May 2007 Archives

Something's been puzzling me the last two weeks. Immediately after the elections, the Commission on Elections estimated that anywhere between 65 and 85 percent of registered voters had cast their ballots. (As an estimate, offered by a possibly innumerate Comelec chairman, the figure is too vague to be truly useful. Given 45 million voters, a 20-percent range means Benjamin Abalos could have been off by as many as 9 million voters.) On the eve of the elections, the Comelec had forecast an 83-percent turnout, based on the 2004 vote. This was, more or less, the "forecast" one could conclude from a Social Weather Stations survey, which found that 86 percent of survey respondents said they were likely to vote. It was this survey, too, which led me to conclude that Loren Legarda, consistently enjoying ratings of around 60 percent, would be the first person to earn over 20 million votes in Philippine election history. A day after the elections, the Comelec issued a revised estimate: Turnout was lower, but was a still high 75 percent. The National Citizens Movement for Free Elections, however, gave a much lower estimate: A few days after the election, it suggested that turnout could have been as low as 50 percent. Other election watchdogs said much the same thing, though they were not as pessimistic as Namfrel. I had noticed something strange in my polling precinct in Quezon City; at first I couldn't put my finger on it, until I realized the place was simply less busy, less crowded, than in previous elections. (I have voted in the same school since 1992.) Over dinner with Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca at the Inquirer head office the other night, both Padaca and Rep. Satur Ocampo said they noticed a drop in the voter turnout. My question: Was turnout in fact artificially depressed?

TOMORROW promises to be action-packed. A very personal account is by Galatea's Favorite Sky, where she describes her ordeal as her boyfriend ended up hurriedly sent to Lanao. Indeed, it's going to be All eyes on Lanao del Sur, as Alleba Politics points out. Going further,  Calling All Filipinos. Lanao Del Sur Needs You! Tingog.com says, while Patsada Karajaw says Dracula's guarding the blood banks. Sometimes in frustration, we end up hearing people say, extreme measures are called for. Violence and cheating are the problems, and the worst part is, the places where voting isn't relatively clean and honest end up dragging down the rest. 1. If anyone dies in an election-related act of violence, should all the candidates be punished? Declare no elections, and install an OIC? Meaning, if you want civilian officials to lead your province, better conduct a campaign and an election without violence, otherwise it's martial law for you until the province gets its act together? 2. If a precinct can't produce and submit an ER within 24 hours of the polls closing, should the government declare sorry, better luck next time, we won't count your votes because you couldn't count your votes in time? 3. If the voters in Muslim Mindanao want to vote properly, but their leaders, in cooperation with national officials, keep screwing it up, is the solution, as follows?

But immediate solutions -- or deterrents in time for future elections -- can be put in place, said Basman, president of the Philippine Islamic Center for Moderate Muslims and of the Mindanao Research Institute. He suggested that elections be held in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao ahead of the rest of the country, the way it is done for overseas and local absentee voters. A purge of shady election officials in the local level can also be initiated by focusing the so-called "lifestyle check'' on these individuals after an election, Basman said.

The saying goes, "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." But if the price of winning is never so high, as to prevent winning at any costs, should the price then be: if you can't play, nobody will win. Period. No exceptions. You can think about how you messed it up for three years, but until then, it's martial law in your locality. But then you see caffeine sparks and a news report shown on Australian TV, and you realize: hold on, who would enforce martial law?

Unless we say it is. That, apparently, is the administration coalition's take on the 2007 mid-term elections. The Senate contest is not a referendum on the Arroyo presidency, because, well, the administration has lost the majority of seats at stake. But the congressional and local races? They are a referendum because the administration won most of the positions at stake. This "frame" is there for all to see, in a full-page ad that the administration coalition (that's Lakas, Kampi, NPC, Liberal-Atienza wing, LDP, and PDSP) are running in tomorrow's papers. It turns out that all coalition candidates had "offered a clear choice to the Filipino people" -- including, I suppose, all those coalition candidates, such as Mark Lapid of Lakas and Baby Pineda of Kampi, who ran against each other. Apart from the framing (another example: 2007 was "an election generally predicted as a referendum on the economic performance of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo" -- nice, that subtle use of the dismal science), the advertisement is interesting for the lists it provides of the winning coalition candidates: 183 congressmen (including, ah, transplanted Bicolano Dato Arroyo); 64 governors (including Joey Salceda of Albay, who ran as an independent against an incumbent Lakas governor, another clear example of the "clear choice" the coalition offered the Filipino people); and 101 city mayors (including Charter change exponent Rep. Constantino Jaraula). I will bet, however, that this ad will become more interesting around the third or fourth week of July, when jockeying for positions in the House will cause a few more of that quaint fruit, the balimbing, to fall from the tree.

