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. 

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.

Episode 21: Making your list, checking it twice (after "Bikoy")

As we head into the final week of the campaign, voters are starting to form their views, about who to support and vote for on May 13. They’re making their list, and checking it twice.

Questions have been asked during this campaign. Asked of the opposition, and by the opposition. About the overall framing of this election and of the policies that should matter to voters.

With regards to framing, how would the opposition position itself against the administration? Would they pose as obstructionist fiscalisers to Duterte in the senate, or as constructive alternatives to the ruling coalition?

Episode 20: EDSA Tragics and Voter Realists

There seems to be a message for the opposition contained in most recent polling. The slippage of support for Otso Diretso seems to reflect voter doubts over the false choice being presented to them.

As we reach the homestretch of the campaign, the final pitch for why we should vote for their slate seems to be that what we need is an independent senate that will block Duterte from having a supermajority that would amend the constitution.

Voters clearly don’t see it that way. They want to see the opposition present a credible alternative plan before voting for them. But what the opposition has presented so far, doesn’t really seem to appeal to them.

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 18: The senate race is like an episode of Celebrity Apprentice

The Senate race has gone to new depths. From a Spratlys Island jet skiing by Otso Diretso to penis size comparisons between the president and Jim Paredes, and shirt stripping by SAP Bong Go to prove he has no tattoos in his back, and not a member of a drug gang. We’re no longer talking about the issues. It has gotten ugly really quickly.

We’ve forgotten what this election is meant to be about. As in every election we are meant to be discussing the key question: what should the role of government be in our lives?

In our last episode, we looked at the senate race of 2019, and saw how much of it was driven by personality and not principles. We said that a general trend in all senate races since 1987 was the popularity contest that it has become. This is evidenced by the growing number of celebrities or celebrity-related candidates that are present in the senate. So how do we make our senate more representative, instead of mimicking an episode of Celebrity Apprentice?

Show notes available here.

Episode 1: What's wrong with the Philippines

Introducing The Cusp podcast! Our first episode is ready for viewing.

Episode 1: What's wrong with the Philippines

There are so many problems for the country right now. Among them are poverty, corruption, criminality, terrorism, and territorial disputes. One in particular is affecting our nation’s ability to grapple with each of the fundamental challenges it faces. On this first edition of the podcast, we tackle the Philippine "culture wars" or the growing polarization within our society being deepened by social media.

As I pick up this pen...

It was November 2008 when I first took up blogging in this space, right after Sen. Barrack Obama's election as America's 44th president.

How times have changed.

We now are witnessing the dawn of a new era in America, and the world undoubtedly.

The election of Donald J. Trump to succeed Mr. Obama heralds a new direction for America.

From an outward-looking, open, diverse, collaborative, and multilateralist polity, to one that would have an inward-looking, isolationist, and competitive/winner-take-all mentality.

It comes on the heels of the Brexit vote in the UK and the rise of far-right parties in Western Europe. 

Having taken a break from blogging in the past two years, I feel the need to start writing again.

Now more than ever, the need to find new, better ideas to deal with complex, long-standing problems is emerging.

Redistributing Wealth and the US Election

In their book Innovation Economy, authors Robert D Atkinson and Stephen J Ezell talk about the competing ideologies with regard to the tax system and wealth redistribution between the Democratic and Republican parties that were clearly debating points in this closely fought US presidential election of 2012. They say that

Washington economic politics has become a redistributionist battleground between ...the Right, seeking to funnel resources to their Main Street members (small business), and ... the Left, seeking to funnel resources to their Main Street members (low- and moderate-income Americans).

Behind this tussle between the Left and the Right in America is a fundamental question about what grows the economy. The Democrats using the arguments of John Maynard Keynesian essentially believe that growth occurs by supporting demand from the middle class. The Republicans borrowing from the thinking of Robert Mundell and Arthur Laffer and supported by Milton Friedman believe that growth comes by supporting the supply side of the economy through entrepreneurs and small business.

Atkinson who also wrote the book Supply-side Follies has been arguing that this debate is the wrong one to have. Borrowing from the ideas of Joseph Shumpeter, Douglass North and Mancur Olson, he believes that the reason why the US economy has stagnated in recent years has been because of existing policy failures to encourage investments in technology and innovation.

Over time, he believes the US tax system has diminished the incentives for innovative activity. The problem was created by economic advisers of both parties who advocate for flatter tax rates with a broader base. In line with this, broad based tax cuts have been offered to corporations and small business owners in exchange for disallowing tax deductions for productivity enhancing measures.

As a result, much of the tax cuts aimed at the top income bracket have been wasted on businesses that don't trade with the rest of the world or invest in productivity enhancing innovation. Rather than squander these tax cuts on the wealthy, it would be better spent targeting future wealth-creators. This includes entrepreneurs that are forced to innovate in order to remain internationally competitive as well as universities and research institutions that prepare scientists and engineers to become innovators.

