A post-pandemic primer on the Philippines

 I recently "sat down" with Cecile from Toronto, the host of a Youtube channel known as CeCe Tee Vee and "The Closet Economist" a former official of the Bangko Sentral who is completing her doctoral studies in Barcelona. 

We discussed the state of the world following Covid-19 and the complex challenges facing the nation as it seeks to rebound from its ill effects. We assessed the capacity of the incoming government of Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos, Jr to address it, and the missed opportunity of electing Isko Moreno whose human-centered economic plans were aimed squarely at our complex challenges.

We concluded with reflections on how to promote transformational thinking and keep the flame of the Iskommunity alive.

This episode streamed live on Philippine Independence Day June 12, 2022. The language spoken is mainly Taglish (a combination of English and Tagalog).

6 Takeaways from the 2022 Philippine Presidential Elections

 

I have 6 takeaways from the election of 2022. Here they are in no particular order:

1. United we stand, divided we fall. 

The unity of the Marcos and Duterte forces sealed the deal, after Sara settled for the vice presidency. They seemed to have heeded the warning of the 1992 elections. In that year, Imelda Marcos and Danding Cojuangco both ran for president, splitting the loyalist vote in the process. Their combined votes outnumbered the eventual winner Fidel Ramos. If they had put up a united slate, then they would have re-taken Malacanang a mere six years after fleeing in haste. If both Sara and Bongbong had stood for the presidency, they might have been defeated by Vice President Robredo. It was not meant to be as the opposition was fragmented and bitterly divided.

2. Automated polling has matured. 

None of the fears of massive cheating materialised. Despite the stalled voting in several polling places due to malfunctioning machines, the vote count and transmission went smoothly for the most part. By Tuesday morning, right after the polls, the results were known. After administering automated polling over five election cycles, the Comelec and its contractor seems to have mastered how to do it effectively and securely.

3. Public opinion polls were right. 

The  pre-election poll results by Pulse Asia, Social Weather Station, and other reputable outfits accurately predicted the outcome of the election. There were few surprises in the night. What happened in 2016 with Duterte coming from behind, in defiance of the polls, may have been a one-off. The science and professionalism of the reputable polling firms has been reaffirmed. 

4. The popularity of Duterte’s government mattered. 

In an age of moral panics and outrage over social problems such as illicit drugs, criminality and moral decay from ideologies based on identity, most voters opted to go for continuity rather than change. A poll conducted prior to the election found that 50 per cent of likely voters preferred a continuation of Duterte’s policies but with a lighter touch. This is where most presidential candidates positioned themselves. 

The vice president herself promised to continue the “war on drugs” but with a different emphasis on treatment. Others were seen as “Duterte-lite”. While they crowded in this lane, a third of all likely voters preferred the unadulterated version of Duterte’s policies. Bongbong had them all to himself. The mere association between Marcos Sr’s martial rule with that of Duterte’s iron fist was enough for voters to equate Marcos Jr with continuity.

5. Change is still coming. 

The seeming opposite of 4, and comically reflective of an episode of Veep, the message “Continuity with Change” was very much in the air. Bongbong stole the opposition’s thunder early on by claiming the mantle of change, while running with the daughter of the incumbent. People still saw the opposition as tired, old, and out of ideas. After 35 years of being scapegoated for the ills of Philippine society, Marcos became reinvented as a break with the narrative of EDSA that had dominated the airwaves and textbooks since 1986.

6. He who controls the past, controls the future; he who controls the present controls the past. 

This Orwellian quote from the novel 1984 is really what this election was fought over. To the victor not only go the spoils of incumbency, but also the pen with which to write, or in Marcos Jr’s case, rewrite history. The Marcoses always suffered a handicap due to the fact that the post-EDSA regime got to tell history from its perspective. Since the election of Duterte in 2016 that narrative has been challenged. Marcos Jr’s loss in 2016 was a kind of blessing in disguise in that he had the luxury of time to build a social media presence to take control of the narrative.

He was able through this to redefine his past and rebrand the Marcoses with a new image that appealed to new voters with no lived experience of his father’s rule. The fact that his opponents condemned it as historical revisionism only raised its mystery and appeal. Once he assumes the presidency, he will have the power to make the Marcoses’ version of events official. And that is perhaps worth more than its weight in gold.

