Election! That’s what people want.
In and out of the web, I’ve talked informally with family and friends. Asking and testing what they think about our time. I know it is far from a scientific sampling. In my most recent post, I also asked if you are in favor of impeaching Arroyo.
The most common theme in people’s responses to me is their expectation for an election in 2010. That is when they want a change in President. They do not want a change now because there is no one they trust. They do not support impeachment even though they believe the charges are right because it would simply be like throwing a pebble at an incoming 747.
Their responses does not by far say that they like Arroyo.
The people that I asked, can be found grumbling in front of the evening news at the sheer incompetence of those in charge. They find it incredulous as scandal after scandal come out that the ones on top of the food chain have such rampant and blatant disregard and who pervert and bend the law to their will. Ask them about BJE-MOA and people from Mindanao would be vehemently opposed to it. Given that perhaps in any normal day, the unconstitutional nature of BJE-MOA and such abuse might have been grounds enough for impeachment and conviction. We can safely say that these are not normal and is an unsettling time. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that.
The opposition has a credibility issue. An issue, one might add they’ve not been able to shake out of since FPJ and has since become worst. They are perceived as no better than Arroyo and her ilk. That incredible mistrust hurts any measure they wish the people would support whether impeachment or election. It isn’t apathy— it is more neutrality. Neither Arroyo nor Opposition has their side.
The people are fully aware of how things go. Whether it is local politics— where people make money out of everyday and know the scope and breathe of it. Our people know that it is a politics of who you know and ultimately, money talks.
People have come to realize that national life is simply local politics writ large. And this realization simply proves and point that there is no distinction between Arroyo and Opposition. The disastrous result of past EDSAs and the failure of impeachment have more than galvanized the resolve of our people to fully expect an election in 2010.
The political landscape has hardly changed since 2004.
Everybody with a mind can clearly see that our national life is like one old machine, rusting on the seems and filled with patch work. It is not efficient but somehow, it moves along. The state of this machine, whether our assumptions of what a Republic and social justice is as framed to be the foundation of our national life is flawed. But clearly such judgment is for the collective will of the people to decide upon.
Especially as Arroyo pwns the Supreme Court as Justices retire, the fear of charter change as driven by Arroyo is not a fantasy. It is a clear and present danger that one such as her and her ilk who have gamed politics would bend permanently the very soul of our Republic and shape the future is even more so frightening. Clearly, they aim to tighten their control over this Republic. To unravel this Gordian Knot, perhaps it is this fear that we must face head on.
Ask our people in 2010— will you call for a Constitutional Convention?
Such push from the Heroes of past EDSAs would mean for their generation to accept they have failed. That their vision is flawed. That their brand of social justice is a failure. Don’t you think, 20 years is enough?
Yes, such acceptance would mean the final nail in the coffin, death to a Republic born out of Marcos’ years. Yes, it is akin to watching Rome burn. Perhaps, watching Manila burn is what this Nation needs. Our people need to see our Republic to be reborn from the ashes of the old. At the end of the day, all this is but conjecture.
Ask our people! Settle the issue once and for all!
With our politics, as a mashup between reality show and soap opera, those who are serious to change and challege the status quo must meet it head on, with courage! It starts at the local level. Our people believe in democracy. It is election they put their trust in. For so long as the political bench remain as shallow and hapless, change will be but a myth and politics would remain the providence of those who have usurped it for their own selfish interest. That’s where the wind blows.
Popularity: 1% [?]
My only question is, and here I’m very skeptical and hope you and others will prove me wrong, that even if the elections in 2010 are so mutated as to make impossible a new administration -and you can cherry-pick the choices, from retaining an elected president but one stripped of all power with a parliament, to no elected president but a parliament, etc.- in the end reasons will be found to pout and bear it.
for the same mistrust essentially means letting go of any possible clout the non-partisan have at this point. if personality leaves people blind to the issues, then what chance have the issues of prospering, in untrustworthy much less trustworthy hands?
if you take a cha-cha scenario seriously, then think of the stages it’s already reached:
1. it has been in committee, the house has gone through the motions of “consultations” since may, it’s made ritual overtures to the senate and been rejected, laying the predicate for the case being brought to the supreme court.