This targeted approach for spurring innovation through tax policy is what is missing from the current debate which has focused more on the justification for auto bailouts, renewable energy companies, and the loosening of business regulation. Not a lot of attention has been devoted to what really drives growth in the economy, structural as opposed to cyclical growth. And that is perhaps why the race is so dead even.

Mind the (Gender) Gap

This week, as the second presidential debate unfolded, as Republican standard bearer Mitt Romney sought to close the lead of President Barrack Obama among women, an unfortunate choice of words used in relating a story about his search for women to fill his cabinet as governor of Massachusetts set off an internet frenzy around the phrase "binders full of women".

Despite that, it appears Mr Romney has been able to narrow the gap with women in the key battleground states that will decide the election, although nationally, the gap remains sizeable. Around 1980 was when the women's vote swung in favour of the Democrat Party, and vice versa for men according to Ronald Ingleheart and Pippa Norris. They pointed out that

The emergence of the modern gender gap in America is due to the way that women moved towards the Democrats since 1980 while men moved towards the Republicans on a stable, long-term and consistent basis, thereby reversing the pattern of voting and partisanship common in the 1950s. 

They theorised that as women grew more educated, career-oriented and independent, they began to abandon their conservative leanings in favour of a more progressive message from the liberally-minded Democrats. In  every US presidential race since 1988, every single Democratic candidate has been supported by a majority of women voters up until Barrack Obama's election in 2008.

Meanwhile in the eight presidential elections since and including 1980, the Democrats have only twice secured a majority of male voters--in the 1992 and 2008 elections when the US economy was in bad shape.

Using the World Values Surveys, Ingleheart and Norris show how that the women's vote has consistently shifted more and more towards the more progressive parties in most advanced countries, some post-communist countries and a few developing nations.

By 1995, a solid pattern had emerged. The key to George W. Bush's victories in 2000 and 2004 was in narrowing this gender gap, which Romney is emulating.

Meanwhile in Australia, PM Julia Gillard has changed the definition of misogyny by branding the leader of the opposition as such in parliament.

Her 15-minute speech which went viral worldwide helped to convince the Macquarie and Merriam-Webster dictionaries to adopt her usage of the word and define misogyny as "an intense prejudice against women" instead of merely "hatred towards women".

As the head of a Labor government, Ms Gillard has enjoyed a substantial advantage among women voters as the preferred prime minister of Australia, while here rival, Mr Abbott has enjoyed a similar advantage among men.

It was at the end of the 1990s that Australian voting patterns followed America in developing this gender gap, based on the analysis of Ingleheart and Norris back in 1999. This seems to have continued.

Austerity and Trust

Image credit: marketjyotish.blogspot.com

As weekend voting in France and the collapse of the Dutch government signaled a backlash against austerity in Europe, analysts are wondering what its impact might be elsewhere.

Simon Johnson believes that the replacement of right of center governments with left of center ones won't change a thing as options are limited. The Austerity Has Just Begun is the way Johnson states their predicament.

Robert Reich draws lessons from Europe for the US as the presidential campaign season kicks off. For Reich it is not enough for the Democrats to say that "things would have been worse" under the Republicans. With trust in both their parties running low, neither camp has been able to establish a statistically significant lead over the other as the anemic economic recovery plods along. 

The UK budget recently passed by the Conservative-led coalition government might provide a few clues to US voters as to what life would be like under a Republican White House and Congress. Aside from effectively cutting entitlements to pensioners and reducing state spending at a rate unseen since the end of the second world war, the treasurer George Osborne eased taxes on the top marginal tax bracket by 5%. This has subsequently led to a precipitous fall in their polling.

Even in Australia, the debt and deficit debate is raging even as the government promises to deliver a surplus as it hands down its budget next month. Although it might be the sole advanced country that can afford at the moment to incur a deficit, the Labor government is being cornered into this box by the conservative opposition which promises to outdo them in reining in spending (despite the fact that they too have spending proposals of their own).

Psychological experiments involving groups and leaders have shown that when voters identify with their leader or consider him or her "one of them", they are more likely to accept withdrawal of resources (austerity) from that leader than if it were imposed by some outsider. When a leader who does not fit in with their group favors his own group with resources (tax cuts), they are also more likely to perceive this as unfair.

If elections are to be framed as a contest of who voters trust more in handling the economy, the likelihood is that conservatives will have an edge (as in the case of the UK where tories still poll better than Labor in terms of economic management).

If elections are fought over which party voters are more likely to trust to scale back entitlements in a socially responsible manner, the party associated with the broad middle and lower income classes is more likely to pull ahead. Likeability and trust is perhaps what it all boils down to.