Why the 2022 race needs a third force

In a 1 v 1 match-up Marcos Jr wins, but in a three cornered fight, there is a chance he loses.

Why? Because even if the remaining non-Marcos candidates withdraw in favor of Mrs Robredo, not all their votes go to her, nor will it be enough, since Marcos is polling between 50 and 60 per cent. Leni is partly the reason why he is doing so well. 

Her net satisfaction level is very low, and many voters distrust her. They want to send her a clear message in this election. She spent the last six years being very critical of the administration. At one point, during the height of the Covid crisis, her supporters on social media and in the streets, were calling for the ouster of Duterte.

That is the reason why many are siding with the Marcos scion. There is no way in a two cornered race that she can peel off these voters who support Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s government to switch to her side. If anything, the votes for Moreno, Lacson and Pacquiao might just go to Marcos Jr, not to the vice president.

Manila Mayor Isko Moreno has attracted most of the organic grassroots leaders from Duterte’s 2016 campaign to support him along with those who supported his senate bid in that year who also formed the base of Sen. Grace Poe’s presidential campaign. Many ordinary swing voters who see his achievements in Manila have also been converted to switch to his side.

This has made him a viable third force. He has actively been courting the support of Duterte’s base with his recent pronouncements on the continuation of the president’s programs, most notably Build, Build, Build. The only question that remains is whether he can convert enough of these voters to switch to his side by the time of the election.

In a three cornered fight where a third candidate has cross over appeal to win some of Pres. Duterte’s base, there could be enough erosion of Marcos Jr’s support to make him lose an electoral majority and become vulnerable. But these Duterte supporters will be hesitant to switch to a third candidate, if it would mean Mrs. Robredo has a chance of winning.

That is why Mayor Isko needs to also demonstrate cross-over appeal to win support from the vice president’s camp. He did this when he issued a statement during the first Comelec hosted debate that he would collect the P203 billion owed by the Marcos estate to the goverment and use the money to provide ‘ayuda’ to ordinary Filipinos.

This is the clearest signal on where he stands regarding the Marcoses. He was careful not to demonize them, but to frame the issue as one of simply implementing an existing Supreme Court ruling that was final and executory.

At least, by staying in the race, Mayor Isko Moreno could weaken the support base of Marcos Jr to the point that some other candidate can win. If he withdraws, it all but guarantees that Marcos would win by a landslide, possibly becoming the first post-EDSA president-elect to win an outright majority of the vote. That is why the 2022 presidential race needs a third force.

How Mayor Moreno can address the concerns of Duterte supporters

Some prominent diehard supporters of Pres. Rodrigo Roa Duterte have endorsed or expressed a willingness to endorse the candidate Isko Moreno for president. One in particular laid down the gauntlet for the mayor to address three main concerns close to his heart as a Duterte supporter. 

It is believed that Pres. Duterte himself is looking to endorse a candidate other than former Senator Bongbong Marcos. He was reportedly upset with the way in which Marcos Jr got presidential daughter and Davao City mayor Sara Duterte to run in his ticket for vice president, while Mr Duterte was offering her the top of the ticket with Sen. Bong Go running as her vice president. 

Moreno is languishing in third or second place in most polls. He can only improve his numbers with votes from the Duterte Sr camp. These voters are preferencing Bongbong at the moment, but it seems they aren't solidly behind him. Many of them are waiting for a signal from the president to determine which candidate to switch to. Could the proddings of some of these diehard pro-Duterte vloggers be this sign? 

Mayor Isko needs to confront the three main issues laid down by them. The document below seeks to address them. It is published here with permission from its source.

 

Isko Moreno fulfils the promise of EDSA

Image courtesy of Campfire Media

Adherents of the EDSA movement claim we live in a dualist world. Elections are the site for the eternal battle between the forces of good against the hordes of evil. One side cannot exist without the other. That is the way they have framed every election since 1986. 

One of the biggest challenges of liberal democracy is the inflation of expectations. Openness and freedom cause everyone's desires, hopes and dreams to be pinned on a system of equal representation and deliberation. Incrementalism and patience are virtues in this context. It often leads to dissatisfaction and despair at the sluggish pace at which change occurs. 

