known). It has become shorthand for
the 1986 People Power 1 uprising, which overthrew
Ferdinand Marcos, EDSA was the assembly point for the
millions who peacefully rallied. Ed.
Uncle Sam's Loyal Servant
But hopeful developments like this at provincial level do
not alter the fact that the traditional rulers of the
Philippines are still very much in charge. Whether gained
by massive cheating or not, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
remains the President for another six years, and can
claim a mandate for the first time. She is a fully paid
up member of the ruling class and is literally to the
Palace born - her father was President and she grew up in
Malacanang. She is a neo-liberal reformer, having
personally signed the Philippines into the World Trade
Organisation at its creation, in the mid-1990s. In her
interim 2001-04 term she pushed a programme of
privatisation of public assets, such as power companies.
In the build up to the 2004 election she bent over
backwards to accommodate the powerful Lopez family (one
of the traditional families that owns the Philippine
economy and dominates its politics). It had suffered
under Marcos and had assets forcibly taken off it under
his dictatorship. Macapagal-Arroyo needed its backing, so
she pushed its interests in all the sectors where it owns
companies, such as electricity, water and media (her Vice
President is Noli de Castro, a veteran TV broadcaster for
the network owned by the Lopezes). All Philippine
Presidents get mired in corruption (Marcos and Estrada
were the standouts) and Macapagal-Arroyo was no
exception, with her husband (the quaintly titled First
Gentleman) being at the centre of a financial scandal.
Macapagal-Arroyo is slavishly following the long and
dishonourable tradition of Philippine Presidents who do
Uncle Sam's bidding. Kapatiran 23 (November
2003. "George & Gloria: Two Of A Kind")
detailed her first three years of loyal service to the
US. That culminated in President Bush designating the
Philippines a "major non-NATO ally", which puts
it in the second tier of US allies, with the likes of
Australia. Bush also proclaimed the Philippines to be the
"second front" in the war on terror and the US
got much more involved in the Philippines' internal war
against the ragtag bandits of the Abu Sayyaf Group, in
the southernmost parts of Mindanao and the islands
between it and Borneo. More importantly the US got
involved in the fight against the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front, a genuine people's army, more than 10,000 strong,
fighting for the independence of Mindanao's Muslims
(known as Moros). US military forces started regularly
staging joint training exercises in these southern battle
zones, and re-established a semi-permanent presence in
parts of the country (but did not try to re-establish the
military bases that were thrown out of the Philippines in
1992 after a titanic campaign by the Filipino people).
And, in connection with the other long-running civil war
- namely with the NPA - the US obliged by declaring both
it and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) as
"foreign terrorist organisations", along with
Joma Sison, one of the founders of the CPP and currently
the exiled Chief Political Consultant to the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines (the coalition of
groups, including the CPP, waging the armed struggle).
A Hasty Retreat From Iraq
Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist atrocities in
the US, Macapagal-Arroyo offered full assistance to the
US "War On Terror", short of sending Philippine
troops to Afghanistan. But, in 2003, she sent a token
Filipino force to take a non-combat role in the
occupation of Iraq. The commander was the notorious
Brigadier-General Jovito Palparan, dubbed the Butcher of
Mindoro by human rights groups, after the appalling
record of murder and harassment of political activists by
troops under his command on that island (the President
and the military found it convenient to promote him and
get him out of the country for a few months). Basically,
the force was sent there for public relations purposes
(see Time, 16/2/04, "Life In The Danger
Zone", Phil Zabriskie. This was an article about the
Philippine contingent, in a section entitled
"Rebuilding Iraq: On The Ground"). But that all
came to a sudden end in July 2004, with the kidnapping
and threatened beheading of a Filipino truck driver by an
Iraqi resistance group. They demanded that the
Philippines immediately pull out its handful of troops
(less than the number New Zealand has in Iraq). And
despite the intense pressure applied by Bush and his
loyal deputy, Australian Prime Minister, John Howard,
Macapagal-Arroyo ordered those troops withdrawn as soon
as possible. And, in marked contrast to the usual pace at
which Government decisions are translated into action,
those troops were home within days, a month ahead of
schedule, and in time to meet the kidnappers' deadline.
The hostage was released, on time, and unharmed.
This wasn't so much for humanitarian concerns for one
unfortunate Filipino truck driver but because the
Philippines is heavily dependent on the remittances sent
home by the approximately eight million overseas Filipino
workers. Singapore's Straits Times headlined it
best - "Manila's Iraq Pullout Due To Clout Of
Overseas Workers" (16/7/04, Luz Baguioro). In 2003
those millions of overseas workers won the right to vote
in Philippine elections, a right exercised for the first
time in the 2004 election. So they can no longer be
safely ignored (as they have been for decades, other than
being hypocritically labelled "heroes" by the
Government).
Six More Years Of Minority Rule
And, of course, Macapagal-Arroyo is doing what all
Philippine Presidents do, in the interests of the tiny
minority who own and control the country. She is waging
war on the Communists and the Muslim separatists; she is
overseeing a national security regime that is responsible
for systematic human rights violations (including
innumerable political murders, disappearances and
torture); her prisons hold political prisoners, including
mothers and babies, some of whom were ordered to be
released years ago; there is not even a pretence at
genuine land reform; workers are brutally repressed; the
local rich get very much richer, helped by
Macapagal-Arroyo's privatisation programme, and the
massive, institutionalised corruption; the transnational
corporations that dominate the global economy benefit
directly from her liberalisation and free trade policies;
and the poor, who make up the overwhelming majority of
the population, simply get poorer. Business as usual,
more of the same old same old.
Murray Horton is Secretary of PSNA and editor of Kapatiran.
He has visited the Philippines several times, most
recently spending a month there in 1998.
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