The Market for Rules

A recent straw poll among the business elite in the Philippines showed that an overwhelming proportion of them support the candidacy of Benigno Aquino III, the son of former president Corazon Aquino who is campaigning based on a platform of rule of law and good governance.

The demand for the “rule of law” in the Philippines coming from the oligopolistic business community is quite puzzling considering that the literature points to reasons why this demand would normally be absent in such a context.

The argument goes that the elite often prefer a system in which they can bend the rules to suit their needs. They would have a comparative advantage in capturing a weak state since they command more resources compared to the owners of small and medium enterprises. They would in fact continue to see returns from their investments in capturing rules and regulations long after such investments have been made.

The founder of Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Johann Lambsdorff has in fact found that investors prefer “grand” corruption compared to petty corruption for the simple reason that under the former they feel part of an elite group that is able to influence laws and regulations.

So why are Aquino’s supporters pushing for the “rule of law”?

There are two possibilities: (a) they could be merely capitalising on public anger against corruption in government aimed at the present administration, or (b) they have seen how the absence of rule of law affects their interests and have learnt to compete on their own terms.

The first reason would cast the elite in their traditional role as opportunistic predators positioning themselves behind the leader that captures the zeitgeist during an election in order to exploit opportunities after the wave of public euphoria has passed. The second reason is a bit more interesting since it would suggest that a genuine market for rules is beginning to take shape.

Is there proof for either position?

History certainly favours the former. Studies comparing the Philippine state with that of its East Asian counterparts have categorised it as a weak incoherent state controlled by dominant business interests. The ability of the economic elite to capture state banking institutions and monetary authorities since their inception has been well documented by Prof Paul D Hutchcroft of the Australian National University.

The country’s failed attempts at implementing a genuine land reform program since the 1950s despite the backing of American aid missions and its susceptibility to protectionist crony capitalism under authoritarian rule in the 1970s to mid-80s despite the doting guidance of the IMF are proof that the legal-administrative system in the country has been under the tight control of landed and later industrial elites.

More recent history may be on the side of the latter. It was in the mid-80s after a major banking crisis and the assassination of the exiled leader of the opposition, Benigno Aquino Jr, that the business community withdrew its support to the autocratic regime of Ferdinand Marcos. This is when the yellow confetti rained down in the central business district of Manila during the height of the protest movement to depose him.

According to Emmanuel De Dios of the University of the Philippines the severe recession experienced in the 1980s led to a weakening of the import substituting industries that were standing in the way of reforms to open up the Philippine economy. Under the presidencies of Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos, the country began a process of liberalisation in its tradable goods and non-tradable sector (namely in telecommunications) as subsidies and protection were done away with.

As restrictions to foreign investments were gradually eliminated in all but a few sectors of the economy, a new set of economic elite comprised of small and medium sized exporters began to prosper according to De Dios. Industrialists began to see the opportunities of foreign markets as part of the benefits of increasing globalisation.

Then the Asian Crisis hit. A new populist president in the person of Joseph Estrada took office. While the country had initially outperformed its ASEAN neighbours at the height of the crisis, self-manufactured home-grown crises including insider trading and shady deals involving government pension funds in the takeover of prominent business interests were slowly unravelling the country’s image abroad.

It is in light of these events that the current actions of the business community should be assessed. The second people power revolt that unseated Mr Estrada because of his involvement in illegal racketeering was largely backed and funded by the business community. Seeing how such shenanigans connected to his maladministration affected their wealth via the stock market and how the unfair takeover of their businesses could take place under such a regime, they have begun to see the value of Western style rule of law.

The critics of “civil society” (a local euphemism for the business elite) point to the very methods used by them in unseating the former president as a violation of democratic principles and rule of law. This is where economic and political definitions of rule of law clash. The legalities of the extra-constitutional process as affirmed by the Supreme Court notwithstanding, the opponents of Mr Aquino see his support from the business community that stood with his mother since the mid-80s as a sign of his capture by vested interests.

Partly for this reason perhaps, a recent survey shows the trust rating of Aquino lagging behind the man who may win the election, property tycoon Manuel Villar, who styles himself as a champion of the poor from whose ranks he claims to come. The association of Aquino with a family owned sugar estate that has been mired in controversy ever since his mother made land reform the centrepiece program of her government does not help his case either.

Not that Mr Villar is free from criticisms himself. A censure motion was put forth by his colleagues in the Senate for a conflict of interest involving his properties that benefited from road works proposed by him as chair of the powerful finance committee. The manner by which he flouted the rules in the Senate to avoid bringing the motion to a vote bespeaks of the manipulative way in which he could govern the country. For this reason, enthusiasm for his candidacy from his counterparts in the business world appears to be dismal.