JUST a quick thought. Whether anyone likes it or not, the next presidential campaign begins on June 30, 2007 when the new batch of senators join the 14th Congress. While the counting isn't over, the top six or so senatorial rankings seem beyond dispute, and among them are some candidates being discussed as presidential aspirants. What does their senatorial victory tell us about their presidential prospects? I've linked the survey results graphs for each candidate. 1. Loren Legarda: Was her vote purely on her own merits, or a sympathy vote for 2004? And the real question is: even as the senatorial top-notcher, is the country prepared for another female president? 2. Chiz Escudero: Phenomenal popularity and a marvelously efficient campaign. The man to watch, particularly as the country's going through one of its periodic generational shifts. But too young to be president? 3. Ping Lacson: He held his own, but didn't make major gains. He proved he has a solid constituency that will vote for him, consistently. But there wasn't any "cross-over," and he hasn't proven he can attract additional support. 4. Manny Villar: The biggest loser, in terms of his presidential prospects. A lackluster campaign, massive spending for ads but not enough bang for the buck; he hoped the Vice-President's endorsement would help, but the Vice-President serves with an administration that got rejected in terms of the national vote. The Vice-President endorsed Ralph Recto, too, and it didn't seem to help, either. And he has to retain the senate presidency.

Sometimes we can read too much into the "meaning" of a particular vote. I found Raul Pangalangan's last column, on the meaning of the Honasan-Trillanes vote, a provocative read. I especially thought this particular passage was right on the money.

By manipulating the various arms of government to harass its enemies and protect its own, the Arroyo government has weakened the rule of law. It has conditioned the people to look to end-results -- stop corruption, improve education, expand health care, make housing more accessible -- and be indifferent to the means, constitutional or not. It has lowered the bar, so to speak, that the law has placed to guard against extra-constitutional power grabs.

This weakening of the rule of law -- "culture of impunity," anyone? -- must be counted as one of the main legacies of the Arroyo administration. There was much else in the former law dean's column to agree with. But on one key point, I thought he had overreached. The fifth paragraph reads:

The Honasan-Trillanes vote shows a voter who is prepared to get rid of President Arroyo whatever it takes. It helps that the two are Philippine Military Academy graduates, untainted by graft and corruption, and who to the lay public embodied certain ideals for which they have made personal sacrifices. At least 1.3 million voters so far have cast their lot with two former coup plotters and, irony of ironies, would now reward them a fully constitutional way of expressing their rage.

I have a quibble or two about the second sentence, but about the first, well, I think Raul is just plain mistaken. In the first place, a Pulse Asia survey conducted soon after the Oakwood mutiny in July 2003 found that while many Filipinos sympathized with the grievances aired by the mutineers led by Trillanes, most Filipinos rejected armed violence as an option for change. That rejection, if the surveys since 1986 are right, is a constant of public opinion. In the second place, this is not the first time Honasan will be seated in the Senate. He has already served 12 years there. Did his two previous terms mean the electorate had embraced the "whatever it takes" option? Again, the surveys at that time showed the public's rejection of coups and other forms of violent takeover. There must be another explanation. The other day, I found out that Torn and Frayed had the same reservation about this particular part of Raul's analysis.

Still, deplorable though the administration’s record on law and order has been, it can’t be the whole answer. Voters have been supporting Gringo for many years now, to the mystification of foreign observers. Shortly after I arrived in the Philippines in 1997 I remember asking a friend “whatever happened to that guy Gringo Honasan?” and almost falling off my barstool when I discovered he was a senator.

(Incidentally, the view from that barstool, so to speak, has often been stimulating. Torn has written some of the best commentary on Manila city politics available.) To be sure, reading the true outcome of an election can often be a heady exercise (and heady in more ways than one). But in the end it must still be based on the facts. Of course we (or our controlling paradigms, to borrow philosophy-talk-turned-business-jargon) can choose the facts we deem most relevant. Sometimes, however, an omission can prove crucial. In this case, not accounting for the previous victories of Honasan, the most famous coup plotter in the country's history, undermines the assertion that, now, today, the public is ready for "whatever it takes." (Besides, Rodolfo Biazon, who gained national fame for defending Camp Aguinaldo against Honasan's men, was voted into the Senate too.) I understand the Trillanes vote as a symbolic protest, in almost the same way that many of the votes cast (but not necessarily counted) for Alan Peter Cayetano can be said to be symbolic. The vote for Honasan, however, may be a bit more complicated to read, in part because he did already serve in the Senate. It may be that his detention and then, at just the right time, his release, did more than anything to return him to the Senate. It must also be noted that man-on-the-street interviews suggest that Trillanes and Honasan share the "matapang" image. That can go a long way in explaining their popular appeal. (Conversely, I think Joker Arroyo is in the dagdag-bawas zone now in large part because he diluted his message. He should have stuck to his "Pag bad ka, lagot ka" message. But maybe that's just me, overreading.) Other overreadings include Darlene Antonino-Custodio's victory over boxing icon Manny Pacquiao and Among Ed Panlilio's "miracle" win over Baby Pineda and Mark Lapid in Pampanga. These were two "good fights," but they were not necessarily a rejection of the losers' patron, the commander in chief herself. Ask anyone in Gen. Santos City, and people will say they retain a great affection for Pacquiao. Many welcomed his defeat, because it would mean he would focus on boxing. Tough love, so to speak: They wanted him to remain a first-rate boxer, instead of becoming a third-rate congressman. PS. This contributed post to our Eleksyon 2007 blog, plus the sometimes impassioned comments, sharpen the Manny's-better-off-losing-to-Darlene perspective.

