Work in progress

Tuesday’s International Herald Tribune had a front-page photograph of an elderly woman voting in Manila and holding up the ballot. Apart from noting the woman, the caption read: “More than 52 million Filipinos registered to choose 18,000 officials, from local leaders to national lawmakers. Familiar names, like Imelda Marcos and Manny Pacquiao, were on the ballots.  The election was seen as a referendum on the presidency of Benigno S. Aquino III.”

No doubt, guns, goons, gold and glitter continue to mar our elections, but the International Herald Tribune photograph reminds us that democracy is alive and well in the country.  I tend to be optimistic, feeling we’ve made progress through the years, democracy being a difficult work in progress.

Let’s look at some signs of progress:

The computerization of voting was a major accomplishment and despite numerous reports of glitches, we seem to have ironed out the more serious problems.  Long lines were still to be found everywhere, but this is something you find in all countries, even in the United States.

The greatest improvement comes in the canvassing and processing, so that less than 24 hours after the closing of the voting, many local government officials were already proclaimed.  For the Senate, a clear pattern emerged as well within the first day.

The benefits of computers extended beyond voting, canvassing and processing.  I was glad to hear that the extra P4,000 for public school teachers who did election duty were in their ATM accounts again within 24 hours after the closing of voting.

Thinking back now about the campaign itself, we definitely saw changes, mainly a slight “greening” with stricter implementation of where candidates could post their materials.  The designated areas for campaign materials looked terrible, of course, but at least we were spared the massive marring of the landscape that we saw in previous years.

What did worsen this year was the use of motorcades and roving vehicles, assaulting people’s senses.  I did hear, repeatedly, people saying they would not vote for the politicians who had these motorcades, but I wonder if people actually remembered who were behind these disturbances. I tended to block them out of my consciousness.

Intelligent discussion

Perhaps the most encouraging sign of progress has been the quality of discussions on the elections, moving to more intelligent discourses.  Foremost has been the questioning of political dynasties.  I first thought this was a fluke, maybe just a small group of idealistic young people.  The preliminary election results do suggest that the dynasties are still in place, but I can confidently predict that in a few years, maybe even by the next election, the antidynasty sentiment will be serious enough to make a dent on our electoral process.

The antidynasty sentiment came through strongest after the elections, as people talked about the results that were streaming in.  I was actually unprepared for a dose of antidynasty comments, this one coming from the person who was handling hospital admissions. I was checking in one of my daughters for surgery (yes, I’m writing under “a bit” of pressure) and heard staff complaining about political dynasties in San Juan.

Something similar is happening in terms of “anti-epal” sentiment, meaning a resentment of the way politicians boast about their achievements, even if these were financed by taxpayers’ money.  The “epal” assaults are always stronger with election campaigns and people are strongly reacting.  Like the antidynasty campaigns, this will grow in the years to come.

Certainly, I don’t anticipate an end to the political dynasties, the political gimmickry, and the guns, goons, gold and glitter in the near future.  We shouldn’t forget that even in the United States we see the gold and glitter, too, and political dynasties remain, affecting even the election of presidents.  The direct voting process lends itself to gimmickry and show biz.

‘Halal,’ ‘haram’ politics

Which is why we need to think of democracies as involving more than voting.  Last week I wrote about how our terms “halal” and “halalan” may have come from the Arabic “halal,” which means “permitted.”  After I did the column I checked with Dr. Julkipli Wadi, dean of the University of the Philippines Institute of Islamic Studies, and he confirmed that the possibility of an Arabic source “is very sound.”  He noted that Muslim groups themselves do not use “halal” to suggest voting, and instead use “eleksyon” and “boto” (the direct vote was introduced to Muslim areas only after 1946).

Dean Wadi said the Arabic “shura” is a more general term which means “consultation,” and thus includes the idea of election, while “halal” is a process so legitimizing, as with foods, politics, and even financing, as in Islamic banks. Dean Wadi concluded that halalan is “a unique contribution of the Filipino language in the area of politics whose rootedness is… essentially Arabic.”

Picking up on this line of thinking, the elections as halal is a way of legitimizing or authorizing leaders, but elections themselves do not make a democracy.  In fact, the elections should be seen as barometers that go beyond individual candidates—and dynasties.  Grace Poe’s stellar showing in the senatorial race is not about a political dynasty because her father, Fernando Poe Jr., died before he could ever take up an electoral position.  Her victory speaks of Filipinos who believe that Poe was cheated out of the presidential position.

Likewise, Nancy Binay’s candidacy showed how she gained ground on her own, meaning more than being Vice President Jejomar Binay’s daughter.  My reading is that she represented Filipinos’ fears of a Senate that was completely Team PNoy, the Binay factor still there, but not being the only factor that catapulted her rank.

The Aquino administration still emerged a victor, but it should be looking at fault lines, and tensions.  The rumors of a No-El (no electricity) election, and persistent rumors about fraudulent source codes for the computers, were coming from different sources, including conservative Catholics still furious with President Aquino for endorsing the reproductive health bill. The poor showing of these conservative Catholics tells us they have little grassroots support, but their noise levels on the Internet and the mass media show how they might erode public trust.

The diverse voices, mainstream and fringe, remind us of a robust democracy. With the elections over, we now need to get back to strengthening the processes of consultation, of holding our leaders accountable, maybe even considering how we might declare them “haram”—Arabic for “forbidden” or “banned”—if they fail us.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]