2. at committee, it’s thus gone through first reading. reporting it out of committee means it’s at second reading. between now and xmas break for congress in the 2nd week of december is ample time to approve it on 2nd and 3rd reading.
3. vacancies will only fortify an already present admin majority in the sc. between the 2nd week of december and early january is ample time to deliberate on a case that the justices can say will be attended to with dispatch to forestall a constitutional crisis.
4. the opening of the budgetary floodgates between mid january and say, march or april when a plebiscite could be scheduled, would lead to a political feeding frenzy for cash and a campaign that would steamroll all other issues beneath it.
pragmatically speaking, for the professional pols, what has a future convention have to offer people in their 3rd term, or who are frustrated because they will never be president or senator, and yet whose ambitions are too large for their bailiwicks? for an administration enjoying an unprecedented advantage at all levels of the judiciary, why abandon this once in a political lifetime advantage? for all the associates whose political futures are imperiled by their dutiful service to the incumbent, why take risks on a convention where delegates have a tendency to be noisy, rambunctious, and proponents of all sorts of impractical schemes that make life difficult for the pros?
if the choices are unacceptable, i’m guessing is that people will either not vote or abstain.
The last election was a decline in a country where people normally vote, was it not?
from the rumors i’ve been hearing on who wants the job… the slate of possible candidates is rather tiring.
if cha-cha is an assembly, then i will disagree with it. i think only a convention is appropriate at this juncture. but as you pointed out it maybe too late and the only alternative now is to play that game, however distasteful it is:
a convention can only be attractive if you keep dangling a removal of term limits.
i agree that from their point of view, none at all. On hindsight i think it has been a tactical mistake for those of us who have mistrust in Arroyo to block Cha-Cha entirely.
All politics being local, as we’ve seen in Pampanga an outsider can be elected at the local level. It becomes “easier” for locals to take back— again i think it all will depend on the quality of the candidate.
How hard is it to keep freedom? Has our people surrendered it? Frightening as it is, guess we’ll find out.
not voting or absention is like closing your eyes as the firing squad does its job. and again, disagreeing with a constituent assembly neither prevents it nor does anything positive or even negative as far as giving any alternative a fighting chance. playing the game as you put it, with regards to cha-cha, is no game, as it’s rigged. though yes indeed we can all hope for an outpouring of public opposition and a fight along the lines of the snap election of 1986. the the middle class that provided the sinews for that fight has been traumatized by 2001.
i don’t know what you mean by “those of us who have mistrust in arroyo to block cha cha entirely,” does that mean it should have been allowed through in 06-07 in the hope she’d lose a plebiscite, forestalling the packing of the sc now? also i’m curious who you consider the “us” to be and who they were in the alliances that united in 06-07 to block the first round of the effort.
re: pampanga: remember all that stands in the way of panlilio’s ouster is the actual funding for the recall election already pending with the comelec, and the discovery of a lack of funds may be motivated more by a desire not to plunge in the knife while the church is clinging to the president’s skirts re: the population bill.
re last election: participation is usually lower in a non-presidential election year.
good analogy. and the reason why would be edsa 2. I think for far too long we’ve let the “pupuwede na” or lesser of two evils be our choice for candidate in every level of government. we’ve settled. I think at the heart of it that’s why our government is such a mess.
How do we fix that? i’ve no idea to be honest.
Several posts back i asked what if nobody voted or people abstained. What does a failure of election on the nation level mean?
i’ve never gotten an answer to it.
you talked before of a shallow bench and it is. One of the reasons why nobody wants to do anything because they find that the alternative choices is no better.
you mentioned who is “us”?
us = people.
nearly everyone was against cha-cha back then. the reasons remain the same to give GMA that kind of leverage is dangerous. And yet it has only escalated things.
wasn’t the last election something like 60% voted? wasn’t that downplaying? The opposition shouldn’t do that. in fact, they should make a big deal out of it.