Here's something interesting from a May 19 Inquirer.net report:

ABS-CBN reporter Lynda Jumilla said the Comelec’s education and information division (EID) used to help reporters add up the figures. However, these were still unaudited results by the Comelec and, therefore, could not be considered official. Jumilla also covered the 1992, 1995, 1998 and 2004 elections. She said this was the first time that she added up the results of the COCs on her own without the EID’s help. “They used to give us the running totals at a certain hour of the day. But those were still unaudited,” she said. “This time, if we rely on the Comelec to give us totals, we’ll get them tomorrow. By then, the story would be stale.” Jumilla said she tried to be as careful as she could by listening intently to the canvassers read out the COC results. She said she would jot these down in her notebook and the tally sheet provided by a media officer, and countercheck her figures with other reporters.... If she makes a mistake, “I’m willing to point it out in my next story,” Jumilla said. Comelec executive director Pio Jose Joson, who also chairs the canvassing supervisory committee, admitted that the poll body was slow in releasing the official results.

The above is a long explanation of this depressing detail:

(There is a huge tally board at the gate of the Philippine International Convention Center. But it only showed the running total of COCs from the overseas voting.)

Basically, the article reveals that reporters have to do work they shouldn't be expected to do: accounting. Anyone who's seen video of Congress during elections in presidential years, will remember that a giant blackboard is a prominent feature of the official canvassing. You'd expect the official canvassing for the senate to feature the same handy reference for everyone, media and the public alike. But apparently not, and this only adds to the lack of trust people have in the system. Meanwhile Philippine Commentary examines the Comelec count versus Namfrel quick counts. Promises to be a thought-provoking series.

MUCH as I love the Inquirer.net electoral map, we have a long way to go. In Pollster.com, which focuses on survey results, see their  2006 House Race and 2006 Senate Race survey maps. For actual election results, see this unusually-designed map showing the gains and losses of the parties, for the US House of Representatives in the 2006 race. A particularly interesting show-and-tell is by M.E.J. Newman, who looks at how to present election results for both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and in a way that shows the relative populations of various areas. We have the potential for doing such maps: Filipino map-renderers on Wikipedia are, to my mind, particularly gifted. See the electoral map for the 2004 presidential election on Wikipedia, it's great! The problem with rendering Philippine political maps, to my mind, are mainly 3: 1. the number of provinces keeps increasing. Since 2004, our provinces have increased from 79 to 81. 2. the number of congressional districts keeps changing (and I wonder if the majority have been adequately mapped: just on Wikipedia, not every province has its congressional districts mapped the way Negros Oriental does, for example). 3. my understanding is the last time the country was properly mapped was in the 1950s. And the generally-slipshod way data is maintained means media, for one, is often at odds with each other because a report involving numbers is only as good as the data government feeds the media groups. A good example is the now-controversial province of Maguindanao. The Inquirer.net electoral map puts the number of registered voters there at 289,092. However, in a report, Sun-Star says the following:

From 275,572 registered voters in 2004, the number of voters in this year’s  elections went up by more than 43 percent or to 396,772.

So what gives? I emailed Inquirer.net editor-in-chief JV Rufino about it, and this was his explanation:

Some of the towns in Maguindanao have moved to the new  province of  Shariff Kabunsuan which didn't exist in 2004. As we compare town per  town, we moved some towns to Shariff Kabunsuan to allow the comparison.  If Shariff Kabunsuan had never been created, Maguindanao would have  455,601 registered voters based on the 2004 registered voters Excel file [PDI Research] gave us. You can get that figure by adding the "2004" registered voters of the Shariff Kabunsuan marker and adding that to the 2004 figures of the Maguindanao marker.

A satisfactory explanation to my mind, but one which requires of readers more mental juggling than is perhaps reasonable to ask. But what can you do? Not much. Right now, I'm trying to complete a simple list, going down the number of Lakas vs. Kampi races in the House, and let me tell you, it's an ordeal. The first problem is getting results: the local tallies that Inquirer.net uploads, for example, don't all have the same data and the information changes from list to list. You can try getting information (for example, matching the lists of winners to lists of candidates and their parties) from the Comelec website, but again, not every province has information and even provinces with information don't all contain the same kind of information. Anyway here's my list: It's very rough, not least because there's no central location on the 'net where one can find the results of local races. After finishing it, the next step is comparing it to the list of the Institute of Popular Democracy, as to which districts where the opposition had a fighting chance, actually turned out well or badly for the opposition. And as a picture's worth a thousand words: imagine if all these things were on maps!

