In reporting on the circumstances or consequences of Pampanga Gov. Ed Panlilio?s disclosure about cash gifts in paper bags, some colleagues in the trade found themselves describing his election victory last May as overwhelming. In fact, it was a squeaker. Father Ed?s 219,706 votes edged ?queenpin? Lilia Pineda?s tally by a mere 1,147-vote margin -- less than one-tenth of one percent of the number of voters eligible to vote for governor of Pampanga province.
The mistake, the myth-in-the-making, is understandable: It is the afterglow effect at work. I remember that, a hundred days into Fidel V. Ramos? presidency, which he won with the smallest plurality (24 percent) in Philippine history, a survey jointly conducted by Social Weather Stations and Ateneo de Manila found that fully half of all voters remembered having voted for Ramos.
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It does us and the country?s democratic project no good, however, to misremember Father Ed?s ?miracle? victory.
The three main candidates (there were actually three more) each received roughly a third of all votes cast: Pineda had 218,559, the incumbent, Gov. Mark Lapid, had 210,875. If the traditional politicians had come together, Father Ed would surely have lost the race.
That is the exact scenario the priest-governor will face in 2010. Under Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao, the intemperate basketball coach and Gloria Arroyo loyalist, and Lubao Mayor Dennis Pineda, the favored son, the traditional politicians of Pampanga (they were among those who trooped to Malacañang at a politically awkward time to declare their support for the President and to denounce Panlilio for dragging her name into the paper bag scandal) are merely, patiently, biding their time.
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Another traditional politician is in charge of the President?s own fortunes. Ronaldo Puno is not only the secretary of the interior and local government (and thus head of the country?s police forces), he is also the presidential adviser on political affairs. He chairs President Arroyo?s own political party, Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), and is, as his entry in Wikipedia puts it, ?arguably one of the most successful campaign managers in Philippine politics. He supported the presidential bids of eventual winners Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.? (The rest of the entry is copied from a short biography available on at least two government websites.)
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Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Ramos? leading rival in the 1992 campaign, may not be the only politician or journalist to contest that description. There is no question, however, that Puno is a political animal -- in Aristotle?s original sense, of a species whose nature it is to live for the State.
But his many years in government service or political work (he also served as Joseph Estrada?s interior secretary) have given Puno a reputation associated with another philosopher: Machiavelli.
I am certain he will dispute the following characterization, but his political work can be said to display a signature style. He is fond of the feint; he is a whiz at the use of funds; his trail is followed by accusations of fraud.
He is adept at diversionary tactics (his crucial role in Estrada?s pardon, effected at a time of political scandal, has been both recognized and condemned). Political operators say he knows how to use special funds strategically (his own secretary-general in Kampi, Francis Ver, was involved in the attempted bribery of opposition congressmen; his own undersecretary at the DILG just happened to be in Malacañang during the alleged distribution of cash gifts in paper bags). And fraud continues to dog his name (he has been accused of masterminding the so-called Sulu Hotel operations, which reputedly gave Ramos the margin of victory).
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The point of all this: Is Puno the right man to guide President Arroyo in the endgame?
Granted, he can win elections; indeed, his signature working style (marked by those three F-words) works best, and was perhaps first perfected, in election campaigns. But it is a mistake to treat the President?s last days in office as though it were only the continuation of electoral warfare by other means.
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A footnote in Austin Coates? biography of Jose Rizal startled me the other day, reaching out from the past to place the Estrada pardon in unexpected perspective.
Coates was writing about the hero?s return to the country after completing medical studies and writing the ?Noli,? and how the liberal Governor and Captain-General Emilio Terrero received him in Malacañang. Coates, a British colonial officer, wrote:
In a British possession Rizal, a 27-year-old doctor who had written a book, would have considered himself lucky to be interviewed by an assistant superintendent of police. He would more probably have been consigned to an inspector in the Special Branch, and in either case one might regard it as a foregone certainty that the officer would not have read the book. In the Spanish empire at certain levels there was an equality that overrode racial differences, and a more personal kind of government such as was never to be found where the British ruled, though the general effect of British rule was to produce a far juster and freer society.?
Was it in fact equality, or seigneurial privilege, the kind that members of the political classes accord each other? It makes sense. The Estrada pardon belongs to a long tradition of personalistic politics, which we may or may not have inherited from the Spaniards. The effect is as Coates predicted: a less just, less free society.
Email: jnery@inquirer.com.ph
More Inquirer columns
Previous columns:
Losing trust in Gloria ? 10/23/07
Beyond black and white: Among Ed's 'first test' ? 10/15/07
Breaking the code of confidentiality ? 10/09/07
The ?bully? in Mar Roxas ? 10/02/07
Favila and the influence of the moderate ? 9/25/07
Saguisag?s projectile dysfunction ? 9/18/07
Lacson and the texture of our experience ? 9/11/07
