People’s mandate

A YEAR ago yesterday, President Aquino uttered the line that would forever define his image—if not in history, then at least in the country’s short tradition of presidential inaugurations. “Kayo ang boss ko,” he said, in the process triggering a massive landslide of misinterpretations. We do not think he meant he would govern by public opinion or through social surveys—that is not leadership but pandering. At the same time, we do not think he would tack to the opposite and spurn public opinion either—it is in the country’s best interests that he hears what the surveys say.

Well, what do his bosses think of Mr. Aquino’s first year in office? One result of the second-quarter Social Weather Stations survey is a boost, an advertisement, for political maturity. Some 68 percent of respondents nationwide say it was “too early to tell” whether the President would be successful or not. After all, one year is barely enough time to make a difference, for better or worse. Indeed, this seems only common sense—except when understood in the context of our still divisive politics.

From one perspective, the public’s unhurried approach to judgment may be explained by two factors. First, much of the public continues to share the view that the mandate of the 2010 vote remains valid: anywhere between three-fourths and nine-tenths of the electorate may be said to have voted “against” corruption, and a solid majority continues to back the fight against it. Second, a substantial portion of the public realizes that the struggle against an entrenched culture of corruption does not end in immediate victory, but is instead a slow, agonizing, tediously complicated effort: a war of attrition.

These two factors help explain the public’s wait-and-see attitude. But at the same time, they remind us why much of what passes for critical commentary, especially on radio, seems to be almost belligerent towards actual political reality. If a citizen were to base her opinion of the Aquino presidency entirely on what professional critics (rather than independent opinion makers) say, she would think that after one year in office Mr. Aquino is now indistinguishable from his predecessor.

As we wrote in this space yesterday, this is false equivalence, and helps only to perpetuate the cynical and elitist practice of politics.

We realize, of course, that how an administration conducts itself in its first year is a valid gauge for anticipating its performance through the rest of its term, in the exact same way that how a campaign conducts itself during the election period is a valid gauge for anticipating its conduct during the first year of office. That is precisely why we have criticized aspects of the administration or its style of governance: they have a bearing on what will happen in the next five years. But the validity of the measure is conditional.

When Mr. Aquino ran for the presidency, he spoke candidly about juggling competing interests in his own campaign coalition. Unfortunately, that state of affairs has continued into his first year, with the competition between the so-called Balay and Samar factions only hardening into institutional rivalry. In this way, his campaign anticipated his first year in office. Unless this pattern of competing centers of influence is broken, we can expect the rivalry to worsen in the future. One flashpoint will be the 2013 elections.

But it is also true that the Aquino administration can rise above this infighting. The economic managers, for instance, seem to be able to conduct themselves above this Balay-Samar fault. The work of many undersecretaries and assistant secretaries (the kind unseen or unremarked in mass media) are viable, even exciting initiatives in reform. The point is that many seeds of promise have been sown in the first year, away from the media limelight, but it will take more months, or even years, before we can reap a harvest.

In the meantime, we would all do well to listen to what the public is saying. In the aggregate, they tell us that the campaign to right a legion of wrongs must continue.