Why did fewer people vote? and why are fewer and fewer people seem interested in participating to vote? What’s wrong? What are politicians doing wrong?
I agree with you that from a certain point of view, it does seem like surrendering.
if nobody voted and everyone went on strike— would that wake politicians and the powers that be that they’ve gone too far?
What happens when a failure of election occurs?
no one doubts that what you are saying is true. In fact, everyone seem to agree that it is.
Deal making is a fact of life, not just at the top but in every part of the system. Tragic as it sounds… cancer is all over the place. it breeds. The Church for all its clamoring for truth and justice plays the game just like everyone else.
Is it any wonder why there is so much distrust?
Is our people interested in change? i don’t know.
To borrow your analogy of a firing squad, it maybe that Filipinos need a far greater tragedy to get them to do anything.
as long as one voter votes, there is no failure of election, there’s no minimum. a strike is meaningless because if the politician casts a vote for himself and no one else does, he wins, and if you dont like it the department of justice will file charges against you for sedition. same reason boycotts failed during marcos’ time. a rigged election may be rigged but staying out of it, it turned out, was even more counterpruductive when the authorities proclaim victory.
the failure of election takes place if all voters are unable to cast their ballots. otherwise you only have a failure in a particular precinct or precincts but not the whole election.
the turnout last election was not remarkable in terms of the turnout in comparison to similar exercises. a presidential year has much greater turnout than a midterm election.
re: anti cha cha in 06 and 07 and wondering if it was the right path after all, its back to the same argument that has kept some people hoping for the best -it will stop, there’s a limit, she wouldn’t dare, she would never go that far.
well she has she will. the stopping of it has never gone far enough, just slowing her down. in 05 she was set to throw in the towel but when her critics faltered and her allies saw their opening, they bought her time -long enough for her to demolish them even as she set out demolishing those who nearly toppled her. in late 06 she was stopped but not enough and not to the extent that she didn’t manage to prevent a total rout in the senate, thanks to the third force mentality and cherry-picking the opposition and giving people like joker arroyo the benefit of the doubt.
and again, when you have a well-established political biosphere then you literally need something viral. absent that you need a compelling reason to return to the older and less dangerous and prevent mutations of those already at the top of the food chain. since a large portion mistrusts the viral cure, there’s just hunkering it out as the dinosaurs make merry.
in the end as you well know, there are many groups and to give you a specific example of my frustration, imagine if one group of reformists wanted to undertake a political move, say filing a resolution. but then the traditional oppo types want in. the reformists would say no, it will harm the cause, the middle class and other reformists wont want to be associated with you and will turn away. they would then say who the hell are you, you are elitists, this is undemocratic, who are they, we are many, we represent all, we have rights to. the only way to trump that would be for the reformists to say, look, we are x number of decent, middle and mass based types, from all walks of life, united by sentiment. stop throwing your weight around because youre less than us and your time is over.
but this will never happen because the serious reformists are agonizing over every move, association, identification, and so forth, and so as it gets closer to crunch time, the fewer there will be to actually stand up and take the plunge.
which leaves those prepared to take the plunge little choice over who stands beside them, or else quit the field altogether.
finally, what are people doing wrong, besides the politicians being more brazen, the public, particularly the middle and even upper classes, are far less educated in civics, government institutions, ethics and history, than older generations. theres a direct correlation i assume between official neglect and plunder and abuse of the educational system, and the inability of that system to inculcate in kids a basic comprehension of democracy, republicanism, representative government, the social contract, social justice, etc. i keep going back to having to spend my full 3 allotted hours before a gathering of catholic college students, explaining to them the three branches of government and how each works. that time was supposed to be spent explaining to them the one voice position on cha cha. later i met some on the other side, from sigaw ng bayan., and they recounted having to do the same thing, which shocked even them. and one priest telling his fellow priest (the kids were from catholic colleges) “you know, maybe we should have taught them about the constitution.” duh. they were too busy drilling in the kids minds that they should say prayers ahead of the national anthem.
so of course there is no incentive to vote, it isn’t a natural thing to want to line up and write several dozen names on a ballot. just as its natural to risk life and limb for family but one has to be taught to love one’s city, province, region, and country.