This is why from time to time, the electorate wavers in its support for democratic ideals. This is particularly true in times of crises. Pres. Rodrigo Duterte harnessed voter dismay in 2016. He offered a quicker, more direct route to the fulfilment of expectations by weakening our system of checks and balances.

The election of vice president was equally important in that year. Sen. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. was favored to win. That is why Leni Robredo has become an all-important figure in the pantheon of EDSA. It was she who prevented Marcos Jr from being a heartbeat away from the presidency.

The upcoming election of 2022 is billed as a rematch between Marcos Jr and Mrs. Robredo. The Duterte years will be seen either as prelude to a Marcos restoration or interlude to the EDSA regime, depending on its outcome. Both their candidacies have been energized by this match-up. Both have exploited its dualist aspects to harness support and galvanize their base.

The problem is that neither seem attuned to the requirements for the top job. It will be twelve years since Marcos Jr last held executive office as governor of the sparsely populated province of Ilocos Norte. He has spent the last six years pleading his case before the electoral tribunal. His preoccupation during this time has been as a vlogger promoting his counter narrative. 

Vice president Robredo for her part has spent the last six years without a clear role in the Duterte administration. She has used her office's meager resources to take pot shots at him and to moonlight as a quasi-NGO leader. Her Angat Buhay program relies on private donor contributions and volunteers to function. The feasibility and appropriateness of institutionalizng them as government programs run by public agencies is yet to be determined.

This is perhaps why both deploy narrative rather than substance to fuel enthusiasm for their respective candidacies. Marcos Jr's videos are all about the achievements of his father's 20 year rule. Robredo's confetti sprinkled caravan reminds us of the protest movement against the late dictator. Both harken with nostalgic fondness to a confected golden age and seek to prevent a return of the opposing side.

They both downplay the challenges of the present. A pandemic threatens our very lives and livelihoods now and in the foreseeable future. The plans of both are ephemeral and self-referential. Marcos Jr wants to unify the nation and lead it down a path towards greatness again. Robredo's plan is to commission a team to study the gaps in our health care system and draw up a plan to deal with them. 

The strategy of either side is to captivate and mesmerize the public with myth and folklore to distract from the urgencies of the now. Enter Isko Moreno. He came of age during the lost decade of the 1980s. The nation was reeling from the debt overhang of the Marcos years. The slow, but steady process of climbing out of this abyss rendered the promise of EDSA unfulfilled.

Isko's message is simple: instead of focusing on the never-ending enmity between the EDSA and Marcos regimes, let's focus on the people. It is clear from this message that we need to go beyond the illusion of a dualist world to deal with the reality of ordinary people's lives. The best way to prevent a repeat of the past is not to promote a confected golden age, but to step out of the cycle of reactivity and retribution.

Isko is the perfect medium for this message. His life and work demonstrate it. His life exemplifies how an ordinary poor boy from the slums of Tondo can rise above the vagaries of this world without resentment or vindictiveness to the powers-that-be. His record as a local executive demonstrates how to quickly respond to the needs and aspirations of his electorate while respecting democratic accountability, transparency and the rule of law.

This is why Isko Moreno fulfils the promise of EDSA. He puts into practice its basic tenets. Creating a level playing field for everyone, irrespective of their standing in life. This is done by giving them equal access to the means for achieving their fullest potential. His numerous achievements in education, healthcare, housing and job creation in the nation's capital provide a workable and scalable template for the rest of the country. 

It is perhaps for this reason that loyalists from both the Marcos and Robredo camps seek to discredit and tarnish his personal reputation and record in office. They see him as the biggest obstacle to the restoration of their political fortunes. The threat comes from his re-framing of our perennial problem. Moreno's non-dualist worldview lays the squabbling of the past 50 years to rest. 

This in the end was what EDSA was meant to bring about. Not the permanent dominance of one political persuasion over another. The movement, according to Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr, was meant to restore the free and open contest of ideas. This would produce a better synthesis for the Filipino people. Mayor Isko Moreno's syncretic ideas could offer a better fit for the present moment. Our weary electorate may decide that now is the perfect time to give him and his ideas a chance. 

Mandanas-ruling could worsen fiscal divide

Former Supreme Court justice Artemio Panganiban calls it “Devolution without federalization”. He is referring to the Garcia-Mandanas ruling.