THIS is a question I think we ought to consider this early on. In a democracy, it's the will of the majority that decides to vote, that counts. The other interesting thing is, is it premature to write the obituary on the command vote? In 1998, I wrote that as far as presidential elections were concerned, the days of party machinery determining the outcome were over (the aberration would prove to be 2004: and that was a questionable election). This election marks 100 years since we've had lower house elections; and 66 years since the first national senatorial election. We are only a young democracy in terms of our personal memories. I've put together a summary of the elections from 1907-2004, and it is in the context of all these past races that the present one should be considered. Please take a look (unfortunately, 1971 is a kind of "ghost year," I've never been able to find the House results for that year, though we have the Senate results). (Erratum: a reader in my blog corrected the data for the 1951 senatorial elections: it was a complete defeat for the incumbent's party; something pointed out in an Inquirer editorial as the only instance a total opposition victory in the Senate has been achieved; so for the data, the Senate results for 1951 should show 8 NP elected and 0 LP; the above's been fixed) In terms of the House of Representatives, the administration in power has not been the same as the party controlling the House only four times in our history, and all three were presidential election years. All three were unusual elections: the incumbents lost, though the party infrastructure the losing incumbents had carefully nurtured survived (until raided by the successor): In 1953, when Magsaysay won the presidency for the opposition NP, while the administration LP kept control of the House. In 1961, when Macapagal won the presidency for the opposition LP, while the administration NP kept control of the House. In 1965, when Marcos won the presidency for the opposition NP, while the administration LP kept control of the House. In 1998, when Estrada won the presidency for the opposition LAMMP, while the administration Lakas kept control of the House. All four presidents engaged in the immediate courting and raiding of the previous administration party, and quickly established a "new" majority for themselves. But for non-presidential election years, no incumbent has ever lost control of the House, and so it's no achievement to retain control of it in a mid-term election. You could say no administration has ever lost the House in 100 years, that's simply how local politics works (incumbents have lost the presidency though). In terms of the Senate, from 1941 to 1951, bloc voting was in place and ensured administration control of the Senate in every election. After 1951, bloc voting was abolished and the results began to be mixed, with one exception: 1955, the Magsaysay mid-terms, when his massive popularity secured a complete senate victory for his slate, also the last time ever that a party secured a complete victory in the senate. Even Marcos at his most formidable, in 1967 and 1969, and even with the anti-Marcos backlash in 1971, neither party could secure a shut-out. In terms of mid-term elections being a referendum on the sitting administration, the score cards of various presidents is as follows: Roxas, 1947: 7 out of 8, very impressive Quirino, 1951: 8 out of 8, very impressive (but led to abolition of bloc voting) All 8 of his candidates lost, the worst performance by an administration, ever. Magsaysay, 1955: 8 out of 8, hugely impressive and unmatched since Garcia, 1959: 5 out of 8, unimpressive, a sign of defeat to come Macapagal, 1963: 4 out of 8, a sign of defeat to come Marcos, 1967: 7 out of 8, very impressive Marcos, 1971: 2 out of 8, worst showing of an incumbent; panic time Ramos, 1995: 10 out of 13, very impressive What sets apart the pre-1972 senatorial midterms, from the midterms since 1987, is of course that presidents prior to 1972 could run for reelection, and so the midterms also served as a test of how the incumbent would do when seeking reelection. Roxas and Magsaysay were widely expected to secure reelection in their time: but both died before they could do so. Marcos, who matched the Roxas performance in his mid-term, became the first president since 1941 to win reelection. Since 1987, what the mid-term determines is whether the president will be a lame duck or not. Ramos's strong senate showing helped propel charter change efforts; 2001 would have been the mid-term referendum on Estrada, but instead became a referendum on Edsa Dos; now the 2007 elections will determine if President Arroyo will be a lame duck or not.

Administration senator Ralph Recto has a rather remarkable take on the steady rise in what are called, in police-speak, election-related violent incidents, or ERVIs. On election day, in a telephone interview with senior reporter Gil Cabacungan Jr., he said:

“I believe that part of the reason for the violence is that some unscrupulous politicians were not prepared for the campaign and had to make up for the lost time because they thought there would be no elections this year."

Say that again? Given the context of their conversation, Gil proceeded to file a story with the following sharp lead: "TEAM Unity senatorial bet Ralph Recto is blaming Malacanang's relentless bid to railroad charter change up to the start of the campaign season in January for the high death toll in these elections." Unfortunately, his story ended up as the last part of a wrap-up on poll violence; I thought Recto's startling sound bite deserved a shot at second lead, at least, to immediately place election-day violence in some context. At any rate, the final version of the wrap-up story is here. The last paragraphs read as follows: In a phone interview, Recto said that some “unscrupulous” politicians had to resort to extreme measures to get back on the winning track. “I believe that part of the reason for the violence is that some unscrupulous politicians were not prepared for the campaign and had to make up for the lost time because they thought there would be no elections this year,” Recto said. Recto said it was not until the last few days of 2006 that the public was sure that elections would push through as the House of Representatives had hurriedly adopted a resolution forming a constituent assembly, without the Senate consent, and the suspension of this year’s elections. It was only after a strong public outcry that Malacañang and the House dropped the plan to avoid a crisis. Recto said that some of the politicians could have resorted to violence because they did not have enough time to prepare for their reelection. You know, he could be KoRecto.

