In the first part of this series, we showed how the weakening of democratic institutions in the country can be traced to the establishment of neoliberal economic policies, which have given rise to a populist backlash.
The Philippine debt driven, crony capitalist growth of the 1970s under Pres. Marcos led to the IMF prescribed austerity measures of the 1980s under Pres. Cory Aquino and the globalist trend of the 1990s under Pres. Fidel Ramos. The Philippine state and its economy was too weak for the state to say no to the imposition of policies from external lenders.
This led to a populist backlash from the left in 1998, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. The election of Pres. Joseph Erap Estrada was a response to the austerity under which the government had to spend more on debt service than education contrary to our constitutional provisions. It was also based on Erap’s charisma and cult of personality.
In reality, Erap’s presidency suffered from a duality present under Marcos, where technocrats pursued reforms on the one hand, while a midnight cabinet of cronies took advantage of their proximity to power, on the other.
The situation became untenable after their illegal intent was uncovered. The country’s liberal forces rallied and installed Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to replace Estrada. Arroyo herself a technocrat vigorously pursued fiscal reforms that allowed the country to weather the global financial crisis, but became immensely unpopular, not just for imposing higher taxes or unseating the popular Estrada, but also due to the shenanigans of her husband and her generals, which she couldn’t control.
The presidency of Benigno Aquino III was meant to carry-on the reforms of the Aquino-Ramos era, but his weakness as a leader led to analysis paralysis as exhibited by his response to serious natural disasters and security threats. He kept Mrs. Arroyo’s reforms in social welfare, education and health, but his unwillingness to undertake major tax reforms hamstrung his ability to invest in infrastructure, adequately.
This led to a populist backlash from the right and was a situation tailor-made for Rodrigo Duterte. His tough on crime record in Davao led to a different sort of personality cult. Not based on the “man of the people” trope that was Estrada’s shtick, but based on him being a “man of action” who gets the job done, at all costs, by any means necessary, even if it meant running roughshod over the rights of some people.
If, in the developed world, populism came about because of economic stagnation, as is the case in the US, where globalisation and automation have caused real median wages of workers to remain flat for over fifty years, in the developing world populism stems from the effects of economic convergence,
As a middle class emerges in the developing world, challenges associated with a rapidly growing labour pool, crowding into urban centers, putting pressure on infrastructure, and becoming more susceptible to droughts, epidemics, and the effects of climate change in the process, is causing public anxiety and frustration over the slow rate at which governments keep up with these demands.
The yellow forces don’t get any thanks for instituting the painful reforms from Aquino-Ramos that have led to the country’s virtuous cycle of growth. Instead they became victims of their own success. When Mar Roxas said that the traffic in Metro Manila was a sign of economic growth, he was stating a fact. But instead of being thanked for generating that growth, he got hammered for failing to accommodate it with better regulation and better infrastructure.
This is an important point, because the yellow forces have all but abandoned the good economic reform legacy of the Aquino-Ramos period by opposing tax reforms since the time of PGMA. They’ve been super cautious not to be outflanked on the left, as per what happened under Erap Estrada, that they themselves have pandered to populist sentiment, pushing for social spending that would become unsustainable without appropriate revenue raising, fiscal capacity.
Duterte has combined pro-poor populism with economic rationalism. He has balanced populist measures like the increase of senior pensions and free irrigation and universal tertiary education and healthcare, which are designed to payoff key constituents to allow for unpopular tax reforms to be passed to fund infrastructure projects.
On the one hand, he is able to pander to populist sentiments for seniors and students, but is able to push for a fuel excise and sugar tax and an expansion of VAT, while making personal income tax rates more competitive, on the other.
The Liberal Party opposed these measures, while questioning the government’s borrowings from overseas to fund much needed infrastructure, stoking conspiracy theories over China’s belt and road initiative in the process, which border on xenophobia.
This made them look opportunistic and obstructionist. Their response to the traffic gridlock in our cities is to sponsor a magna carta for commuters in the senate. This cements the ineffectual nature of their governance style, that was so evident under Noynoy’s presidency.
Duterte’s economic team are simply carrying on with the reform agenda begun under the Aquino-Ramos regime, but have been doing it in a way that addresses the backlash from the left by expanding social reforms along with fiscal and economic ones.
The opposition could have collaborated constructively with the administration, and said there is a unity ticket on the fiscal and economic package, they had started it after all. But they chose instead the easy path of populism.