This Supreme Court decision made back in 2019, affirmed the right of LGUs to include ALL FORMS OF REVENUE COLLECTED by the national government in the computation of their internal revenue allotments. This ruling will take effect next year. It’s expected to cost an extra P234 billion, about 1% of GDP. 

To deal with this, economic managers are looking to shift the implementation of various projects worth P405 billion to LGUs. If the NG fails to devolve such powers, it could put pressure on its international credit rating. If LGUs are not prepared to handle the additional functions, it could spell disaster for the post-Covid response.

This could perpetuate the fiscal inequity between “Imperial Manila” and the rest of the country, as we are about to show.

Can the Opposition win in 2022?

 

The EDSA narrative provides its adherents a meaningful way of making sense of the world based on a valorizing worldview. In this narrative, the Philippines is like the chosen people of Israel who were delivered from the bondage of dictatorship and ushered into the promised land of freedom.

The past five years under Duterte, would have felt like an exile to Babylon for the opposition. Their defeat in the midterm election of 2019 signaled the prolonging of this exile from power. The recent death of Noynoy Aquino has been used to revive their fortunes in time for next year’s polls. So, can they return to power in 2022?

In opposition, the Liberals and their allies have had time to reflect. Why have they fallen so out of favor with voters? Just like the exilic Jews who pondered their fate in Babylon and the meaning of it. The temptation, and in fact the norm would be to adopt the gods of their conquerors and lose their religion. Should the political opposition do the same and bow to their fate?

Of course, for the faithful the answer to that would be ‘no’. If so, then a plausible, credible explanation would have to be found for why they have fallen so far from political grace.

The worshipping of false gods by the Israelites was the reason given by the Jews to explain why the Lord had allowed them to be conquered. This historical narrative allowed them to hold on to their cultural and religious beliefs despite being in a strange land. And by remaining true to their religion, they found a way back from exile with their identity intact. So, is there a parallel here for the children of EDSA, and if so, then what? How can they credibly explain their fall from power and find their way back from political oblivion?

Ninoy had espoused a belief in Christian Socialism, which traced its roots to the attempts of an enlightened monarch in Denmark to liberate his people from serfdom through mass education. It was a human centered form of capitalism aimed at affording the full blossoming of ordinary citizens to reach their fullest potential. The success of this model is demonstrated today by Scandinavia being one of the wealthiest, least corrupt, and happiest places on earth.

The adoption of a neoliberal worldview by the EDSA regime with its idolatry of the Market, espoused by Washington and mediated through market-enhancing institutions of governance promoted by the WB and IMF, was in effect what had caused the children of EDSA to go astray. This is what invited populist backlashes from the left, in the form of Erap Estrada in 1998, from within, with the apostasy of Gloria Arroyo in 2004, and from the right, with the ascendancy of Rody Duterte in 2016.

Vice Pres. Robredo for her part has emphasized the dynamism of the private sector for collective action by brokering donations between corporate foundations and needy communities. She has not lasted long in any of the public roles assigned to her, first as housing czar then as co-chair of the Inter-agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs, preferring instead to become a maverick policy entrepreneur.

Her support for marginalized communities through her ‘Angat Buhay program’ is still consistent with a neoliberal view that public investment merely crowds out charitable spending. It is consistent with a minimalist role for the state, relying on the magic of markets to broker the needs of society through voluntary, altruistic donations by moneyed elite: trickle-down economics, in effect. Government by NGO.

Duterte didn’t mind breaking with this tradition. He didn’t kowtow to the international rules-based order when dealing with the West Philippine Sea or human rights issue. He in effect defiled the sacred cows before which the EDSA forces fall prostrate.

He offered instead a kind of tough love for the development of the Filipino by focusing on the social ills that have come about because of the aimless accumulation of wealth in the pursuit of materialist, consumerist culture. This tyranny of freedom, of unconstrained choice fostered by free markets, has only led to alienation, apathy and addictive forms of behavior.

Duterte, in acting like a strict father establishing boundaries and disciplining his children has stepped into the breach because while the EDSA narrative structured our political and economic ways of life, it had nothing to offer us from a social standpoint. Neither did the post-EDSA regime engage in the necessary work of political and electoral reforms needed to truly democratize participation in our society.