THE PPCRV says there were the standard electoral woes: disfranchisement, electioneering and vote buying. But "beyond the usual," I think most media people will be trying to come to grips with the staggering numbers elections -and trying to manipulate them- involves. Just a while ago I did a little show-and-tell on GMA7's election coverage, where I tried to tie together last Friday's Newsbreak article on potential cheating strategies, with reports filtering in from the ground. The first point involved a statement made earlier today by Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos, where he said turnout in some regions reached 85% or so (though an online report I saw quoted him as saying it was 70-80%). Inquirer publisher Isagani Yambot said his hunch was that it was closer to 70% nationwide (but that's just a hunch). This figure is important because it's the first nationwide figure people have, to compare their personal experience during election day, with what our officials claim actually took place. Prospero Pichay, who was a guest in a segment prior to mine, said he thought it was closer to 65%-70%, saying it's a midterm election, and that the general turnout during such elections is law. Not so. I pointed out that we can compare whatever turns out to be the voter's turnout this year, with past years. A handout I received earlier that day from a group of statisticians (claiming the 2005 National Statistical Coordination Board Statistical Yearbook as their source) presented the following. It's the percentage of registered voters, who actually voted in past elections: May 2004: 81.4% actual voters May 2001: 76.3% actual voters May 1998: 86.4% actual voters May 1995: 70.7% actual voters May 1992:  75.5% actual voters So 80% is believable, if we assume a high turnout for this election. Except I kept hearing during the coverage that reports from the ground kept mentioning low turnouts... Either way, whether a low turnout or a high turnout nationwide, the next problem I brought up is something I blogged about earlier today. It's the interesting figures the Inquirer.net Eleksyon 2007 Map brought out: large increases in registered voters in some areas, and a decrease in other areas, with the increases remarkably similar to administration bailiwick areas and the drop in generally-acknowledged opposition areas. I hope more numerically-inclined people will crunch these numbers and see if my suspicions (my suspicions are, the map numbers combined with the Newsbreak article's contents match, and remarkably so) have a basis. But the main point is that for the average citizen, the election's over. For many, many others, they've just begun. The first big sign of whether the pundits and analysts are on to something, will be the exit poll published around noontime tomorrow. The best line of the night came from Pichay: "well, the election's over, and no one can change the results." Oh? The announced failure of election in parts of Mindanao just freed up a chunk -what is it, 60,000 votes?- that can swing the election for the bottom-ranking senatorial candidates.

I ended up voting for Alan Cayetano, even if his sometimes blithe simplifications almost always push me to reach for the remote. He can certainly talk, of that there is no doubt. But I sometimes get the impression that his tongue outraces, not only tact, but also thought. Perhaps he really does think in extremes, which will explain why he has no major legislation to show for after nine years in Congress. The Comelec's failure to disqualify the fake Cayetano candidacy, however, finally convinced me of the merits of an argument I've heard again and again: a vote for Alan Cayetano would send a message to both Comelec and Malacanang. Play fair. So vote for Alan Cayetano I did.  I did not vote for Chiz Escudero, although I had expected to. In the end (that is, this morning, when I wrote down my final list of senatorial candidates to vote for), I realized I could not shake off the sense that Escudero may well be the charismatic face, the articulate (if cloyingly repetitive) voice, of the Marcos restoration. He may have been too young in 1986, but I have no doubt about where he would have stood if he had been old enough to vote. As a responsible adult, however, he was on the wrong side of Edsa II -- and on the wrong side of the Davide impeachment. That's two strikes, in my book. I also ended up voting for all three candidates of Kapatiran. I was ready to vote for Martin Bautista, having concerns about Zosimo Paredes' position during the Nicole rape case and having actually met Adrian Sison in another newsroom many years ago. But I could not bring myself to vote for higher-profile candidates, including senators who had taken the trouble to sit me down for lunch and a dialogue. So I inserted Paredes and Sison into the last two slots, perhaps naively thinking I was sending a message of encouragement to men and women of good will. Of the remaining eight slots, I chose two from Team Unity (I will vote for Joker Arroyo whichever side of the political divide he is on, because I believe we can still count on him to speak truth to power); five more from the Genuine Opposition (perhaps Loren Legarda will now seize the reins of opposition leadership from Joseph Estrada); and one independent. How about you? Who did you vote for?

This article serves as a reminder I get every year from my own mother: we are celebrating the wrong, and an untraditional, mother's day. I'll spare you the "the shift in date is a conspiracy between the mall owners and greeting card companies because sales are traditionally low in early May" conspiracy theory, though that I get from other people.