mlq3, coy,
You are forgetting the COMELEC and how it has not really regained full public trust. Melo is there, yes, but you’d have to only scratch the surface a bit to detect that something could be amiss. Recall who among one of his recent ‘clients’ was: the guy who has a burjer shop near well groomed fairways in Mandaluyong.
mlq3,
point very well taken.
yes, we need something viral.
i took a constitutional class in high school.
ding, *sigh* we really have such a screwed up system.
mlq3, ding and FVers, yeah we need something viral. something to think about.
the phenomena of many of today’s youth (and their young parents) not being too enamored with civics, humanities, politics, government affairs, and history, is true not only in the philippines but also in the u.s. and perhaps, most of the entire world. the preoccupation with instant gratification provided by the internet, video games, cell phones, on-demand tv programming, among many other things, are all helping to create a society, generally, of recipients more than givers, users more than producers, troublemakers more than troubleshooters.
except for those to whom reading has become an irresistible habit, few people young or old read nowadays. if they do, they would opt for the tabloids, celebrity gossip magazines, if not sexually-oriented materials. for most, history and classic literature, including religious ones, have become irrelevant in their lives. research for most of these people doesn’t go past ‘wikipedia’.
if this is our youth of today, what could we expect our future society would be? there are some in this blog who have nothing but contempt for the old and hold the latter responsible for the “mess” they are now experiencing. they have obviously forgotten that it was this older generation which paved the way for the technological advances whose fruits this youth are now enjoying, from automobiles to the internet, and who worked as hard as they could to try to make this young generation’s life easier.
if there’s one thing that should be inculcated in today’s youth, it would be that they should endeavor to build on whatever good things their parents have started, and try to make their world much better than they found it.
bencard, for once i fully agree with your observations.
i second that.
as i’ve been blogging before…
now if only we can interest really good people to run for public office and not the insane power-hungry and greedy ones?
takers?
Double spot on, Atty. Beb,
What is tragic is while the Internet has flourished, many of today’s youth have lost the discipline of using the library. Now, Internet cafes are the tambayan wiuth hours upon hour frittered away in YM’ing and even mindless plurking, though in itself these c=social networking tools can, and are used for more than just ubos-oras, as MLQ3 knoiwns fullr well.
Henry Kissinger himself in a visit to Manila severak years back lamented hoiw the students of today seem to be ‘losing it’, the thirst for knowledge and with it it the rigid but thoroughtly educational facet of research.
Knowing this vulnerability, this is why plotters wanting to arrogate state power unto themselves think they can rule us like sheep.
i fully understand and i’m in my 20s.
well if they only used wikipedia or google more often instead of friendster, they could get a love for reading. alas, most people seem content on using that resource. even ted.com.
shame really, such phenomenal resource is wasted.
like the study on constitution that mlq3 pointed out, i think kids should be taught more than “typing” or “Microsoft word” or alas ancient languages for their “computer” class.
so i guess that too speaks in part of a broken down education system which can’t be fixed because well people in Congress are more worried about pork than anything else and people in the palace are more inclined to dance.
go figure.
the phenomena of many of today’s youth (and their young parents) not being too enamored with civics, humanities, politics, government affairs, and history, is true not only in the philippines but also in the u.s. and perhaps, most of the entire world.
But millions of our youth are parent-less, having one or both of them working overseas. And of those who stay home, both parents have to go to work (i.e. not parenting) to provide for both the family and for the government. What’s the US’s excuse? :-P
on the other hand… my parents got me to love reading. so maybe it is a parental thing more than a government thing.
Erratum : Meant Atty. Bencard.
I STRONGLY agree with Bencard’s observation that we are becoming:”a society, generally, of recipients more than givers, users more than producers, troublemakers more than troubleshooters” (although the nature by which this issue impacts the advanced West and our backward lot is vastly different — ours is more an issue of excess consumption in the absence of affluence compared to the US which actually possessed — in retrospect thought it possessed — the affluence to fund its consumption).
In the past, reading pure text has forced us to use our imagination to fill in any visual gaps.