With the recent passing of Noynoy Aquino, his former confidante Rep. Joey Salceda offered an assessment of his legacy. He praised him for accomplishing many noble things, but also said that PNoy suffered from a lack of ambition due to his ‘worldview’. He had the most favorable macroeconomic conditions, but failed to seize the opportunities these presented. This lack of ambition was his cardinal policy failing.

This is what obscured the original agapic vision of Noynoy’s father for a human centered form of development. This idolatry of the market is the folly that has led to their political exile, so it behooves the children of EDSA to return to The Source for inspiration.

If Duterte represents a consumptive love of country - a form of governance that destroys human life to preserve it, that breaks the law to uphold it; and, if the EDSA regime represents a reciprocal kind of love - a form of governance that relies on transactional markets and padrino-based politics, then the agapic love of country, of actualizing individuals by investing in their human capacities is what the successor to the EDSA regime must work towards.

Only by rediscovering this forgotten vision can the children of EDSA rescue themselves from irrelevance. Acknowledging where they went wrong would go a long way towards healing the partisan divide with those who were once in their broad coalition but no longer see themselves as part of it.

The question is, who among their leaders today would be so humble as to do that? Dare I say none;  and so, for the true believers in Ninoy’s Impossible Dream, they may have to go outside the fold to find a leader who can re-imagine the promise of EDSA and bring its children back from exile into the Promised Land.

Dilawan: Rise and fall of the EDSA regime - Duterte and the Next Wave

            

If Marcos was the logical conclusion of the Old Republic, which was built on a feudal society, where “a few enjoyed the fat of the land, and the many suffered”, then the natural extension of our post-EDSA republic, with its monopolistic capitalist model, is Duterte. The internal contradictions of each society ultimately brought about the conditions for the emergence of these leaders.

The lost opportunity of EDSA was that rather than building a more just and humane society, we simply re-incarnated the old one with the result of entrapping many Filipinos into a life of servitude to the vagaries of the market, as we pursued a neoliberal model of development.

Dilawan: Rise and Fall of the EDSA Regime - Another Aquino

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Those were the words of Pres. Noynoy Aquino at his valedictory State of the Nation Address to Congress in July of 2015 where he summed up his administration’s achievements and looked forward to “a new dawn of justice and opportunity” forged by “freedom from corruption” as he claimed, and I quote

My one and only interest is the well-being of my Bosses. I did all I could to forge a nation that is more just and more progressive—one that enjoys the fruits of meaningful change. I will let history decide.

And within 12 months of uttering those words, the era of the EDSA regime would draw to a close, with the rejection of Aquino’s hand-picked successor and the election of Rodrigo Duterte, whose approach to criminal justice was anathema to what the regime had stood for.

In this fourth part to the Rise and Fall of the EDSA Regime, we will look at the second Aquino presidency, its ambition, achievements and follies, and while five years is too short a time frame to have gained enough “distance” from those events, we will try to explain what led to the collapse in confidence in the yellow movement, which triggered their losses at the ballot in 2016 and since, and as to why it is unlikely that it will return any time soon. 

Episode: 27: Leni's Drug Report - Success or Epic Fail?

Is it true that the government's anti-drug campaign is a massive failure, as per what VP Leni Robredo stated in her report as Co-Chair of the Inter-agency Committee for the Anti-illegal Drugs?

Links referred to:
Co-Chair's Report: https://issuu.com/inquirerdotnet/docs/2034815782856108625376143966175767021
UN Office for Drugs and Crime stats: https://dataunodc.un.org/drugs
Manila Bulletin article quoted in report: https://news.mb.com.ph/2019/11/28/ph-consumes-at-least-3-tons-of-shabu-every-week-pnp/
Philippine Statistical Authority's population projections: https://psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/attachments/hsd/pressrelease/Table4_9.pdf
Policy brief: https://cusp-ph.blogspot.com/2018/10/policy-brief-using-evidence-in.html
Social Weather Stations: https://www.sws.org.ph/swsmain/artcldisppage/?artcsyscode=ART-20191016152026

Episode 26: Yellow Alert! How do you address populism?

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.

Episode 25: Yellow Alert! Is the Opposition drawing the wrong lessons from recent elections?

