Inclusion, not exclusion

A battle between reform and patronage politics—that’s how President Benigno Aquino III and his allies have framed the comeback candidacy of Catholic priest Eddie Panlilio as governor of Pampanga, a province controlled by followers of Aquino’s bete noire, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. With Panlilio as the administration candidate, said the President, “we now have the chance to advance not only Pampanga but the whole nation as well toward the realization of our vision…” He added for good measure: “I cannot let Pampanga be left behind in the progress that is being attained by the Philippines.”

Who will quarrel with that vision? But Aquino may be getting ahead of himself. While Among Ed, as Panlilio is popularly known, may indeed hold the key, as he once did, to undoing Arroyo’s continuing grip on the province she showered with largesse for much of her 9-year term, he may also find it difficult this time to summon the kind of unbridled hope, support and enthusiasm that greeted his first foray into local politics in 2007.

When Panlilio entered the race that year to make the gubernatorial election a 3-way fight among himself, provincial board member Lilia Pineda and reelectionist governor Mark Lapid (both Arroyo allies), he electrified not only his hometown but the entire country, with the promise of his candidacy. Here was a man who defied the Church stand against clergymen seeking public office on the larger premise that the poor and powerless of Pampanga, his natural constituency since becoming a priest in 1980, needed a true, untarnished champion. Theft, corruption and rampant exploitation had characterized Pampanga’s politics for generations; Among Ed, the brave and clean underdog, was seen to change all that.

And he did—for a while. After scraping through on the tiniest of victories over Pineda (the margin was less than 2,000 votes), Panlilio pledged a “new dawn in Philippine politics” at his inaugural, then showed what his fresh, out-of-the-box brand of governance could do with a major early move. By simply recomputing and collecting with more honesty and transparency the taxes that Pampanga was entitled to from lahar quarrying, he increased the provincial revenue by more than 800 percent—from a mere P20 million a year during Lapid’s time to more than P200 million under his fledgling administration.

Panlilio used the windfall chiefly to improve his province’s health system, at one point even delivering hardware supplies such as cans of paint, bags of cement, floor tiles and toilet bowls to an impoverished hospital. He was also zealous in initiating programs and activities, such as a White Ribbon campaign, that rallied his constituents to continue to support basic good governance.

The new governor’s crusade naturally met with stiff opposition from quarters whose interests were now getting short shrift from the Capitol. Pineda never let up in her campaign to undermine Panlilio, succeeding in February 2010 to have him unseated by the Commission on Elections on the basis of a vote recount. Before that, a nongovernment organization led by a former Pineda campaigner also launched a recall petition against Panlilio, alleging loss of confidence in his leadership. And, in time, the “incorruptible” crusader was himself slapped with corruption, plunder and perjury charges.

None of the charges stuck, but one complaint did find traction. In 2008, merely a year into Panlilio’s term, 19 Pampanga mayors (out of 21) issued a statement decrying his “autocratic style of governance.” The mayors, once Panlilio’s allies, claimed that “he does not listen to anyone” and that “he pretends to listen but he only takes his own advice.”

Panlilio lost his seat before the controversies laid at his feet received official resolution—to a seemingly collective shrug from his formerly ardent supporters. His name remains largely clean, but his leadership style is another question. This time around, as he makes a third stab at Pampanga’s governorship (he ran again and lost to Pineda in 2010), will he prove to be a less exclusionary, and more inclusive, executive?

Governing, after all, does not mean compromising one’s values. But it does mean opening the mind to the idea that one is not always right all the time and the rest are wrong, or plain corrupt. To become a more effective leader, one cannot do it alone. Winning friends and influencing people, however inconvenient, is required in a participative democracy—more so if reforms are to take root.