Today, rich audio-visual media has reversed the way our brains work, directly feeding it audio/visual data and not leaving much to the imagination. I doubt if text-based literature can be backward-imagined from rich AV data (kung baga, movies have been made from great literature, but very rarely, if ever, do we see great literature made from movies).
Result: imagination-deficited minds.
In the case of the Philippines though, it seems that our society has been imagination-deficited long before rich media technologies became widely available. Lack of imagination apparently is hard-coded into our society’s DNA. :D
But I have to beg that a slight clarification be added to what he says here:
… specifically the passage “it was this older generation which paved the way for the technological advances whose fruits this youth are now enjoying“.
This may be true for the older generation of the advanced world. But in the Philippines, I’d struggle to think of any way-paving done by our local Old Farts which contributed to producing those “fruits [the] youth are now enjoying”.
And even then, let’s not forget that the recent advancements in info technology (particularly those that keep the youth distracted today — YouTube, Facebook and the like) were developed by the youth of the mid 90′s to mid 2000′s in the advanced world — a period that saw us, for our part, blissfully but unproductively pre-occupied with our quaint ocho-ocho politics.
I think like so many other things, we’re just floundering around in a kind of vacuum moment. i’ve noticed that in most large corporations, in schools, and established companies, you have the top positions headed by the late 40s to 60s crowd, dependent on middle managers in their late 20s and early 30s; but it seems an entire generation -from the mid 30s to mid 40s- is missing, mainly abroad, it seems.
which brings up the problem of what will happen when the 50 and 60somethings start retiring, and a big generation gap exists between themselves and their successors.
not just in politics but in business and in education, the transmittal of culture and a historical, and institutional, memory, from one generation to the next is important. this is not taking place, and could it be because ther generation gap is simply too big between those in positions of maximum responsibiluty and their succesors? the ones to mediate are absent.
which doesn’t mean it will be a permanent problem. it simply means the old mores and norms will die sooner than they otherwise should, good riddance in some respects, much to mourn in others. but a problem nonetheless, specially from an institutional point of view. this happened before, when the generation of educators who reached maturity during the colonial era and their successors began seeking opportunities abroad in the 70s, because the situation at home was too authoritarian and bureaucratic under marcos.
anyway i think it will be fixed simply because eventually knowledge is an advbantage and people will see you need it. but it will require more bumbling about than necessary. in my limited experience, i found my students appreciated the part of myonline journalism course where i sat down with them and walked them through how i do research online, the most. in turn i was flabbergasted because i don’t think i’m particularly efficient but there you have it. they were simply unaware of many obvious goodies on the internet which can compensate for our often moribund libraries.
But Benign0, go to the Blogger home page and watch a new blogger being born every second. Not all end up being writers of course, but many do. Isn’t this a valid counter-example to your claim. (Well okay, there are more troublemakers).
There does not seem to be a deficit of imagination here. The world is experiencing an explosion in mental and intellectual activity, communication and sharing such as never before since Gutenberg, maybe.
mlq3,
we need more of that kind of stuff, imho: in every school, no matter the age.
djb, benign0
this part i think relates not just in the philippines but all over the world. you’ll see a LOT of crap on youtube. but there are also gems there.
this month is national novel writing month. we’ll see a lot of crap in that but there will be one or two that’ll be good. that i think is natural as we see the easy by which we create becomes part of normal people’s lives.
the internet as djb points out has made us all Gutenbergs.
Not just DJB but so many others like Bill Clinton, Ken Robinson have observed that there is an explosion of possibilities because of the internet. It is this power that Filipinos need to harness. to go beyond the simplicity of Friendster— which is often their first glimpse of the Internet and take advantage of the possibilities.
a few months back CVJ and i had a similar discussion (sorry no link) re the gift economy nature of open source software. and i disagreed that it was a gift because open source is like a recipe. sure you got it but to build a product out of it requires you to cook it yourself. but the idea that this piece of information is out there, just waiting, sitting there.
Filipinos got to take advantage of that. a lot are already— but there is SO much more we can do.