Is the opposition drawing the wrong lessons from recent elections?

Are they committing the same mistakes now, which could potentially make them obsolete in the future?

What lessons have the opposition taken away from the elections of 2016 & ‘19? Are they the right ones? What lessons could they have drawn, but are refusing to because it would mean admitting some painful truths to themselves? What are the implications for the future?

Episode 24: Yellow Alert: Why democratic forces have fallen out of favour in the Philippines (and how they can win it back)

It’s important at the start of the program to define key terms. I’d like to do this, by way of question and answer, so...

Episode 23: Bayanihan federalism by stealth or initiative

One of the crucial factors in determining whether charter change will succeed or not is the public’s perception regarding the motives behind it. Are its proponents really sincere in bringing about much needed change for ordinary Filipinos, or are they simply looking out for their own interests?

We’re going to examine the case for federalism in the country. Is it justified? Or is it just a cover for unwinding the democratic system of checks and balances that were painstakingly restored over three decades ago.

Episode 22: Is Federalism fizzling out...or just getting started?

Following the resounding victory of his coalition at the midterm polls, the enigmatic Pres. Rodrigo Duterte seemed to back away from his campaign pledge to push for federalism. But are his statements to be taken at face value, or are they simply a way for him to spark a debate on the issue and incite those in favour of charter change to come out in support of it?

Recall that when he was considering a run for the presidency, he declined to be drafted several times. Was it a way for him to gauge the public’s sentiment in support of his candidacy? We know he eventually decided to run, and many said he had already made up his mind long before then. Is he working off the same playbook here? Is he gauging the public’s appetite once again, this time in favour of federalism?

Hi, I’m Doy Santos, and on this edition of The Cusp, we’re going to look at the push for federalism, and answer the question, Is Federalism fizzling out, or is it just getting started?

Episode 19: We need bridge builders in the senate

As the homestretch of the campaign approaches, both the Catholic clergy and laypeople have joined the opposition in seeking to block Pres. Duterte's moves to amend the constitution in the next congress during the second half of his term.

It has given rise to the question, what do the times call for? Can there be no middle ground between the ka-DDS and anti-Duterte dilawan groups? What does history tell us about dealing with such a situation?

Back in 1983, the late Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr. came home from his furlough in the United States to offer Pres. Marcos, his jailer for 7-1/2 years, an olive branch of reconciliation to work towards a modus vivendi or grand bargain. Does his example of seeking to work constructively with his staunch adversary offer lessons as to how the Opposition today can successfully disarm the Duterte administration's creeping authoritarianism?

Get the show notes here.

Episode 17: Otso Diretso, MaBaGoKoTo, Hugpong, atbp.

The countdown to election day begins.

We are now about 30 days away from the 2019 midterms. In this episode we’ll be looking at the senate race, and how that has been unfolding. We compare the competing candidates' platforms, namely Otso Diretso's campaign platform and PDP-Laban's.

When you put the two parties’ positions side-by-side there is a clear contrast between them, both in terms of their overarching philosophies and approach to governance and development. Those who say that this election isn’t about ideas are wrong. There are clear battle lines here, and they are not just personality-driven.

Get the transcripts of the show from here.

Erratum: in counting the number of senators that became VP, I mistakenly included Mar Roxas in the list.

Episode 16: Mahathir's Malaysia and the virtues of a parliamentary system

Malaysian PM Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad's visit to Manila in March 2019 has inevitably led some people to draw comparisons between the two nations. Malaysia follows a federal parliamentary system while the Philippines is unitary and presidential. They have reached a level of economic progress that the Philippines can only aspire to. How did they do it?

In this podcast we look at key differences between the two systems, and try to answer the question, would a shift to a parliamentary system benefit the Philippines. We avoid the chicken-and-egg question of what should come first: culture change or structural change? We do this by differentiating the incentives under either system and show how that shapes behavior and eventually the culture.

Read the transcripts of the show here.

From New Society to post-EDSA reality

The vision of the New Society under Pres. Marcos was to usher in a new order from the decaying old republic. The era of the Commonwealth in the Philippines was a gilded age that offered few avenues for upward mobility. Political bosses delivered the votes at national elections, and oligarchs fuelled party machineries to get out the vote.  