I did not, of course, change my mind about the possibility of a middle-class boycott. Perhaps I did not choose my words carefully enough, but all I really wanted to say was that I've started noticing some of the evidence (rather loosely defined) that Manolo must have seen too. Call it the Yellow Beetle principle; if say you've been grazed by a yellow Volkwagen, you will be amazed at the number of yellow Volkwagens you start noticing, crowding the city's streets. I don't think I'll ever reach a point, however, where I will bet against the Filipino's readiness to vote in any or all elections. I have never thought that a boycott would work, not even when the argument for a boycott seemed to be strongest: in the 1981 mock presidential election, in the 1984 Batasan elections, or in the 1986 Snap Election. If the latest SWS survey called it right, we can expect a high turnout, perhaps as much as 86 percent. A boycott of the middle-class would have to be massive to lower the turnout to, say, 70 percent. Even at 75 percent, it would be difficult to argue that a boycott did take place -- or that it had an appreciable impact on the elections' outcome. One possible approach to measure the shape and size of a middle-class boycott may be to take a close look at Chiz Escudero's final ranking. According to the SWS, classes ABC solidly support Escudero, while classes D and E are overwhelmingly for Loren Legarda. Escudero is headed for a Top 3, maybe even a Top 2 rank; if he ends up outside the top half of Senate winners, would this indicate that a large proportion of the middle class did in fact boycott the elections? At any rate: I wanted to suggest the following criterion for choosing our senators, inspired in part by a reading of Winnie Monsod's column today. I do not necessarily agree with her choices, or indeed with all of her criteria, but I found her thinking-on-paper a bracing exercise. We should choose champions of democracy -- those we are certain we can rely on during the proverbial crunch. (And let us not kid ourselves: the crunch will come, and perhaps sooner than we think.) When the Arroyo administration's hardliners again move to abolish the Senate, will we end up with a pliant Lito Lapid or a rock-steady Nene Pimentel? Isn't the Genuine Opposition's slate made up precisely of democracy's champions? No, it isn't. Sonny Trillanes tried (ineptly) to stage a coup; Sonny Osmena, based on his flipflopping in the last few years, cannot be trusted. Isn't a vote for anyone on the Team Unity slate a "vote of confidence" in the Arroyo administration? Only if a vote for anyone on the Genuine Opposition slate is also considered a vote of confidence in the opposition leadership: the unrepentant, revisionist Erap Estrada; the feckless leaders of the impeachment initiatives; the maddeningly independent republics in the Senate. (Surely what is sauce for the administration goose is sauce too for the opposition gander.) Most of the candidates on my list belong to GO, but I'll be damned if that means I support Trillanes and his brand of incompetent military adventurism. (At least Gringo Honasan can claim a share in one successful intervention; still, he remains too much a military adventurer -- ask the Oakwood boys -- for my taste.) What we are left with then, in choosing our candidates for the Senate, is the old-fashioned approach: we have to pick and choose. My simple criterion has sub-criteria. Was the candidate on history's side in both Edsa I and Edsa II? (That allows Loren Legarda in, keeps Tessie Oreta out, despite her genuine religious conversion.) Is the candidate committed to election reform? (Noynoy Aquino appears to want a level playing field for the 2010 presidential candidacy of Mar Roxas; Koko Pimentel knows election reform is the true answer to the political dynasty problem.) Not least, will the candidate have the guts to speak truth to power, whether power comes in the form of pressure from Malacanang (Joker Arroyo, anyone?) or pressure from the likes of Lucio Tan? A simple criterion, but no easy choices.

THIS was a conclusion I reached eons ago, based on the Marcos campaign of 1986, the defeat of Ramon Mitra, Jr. in 1992, and that of Jose de Venecia in 1998. I recall hearing from people involved in the Marcos campaign that oodles of money was sent to ensure victory but many Marcos operatives, sensing which way the wind was blowing, simply pocketed the cash and abandoned the president. Mitra and de Venecia, too, suffered from the take the money and run syndrome suddenly afflicting their campaigns (one person who supported de Venecia told me that on election day, stacks and stacks of sample ballots remained in de Venecia's house, his network not having bothered to get them distributed to voters). Still, whether in a presidential race (Ramos' victory over Miriam Defensor Santiago) or the senate elections, dagdag-bawas seemed only useful in terms of close contests. The 2004 elections, however, led to allegations that dagdag-bawas had been perfected enough to answer the most notorious political question of contemporary times: "Will I still lead by 1 million votes?" How sophisticated? Late last year I talked to some loyalists of the late Fernando Poe, Jr. who've spent the time since 2004 doing a kind of forensic accounting of the elections. They said that the administration's efforts were so complicated that it had taken them two years to even begin to understand how it was all done. The impression I got was that had the "Hello Garci" controversy not broken out, they would have had no way of even proving cheating had been done. I gathered from their remarks that the cheating, then, actually had two phases: the first phase was conducted so well, that it took them two years to figure it out; the second phase is what became notorious in 2005, and their claim is that it was due to the President panicking and ordering instant results, which Garci obligingly, but crudely, did. As one of them said to me, "the people who did the first phase of the cheating were all set to roll out their own second phase, but GMA couldn't wait, and that's where she got caught." According to the FPJ loyalists, this is how the sophisticated first phase went: 1. Massive disenfranchisement aimed at areas where the opposition would be strong. 2. In countless precincts, the actual results remained: for example, if GMA had won in a precinct, she still won, if FPJ won, he still won. But votes were subtracted and added so that when all the precincts were put together, the end result would shift a significant number of votes from FPJ to the President. This would alter provincial results so that, when the various provinces were canvassed in turn, known administration bailiwicks would compensate for known opposition bailiwicks. 3. No old trick was spared (vote-buying, intimidation, flying voters, spending public funds, etc.) but resources were fairly scientifically allocated to ensure wholesale, and not retail, manipulation. 4. In areas where public or media scrutiny could be controlled, namely, Mindanao, ghost precincts came into play. These represented pure bonuses: but this was the crude, Garci part. Again, according to the FPJ people, the first phase, which involved Luzon and the Visayas, got derailed simply because the opposition vote proved massive (particularly Luzon, the votes of which equals the Visayas and Mindanao put together). Now why have I brought up the 2004 elections? Because controversy concerning that election continues to haunt us. Public expectations of cheating are undeniable. And allegations are already being made: except they seem to focus on old, already-exposed tricks. But these allegations in media are no different from what W. Scott Thompson, in a commentary comparing Al Gore to cheating Filipino politicians in the Los Angeles Times in 2000, did: which was apply an old paradigm to a new problem. He suggested the term "dagdag-bawas" dates back  to (and might even have been coined by) Vice President Fernando Lopez in the 1969 elections, to point to what he expected (wrongly, it seems) to be the strategy of Al Gore in 2000. This only shows where the past can only teach us so much: Thompson might have been on to something, but even as America (and the way cheating's attempted there by whatever side) has discovered all sorts of new tricks, so too have cheaters here at home figured out how to cheat more effectively than their predecessors did in 1969. Amando Doronila suggests that commentators have to question one piece of conventional wisdom: that the "command vote" is there, and is poised to be mobilized effectively by the administration. He says that yes, marching orders have been given, but it would be wrong to discount the possibility some races will lead to surprise results. Which in turns affects the dynamics the Palace wants to see emerging from this election. Taking a cue, then, from Doronila. If dagdag-bawas came to be a household word in the 1990s, even the way it was carried out changed in the decade between the election of Ramos in 1992 and of Arroyo in 2004. And so, I wonder: what innovations will come into play this year? Will they be beyond the capacity of media and the public to detect? Or -and here's a heretical thought- will we see a return to pure political muscle, to old-fashioned machine politics, and the setting aside of wholesale fraud? Update (6:51 pm): it seems the good folks at Newbsreak might have just answered my question!