Bam Aquino’s economic narrative around entrepreneurship and building a highly creative, well-educated middle class needed to be bolstered by a record of responsible, prudent fiscal management, which he undermined when he opposed the TRAIN law. I am not saying this is what cost him votes. What I am saying is that Duterte would probably not have attacked him so vehemently during the campaign, if he had supported the administration’s fiscal and economic reform agenda.
By protecting its left flank, and fighting yesterday’s battles, the opposition didn’t realise that it was being outflanked on its right. The rising middle class who demand better infrastructure and protection, because their main concern is getting to work and back safely, on time, not having to sacrifice too much time away from their families, due to their commute, elected Duterte, hoping he would disrupt things, untangle the gridlock of our streets, enforce some discipline, bring about order from chaos. The opposition’s obstructionism makes them seem part of the problem, rather than a necessary part of the solution.
So now that we have properly diagnosed the problem, it is worth talking about the solution. How do the yellow forces address this populist backlash from the right? To address this, let’s perform a simple thought experiment.
Imagine that Duterte hadn’t pursued his war on drugs and didn’t flirt with declaring a revolutionary government. His administration would have been seen as fitting the mould of the yellow regime. In fact, on economic policy, there is a remarkable continuity from the reforms of Aquino-Ramos down to Arroyo’s, and now Duterte’s tax reform packages and others like rice tariffication.
Only those on the progressive side, who are opposed to capitalism would be opposed to such a reform agenda. Even social democrats who are pro-capitalism, but seek to smoothen its rough edges by distributing some of its benefits, would recognise the efforts being made to provide greater universal access to education and health services, as sound.
So now it comes down to Duterte’s war on drugs where battle lines are drawn, but yellow forces conveniently forget another thing. Cory Aquino had once unofficially endorsed Alfredo Lim over a Laban stalwart in Mel Lopez for the mayoralty of Manila back in 1992. She was reportedly favourable to his presidential bid in 1998 as well, where he lost against Erap.
Yes, Fred “Dirty Harry” Lim, who waged the same sort of war against crime and drugs in Manila, using the same sort of vigilante style killings, was an ally of Cory Aquino. He led the police forces that fired on farmers massing at Mendiola. He also stopped the coups launched against her government. Noynoy was with Lim during the Luneta siege, remember? And he defended the actions taken by the mayor after that debacle.
So what is the difference between Fred Lim and Rody Duterte? The reality is, it just boils down to style. Lim never swore at the Pope. He never requested women to kiss him on stage. He never used gutter language or made references to the Holocaust.
Let’s face it. Impunity didn’t start with Duterte. It occurred in Mendiola, in Hacienda Luisita and in countless other places. No one was ever tried for those massacres. Oh Lim was investigated, but then cleared of any responsibility. The “nanlaban” argument was used there as well. The only difference is that Lim never ran against the chosen one of the yellow forces. He ran against JDV and Erap Estrada, not exactly black and white. Whereas, Duterte ran against PNoy’s chosen successor, so he was labelled a traitor.
Once we get over the false ideological divide that the yellow forces have constructed, we will find that the differences between the two camps are small and petty. Duterte was a dilawan under PNoy. His mother was a member of the yellow coalition that toppled Marcos. He represents one strand of that coalition that does the dirty work that those on top who project an image of purity avoid to acknowledge needs to be done under our flawed judicial system.
The challenge now is, can the yellow forces open a third act? They’ve dealt with populism from the left through reforms that have produced economic growth and expanded the state’s capacity to spend for social programs. Can they deal with populism on the right by doing the same for infrastructure, public safety and security?
How? Well, they need to stop being cheap skates. Stop trying to do things on the fly, like those public toilets with no cubicles, or post-Yolanda houses that look like shanty towns, or buying Mahindra jeeps that breakdown or purchasing trains that don’t fit the tracks they’re supposed to run on.
Stop trying to have things both ways, or being on both sides of the argument. Embrace the fact that you need new and better taxes to pay for these things.Embrace the fact that you need to increase defense assets if you want to secure our borders, or else we will be unable to prevent unauthorised incursions into our waters by foreign ships. Embrace the fact that the judicial system needs reform, or else extra-judicial killings will be the only way some people will obtain security in their homes. Embrace the fact that our political system needs reform, or else corruption, money in politics will continue to rein.
The beauty of the situation now is that because of the painful reforms undertaken during the time of Aquino-Ramos, and under Arroyo-Duterte, the Philippines is experiencing an era of unprecedented growth. With the expansion of the nation’s tax take, the object of political jockeying now is over what to prioritize as the government’s coffers expand.