The Romanticism of Elections

As the election season officially commenced in the Philippines this week, it has become quite fashionable among prominent local commentators to romanticise the current Philippine presidential race of 2010 painting it in the epic proportions of a contest between the forces of good and evil. An example of this is a recent column by Mr Manolo Quezon, a former speechwriter for Pres Gloria Arroyo in which he traces the political genealogy of all presidential contenders to the traditions belonging to one of two leading protagonsists in the 1986 people power uprising, former presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino.

It becomes apparent that Mr Quezon regards only one candidate, Benigno Aquino III, the only son of Corazon, worthy of claiming the mantle of democracy represented by his late great mother. All others it would seem belong to “the wrong side of history” as Pres Marcos had been in 1986. A win by any of these candidates would be “impermissible” from Mr Quezon’s perspective. The dark and ominous undertones of such a statement are evident. Either election officials conclude with an outcome consistent with History (with a capital H), or the forces under the Aquino banner might or should enforce their own will on the situation and produce the right outcome from their perspective.

I don't think it is accurate to paint this race using such a broad brush. It would be an oversimplification of what the candidates, Mr Aquino and everyone else, truly represent. I don't think for instance it is fair to associate any one candidate with the repressive authoritarian regime of Mr Marcos for instance. Not one of them is espousing a return to dictatorial rule, but anyone including Mr Aquino could be capable given the right circumstances of taking the country down a path of greater repression of civil liberties and weakening of property rights as the embattled rule of Mrs Arroyo so aptly demonstrated through her flirtations with emergency powers.

A more balanced approach would produce a nuanced view of the two leading contenders, Messrs Aquino and Manuel Villar, a self-made Fortune 500 tycoon with a rags-to-riches story. It would show the evolution of two previously flawed attempts at addressing the problem of underdevelopment in the Philippines which they, on the face of it, represent and hope to redeem.

One strand, implicitly espoused by Mr Villar, has sought to deal with the rent-seeking nature of a weak state by centralising rule-making with the chief executive and by so doing reduce the potential for petty corruption elsewhere. This is a situation which makes the office he would occupy prone to intensive lobbying, but by the same token, present an improvement on the current situation of chaotic decentralised plunder. With a more disciplined bureaucracy and a coherent strategy, rapid development as illustrated by the East Asian economies becomes possible.

This assumes of course that the chief executive himself is disciplined and capable of resisting intense pressure to collude with powerful interest groups. But even if he succumbs to such pressure, the founder of the Corruption Perception Index (transparency.org) Johann Lambsdorff has found that investors actually prefer grand corruption over petty corruption (!) presumably because of the greater predictability that the former affords.

The problem though with this strand is that in some cases corruption does serve a purpose in enabling productive sectors of society to overcome stifling regulatory hurdles in the pursuit of greater value and output within the economy. By centralising rule-making, the executive also centralises deal-making, which means that only a select group of associates and hangers-on can take advantage of the unique opportunities that abound under a crafty and entrepreneurial president as demonstrated by the past administrations of Messrs Marcos and Joseph Estrada (ousted and convicted for plunder but later pardoned by Mrs Arroyo and now placed third by many pollsters in the race to succeed her).

This lessens the amount of investments made by other players due to fears of expropriation by those closely linked with the administration, a point that is exemplified by a scandal involving Mr Villar’s commercial property ventures and two nearly identical road projects. One was publicly funded, thanks to Mr Villar’s intervention as the head of a powerful Senate finance committee, the other privately financed under a fee for use basis. The private venture eventually backed down due to competition from Mr Villar's free access road that conveniently wound through his commercial neighborhood projects.

The other strand promoted by Mr Aquino seeks to maintain the current system of decentralised rule-making and with it the petty corruption that prevails, but what it seeks to introduce is greater transparency and participation in the system. By all accounts, this is arguably the only legitimate means of prying the state loose from the clutches of special interest groups.

The challenge of course is achieving this goal with the meager resources that a third world nation can ill afford to waste given the multitude of development programs it needs to fund. If even the well resourced governments of advanced economies find it troublesome if not costly to enforce such institutions. (An eminent economist in the field, Douglas North, puts the price tag at 35-40% of GDP. What hope is there then for a cash-strapped government that can only raise a mere 14-7% at best?)

Ironically, pursuing “good government” through a costly enforcement system might in the long-run lead to greater corruption. This is a view endorsed by some leading institutional economists. And in the Philippines, it could be argued, the confiscation and sale of assets acquired illegitimately by public officials that begun under Mrs Aquino has itself become a source of corruption.

So in the end what we are left with are permutations of previously failed or flawed experiments espoused by members of the ruling elite in the hope of vindicating the competing hypotheses adopted by their predecessors in addressing the underdevelopment problem of the country. It is not that one candidate is on the right side of history and the other is not. What each party is seeking at this point is a way to carve out a place in history that would suit their own personal narratives.