A strategist and two operators who claim to be involved in the administration’s “special operations” for the senatorial elections separately told Newsbreak that this year’s strategy adopts the “successful” aspects of the pre-election cheating that they said they conducted for President Arroyo in the 2004 elections, and avoids the parts that had been subsequently discovered. Due to the sensitive nature of their disclosure, these sources refused to be identified. But they were among the sources we previously interviewed for our series of stories on election cheating in the 2004 presidential polls. Specifically, they disclosed, what will not be repeated from the 2004 elections are: * The use of pre-accomplished election returns (ERs) that were switched with genuine ones before the municipal canvassing began. * The use of extra certificates of canvass (COCS) that tampered with actual provincial tallies. The ones that will be repeated from the 2004 strategy, according to them, are: * Wide-scale operations only in “friendly” cities and provinces. * An unusually high voter turnout in these areas. * The buying out, if necessary, of the opposition’s poll watchers.

Ever since I disagreed with Manolo's contention that the middle class will boycott Monday's elections, I've started noticing indications that, well, he may be right. Strictly anecdotal evidence, of course, and certainly not massive enough to make me change my mind, but, well, consider only the following: The son of an editor I know won't bother to vote on May 14 -- the same young man who, when he turned 18 a few years ago, stood in line for hours just to register as a voter. Mike Tan's always sensible column tomorrow (that is, it's appearing Friday, May 11, although I read it on our system this afternoon) begins by talking about several people he knows who will skip Monday's elections. The dismal turnout among overseas voters -- the vanguard of the rising middle class, is one way to look at them -- suggests persuasively that the 2004 elections had turned them off the voting process. To be sure, if I were a betting man, I would still place my money on participation, rather than a boycott. Our republic's short history tells me that Filipinos, even the members of an increasingly impatient middle class, can't resist the call of the polls.

In his blog Vincula, Atty. Teddy Te asks, "why vote"? His is a very eloquent entry:

Why vote indeed? Because there must be hope. Because there is hope. The hope that one vote and one's vote--yours and mine--brings. One's vote and one vote makes the difference between light and darkness, the difference between being in chains once more and being truly free, the difference between whining in enforced silence and raising voices in just and righteous indignation, the difference between all that is good for this beautiful country and all that will lead us further on the road to perdition.

And of course, there are those, like columnist Honesto General, who is an old pro at voting and suggests it's never as idealistic as Teddy Te might hope:

Looking back, my vote has seldom been based on ideology or partisanship. Voting has usually been a deeply personal act.

As Philippine Commentary puts it, this is the home stretch of the campaign. Some parts of the election seems a foregone conclusion, as Dean Jorge Bocobo reminds us, the first eight slots in the senate rankings indicate a lead comfortable enough to be cheat-proof. But a large number of senate slots are still up for grabs, and the only question is, what will decide it for the remaining five who will make it to the senate? We can only hope, the voters will make the difference.

Doro (as Amando Doronila is called, by everyone who knows him) is back in Australia, working on the galleys of his memoirs, but he remains very much engaged in Philippine politics. Yesterday, in his Monday analysis for the Inquirer, he pointed out the obvious: The emperor has no clothes. Next week's midterm vote, in other words, is not a referendum on the Arroyo administration. Others may still quarrel with him on this point; I myself would like to nuance the argument ("it is no longer a black-and-white referendum on the administration"). But he does have a point.

The campaign over the past three months has developed into one of the greatest non-issue elections since the republic’s creation in 1946.