It naturally bred social unrest, which came to a boil in both the Huk rebellion and Marxist CPP insurgency. Marcos’ solution was to instigate a revolution from the center, to save the system from itself. Out of the chaos where both elites and mass movements conspired to rob the state of its capacity to govern, the New Society would bring such destructive forces to heel.

Marcos defied them by adopting a long-range vision and introducing modern methods in implementing that vision. He allowed technocrats to perform these functions. And while the president busied himself with economic matters, his wife took up the cudgels for art and culture.

State-run media controlled the narrative. The Philippines would be “great again” as Marcos pledged at his first inaugural.

The only plot hole in this arc was that it all depended on one individual. Marcos had arogated all power to himself. This lack of accountability tempted him, his wife and cronies to amass great wealth.This, in turn made them feel invincible. Thinking he could hold on to power indefinitely, Marcos failed to groom a successor.

When his regime finally fell, it left a massive hole, which took decades to fill. The EDSA ‘people power’ revolt that toppled him simply revived the old republic, with certain protections to prevent the state from interfering in the way individuals chose to live. Many of the New Society’s projects were abandoned. From one grand vision, it became, to each his own.

If the New Society sought to transform the individual through order and discipline, the EDSA regime sought to transform society by empowering people with individual freedoms. There was no obligation to serve a nobler cause. The individual was at the center of this universe. Everything else was meant to fulfill its desires.

The only problem was that over time, as the population grew rapidly, following the dismantling of Marcos’ population program, the enjoyment of one individual’s personal freedoms seemed to ‘crowd out’ that of others. These ‘negative externalities’ as economists like to call them, began to erode the quality of life for all, rich and poor alike.

The old republic survived thirty years from 1935 to Marcos’s election in 1964. His reign lasted twenty years from 1965 to 1985. The EDSA regime began in 1986. Thirty years later in 2016, the election of Pres. Duterte brought it to an end.

As the first post-EDSA president to enunciate a grand vision for society, Duterte’s war on drugs, corruption and criminality, his massive infrastructure program, and ambitious clean-up of Boracay and Manila Bay have sought to reimpose the welfare of society over the rights of the individual.

Duterte is doing this while supporting programs aimed at empowering people with economic freedoms. Under his watch, universal access to quality tertiary education, healthcare, school feeding programs, and the expansion of maternity leave and senior citizen benefits are occurring.

Is this a synthesis of the New Society and EDSA narratives? A golden mean between the welfare of society and the rights of individuals?

What happens after Duterte leaves? Will his successors hew strictly to one of these narratives? Or will they express them both in multiple ways.

The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze illustrated, that the same word unités, stands for both unity and unit. Neither one precludes the other. The same applies to grand narratives involving society and the individual. There is no preordained hierarchy, no predestined point at which history concludes.

If politics is the art of the possible, then instead of posing the question, how must one govern, or what is to be done? The question might instead become, how could one govern, or how might things be done?

In response to Rappler’s charge of dishonesty

It has recently come to my attention that a post I made on Twitter became the subject of a mini-controversy between Malou Tiquia, a notable columnist at the Manila Times, and Rappler, the designated third party arbiter or fact checker on that platform (see original tweet below).

Significant laws passed by the mid-point of @noynoyaquino's and @PangulongDigong's presidential terms #sidebyside #legislation #midterm #Congress pic.twitter.com/LLehstcYrm

— Emmanuel Doy Santos (@cusp_ph) February 21, 2019

What was it all about?

As Rappler claimed in their “Fact Check” article:

Two versions of a meme or graphic compared the "midterm legislative achievements" (laws signed in the first 3 years) of presidents Benigno Aquino III and Rodrigo Duterte.

One version has a screenshot of a spreadsheet showing that in Aquino's first 3 years, he signed 7 laws, while Duterte approved 28 laws. This came from a tweet by Emmanuel Doy Santos on February 21, with the caption, "Significant laws passed by the mid-point of @noynoyaquino's and @PangulongDigong's presidential terms #sidebyside #legislation #midterm #Congress".

This version was reposted by some netizens, including political analyst Malou Tiquia on her Facebook account on February 22, with the caption, "After 3 years...7 viz 28 and needle is still moving." ...