The task now is to design policies and platforms that continue lifting the broad sections of our society out of poverty and into the middle class, and once they are there, providing them with enough safety and protections to secure themselves, their property, and their way of life. This type of statecraft cannot take place if our political parties are weak and subservient to corporate patrons.
After the financial and economic reforms of the last thirty years, serious political and electoral reforms are needed now to move the Philippines into becoming a modern state. Strong, independent political parties with self-sufficient sources of funds provided by the state are needed to prevent legislators from being captured by vested interests, the way some business tycoons sponsor or even operate their own parties. The Philippines is on the cusp of becoming an upper middle income nation in a few years. It can certainly afford this reform now.
This will prevent populism in the future that is based on a cult of personality. Once we have moved our democracy into the modern era, where parties can independently design policies, programs and projects with proper costings, as they do in advanced democracies, and field candidates on the basis of merit, rather than blood relations.
For the longest time, the yellow forces avoided renovating our political institutions simply because they relied on a thesis that for our nation to be run well, all it needs is for virtuous people to lead. The meek and mild aren’t always the type who get things done, or that challenge the status quo.
This has led to another argument that asserts what we need are people with political will. People who will go so far as to subvert the current system to get things done. Unless those who possess virtue realise that the system is being subverted by people with wealth and power, their terms will expire without much being accomplished. Whatever progress is made just gets swept away by the next regime.
Yes, there are many things to fix. The judicial system, our defence posture against geopolitical forces, our health, education, local government, immigration, transport, telecom, water, power systems, etc. But the first step - the one that ensures that the best ideas from the best and brightest arise - is fixing our political and electoral system. It is the foundation on which everything else is built.
No, strengthening political parties with conditional grants, conditional because they will have to comply with regulations on how they spend it, and how they augment it, will not directly benefit anyone among the voting public, unlike free tuition or free irrigation, but it will indirectly benefit everyone because of the truly representative and democratic system, it will create. It’s not sexy. You can’t create a bumper sticker, a hashtag or a slogan saying political party reform, now, but instituting this reform would be a sign of real maturity.
Marcos, Estrada, Arroyo and Duterte are not the real enemy. They are but a distraction. Getting rid of them didn’t and won’t get rid of the problem. Marcos was a sign that all was not well with the old republic. After EDSA the yellow forces tried to fix it. In compromising with the more conservative forces, they merely restored the previous order that preceded Marcos. They did a half-assed job, half-baked. That meant it was only a matter of time before another Marcos surfaced to shake the EDSA republic to its core.
It’s time we recognised what the Philippines is: a plutarchy with populist tendencies. You have the very rich and famous dynasties lording it over congress and business, fixing the rules of the game to suit their interests. They use populism to bribe the electorate to keep them in power. Even if the occupant of Malacanang has noble intentions, that person won’t get anything done without dancing to their tune.
The irony is that there is multi-partisan support for political party reform in congress with multiple bills pending. That is because every major party from PDP-Laban, to Lakas, PMP and the Liberal Party have experienced the pain of moving from administration to opposition. They have all suffered the same fate of seeing their party mates switch to the other side.
So why doesn’t any administration certify the legislation as urgent? Well, because once in power, every administration has suffered the same hubris of thinking it will be able to manage political succession within its own ranks and stay in power. So, lacking the foresight, each administration has simply squandered its time in office, dealing with the urgent, not really attending to the necessary. Except for once, the administration has seen defections even while it is in power, to NUP, which is funded by a tycoon, and has attracted the president’s congressman son.
PDP-Laban has tried to smuggle in political party reform in a new constitution. But that is not necessary, as Congress can pass these reforms through normal legislation. Why not push for it now, while they still have the most seats in congress. While you are in power you can buy loyalty with positions, money and projects, but when you’re out of power, you’ve got nothing, unless you craft a law that provides funding to parties based on their performance at the last election, regardless of whether members switch parties at the next one.
The very essence of people empowerment should mean that any Juan dela Cruz can run for office, and have an equal chance compared to the scion of a political dynasty. Juan shouldn’t have to be a matinee idol, or a famous boxer or comedian to break into the magic circle. Parties should be able to nominate candidates based on merit, not on whether they have the financial capacity to pay for their campaigns, or possess the name recall to be elected.
Otherwise we’re just kidding ourselves, calling ourselves a democracy, when we aren’t. Might as well have a benevolent dictator then who will bring these vested interests to heel, rather than let them rule the country. If we want to prevent another populist dictator from emerging, then what we have to do is reform our political party institutions, take corporate money and big business out of politics through state funding, and bring our electoral system into the modern era.
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