Citing Tiquia's post and a video by Facebook page VOVph about Duterte's signed laws as her sources, former communications assistant secretary Mocha Uson posted on her Facebook page on February 23 another version of the list of laws. Uson attributed 32 laws to Duterte.

Uson's post got more than 27,000 reactions, 42,000 shares, and 3,300 comments.

Rappler decided to tag my table as “Misleading” because, as it said,

The memes left out significant laws that were approved halfway through both the Aquino and Duterte administrations. The original posts also did not have a more definite criteria for the inclusion of laws in the list.

According to the Philippine House of Representatives website, Aquino approved a total of 460 laws from June 30, 2010 to June 30, 2013, while Duterte approved at least 314 laws (including 4 joint resolutions of Congress) from June 30, 2016 to date.

Counting only landmark laws and laws of national significance, both presidents have an almost equal number: at least 57 for Duterte and 58 for Aquino.

Let me set the record straight.

I never claimed that my table represented a comprehensive list of “laws signed in the first 3 years” of both presidents. Neither did I claim that PNoy only signed 7 laws compared to 28 for Duterte. The title clearly says “Mid-term Legislative Achievements”. My tweet specifically said these were “Significant laws passed by the midpoint” of both presidents’ terms.

Rappler rightly says that my post “did not have a more definite criteria for the inclusion of laws”. BUT, if they had done some digging, a netizen by the name of Adrian Cuenca did interrogate me for my methodology and sources. All one has to do is drill down the thread from the original post. But it bears repeating here.

For the ordinary citizen, there is a massive difference between a law that creates a new Regional Trial Court in Tacloban, for example, or renames a street or a high school in Pangasinan, from enacting universal health care, or reforms the tax system. Even if you limit yourself to “Laws of national significance”, as they might be called. These include the “Red Cross and Other Emblems Act”, for instance. That is of no significance to most people. So that was the filter that I applied, in distinguishing the laws I cited as “significant”.

As Ms Tiquia so deftly put it in a subsequent Facebook post,

The truth is the list is long and if you go by numbers, Aquino had more. But if you look at the significance and importance, whether in terms of social, economic, political, governance, reform legislation, Duterte had better quality since what was deemed hard to get under Aquino were signed into law in the first half of Duterte’s term.

In other words, I made a critical analysis of the laws passed, based on their impact on the lives of ordinary Filipinos. I didn’t simply count the laws! Any spreadsheet monkey can crunch the numbers. It takes an appreciation of the substance that lies behind the laws to be able to come up with what I had.

Is that misleading? The fact that I missed some of Aquino’s laws like cyber security, for instance? Well, I missed a few that Duterte had belatedly signed, as well, like the creation of the human settlement department. Does that change the overall picture, or make it inaccurate, dishonest or “misleading”? No, and here’s why.

For the benefit of Rappler’s fact checkers, let me tell you what policy analysts do. We examine proposed or existing policies and figure out how to make them better (or at least less bad). That’s what I was doing. I’ve been doing this professionally for more than 12 years. I have a Masters in Public Policy from a reputable institution in Australia and the US and a Master in Development Economics from UP.

Journalists are considered the 4th estate. They provide an important role in reporting facts. Policy analysts are the lesser known 5th estate. We also perform a crucial role in society. To introduce critical thinking into substantive public debates. We base our analysis on evidence and stakeholder engagement.

To the readers of Rappler who requested this Fact Check, please use your own critical judgement. Don’t simply rely on somebody else to tell you how you should think. Form your own conclusions, now that you have heard both sides of the argument.

And finally, what Ms Tiquia said was right. Why couldn’t Rappler contact me to find out what my “definite criteria” was for including laws in my table? I would have told them. After all, I have been contributing articles to Rappler since 2014. Professional courtesy of getting in touch, let alone hearing both sides of the issue,  would have been nice.

Instead, I was accused, tried and convicted, in absentia, without an opportunity to defend myself. Is this what journalism in the 21st century has become? Inaccurately portraying the claims of an individual and then rendering judgement based on that? With no recourse for an appeal or way to check the fact checkers.

Public debate can be silenced this way. Critical thinking removed from the equation. This form of mind control is even more pernicious than outright censorship! If this is what we have come to, then what difference is there between China’s state screened media and our own local thought police?