Well, perhaps the mid-term elections of 1995 was more soporific, if we gauge public apathy or the lack of it. But it does seem to be true, yes, that this year "both sides have been talking past each other." As I have written before, part of this dynamic is explained by the opposition's lack of preparation. The quality of the opposition candidates selected to replace third-termers Alan Cayetano and Chiz Escudero (Alan's wife, Chiz's uncle) seems to me to encapsulate the lack of strategic rigor, of "party" discipline, that undermines the opposition. And yet these elections were the opposition's to lose. As Doro points out: "opinion surveys show a broad undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the Arroyo administration’s performance and manifest abuse of power. The opposition has failed to tap this undertow of grievances." It must also be said, however, that the administration successfully confused the issues at stake in the elections by framing the contest as a proxy fight between President Arroyo (and the economic growth she says she represents) and ex-President Joseph Estrada. A third factor -- and the main point I wish to raise in this post -- is the candidates' own and repeated attempts to reach out to non-base voters.  Take a look at the (successful) campaign Escudero is conducting: Not a single one of his campaign ads raises specific issues against the Arroyo administration. We have the (successful, effective) scenario-building of a young man who can still fit into a grade school student's seat, talking in general terms about what he dreams of becoming. (I want to be a senator, one student says in Filipino, to which Chiz replies, Me too!) His radio ads have perhaps been focus-grouped to perfection: The one I keep hearing confronts (successfully, effectively)  his oppositionist image as a Naysayer by reminding listeners that he can say Yes too (to motherhood issues: more jobs at home, and so on). I read Chiz's campaign as a (successful, effective) reaching out to non-opposition voters. Other opposition candidates have also struck the same tone: Loren Legarda's creative reminders to make her No. 1, Manny Villar's powerful rags-to-riches story, etc. Administration candidates have also succeeded, in their advertising, in keeping the issue personality-oriented. Even Joker Arroyo's campaign, which began (or rather picked up from where he left off in 2001) with the scowling Roman symbol and a matching tone ("Pag bad ka, lagot ka" -- classic "fiscalizer" mode, something that goes back to elections since 1946) has lately softened its uncompromising image. Now the Joker icon can also be seen smiling, and the tagline has been diluted to include, well, a motherhood statement straight out of the 1970s: "Pag good ka, okay ka." Focus group discussion, anyone?

Reading Ang Kape ni Lattex, who pointed to the blog of his wife, it occurred to me: why isn't crime more of an issue in the elections? His wife, in Take You There, talks about her experience with the "bubblegum gang":

...Then, the guy on my left also pointed out the bubble gum on my hair. I was getting angry then and distracted and I believe that's the time, the guy on my left took my wallet and cellphone. Nasigawan ko pa yung naglagay ng bubble gum sa buhok ko. Things happened so fast. They suddenly all went down the bus at Magallanes before the overpass. I only realized that my wallet and cellphone was taken when I checked my bag when we were at Evangelista St. They were good cause my bag didn't have any slit. There I lost my wallet with my ATM, Jonjon's credit card, SSS ID, Community Tax Certificate and my phone with lots of contact numbers on it.

Now almost everyone, I think, sooner or later has a similar story to tell. Regardless of what kind of crime story it is: side view mirrors being stolen, bags being snatched, cellphones being stolen, taxicabs held up, jeepney passengers held up, etc., etc. And again: why hasn't it become a campaign issue?

Why am I not surprised? It turns out Gingoog Mayor Ruthie Guingona, the wife of opposition leader Tito Guingona, is supporting the administration coalition's Team Unity. She said she needed the administration's support, and revealed that her husband was, well, okay with the arrangement. (In her words: "OK lang sa kanya.") Ah, yes. I'm afraid once a statesman's inner traditional politician has successfully struggled to come out (as an Inquirer editorial once formulated the elder Guingona's dilemma), there really is no going back. In 2004, the opposition candidate in Bukidnon's second congressional district, someone long allied with Joseph Estrada, found himself out in the cold, when Fernando Poe Jr. brought Guingona, a friend and mentor of his running mate Loren Legarda, into the opposition coalition. The price of that new "frigid temporary alliance of convenience" (to quote Guingona's son's own fulsome phrase): FPJ's support for the younger Guingona's candidacy for congressman in the same district. So far, so traditional.

Years from now, when analysts seek to understand what went wrong in the 2007 mid-term elections, they will find most of the answers in this masterpiece of deliberate obtuseness: the Brawner decision disqualifying Magsaysay awardee Jesse Robredo, mayor of Naga, from the office he has held honorably, with great distinction, for five complete terms. Brawner decision (Thanks to Willy Prilles, Bicol's leading blogger, for the PDF file.)

JOHN'S latest entry delighted me, not least as it served a reminder of the things we can agree on:

A battle of ideas, at least as far as ideas can be phrased in public debate; strong party identities; a run-off followed by a face-off between the top two candidates, to create a true majority mandate; not least, an election system (involving over 40 million voters, roughly the same size as our electorate) that provides the results within hours of the last vote.

What a wonderful world it would be, indeed. Back when I still worked for him, Teodoro Locsin, Jr. (then publisher of the defunct Today Newspaper, and not yet a Makati congressman) based his opposition to automating elections on the example of the French: they used paper ballots and counted things manually, yet knew the results of their presidential elections within hours of the polls closing. Which only goes to show that in and of itself, the old-fashioned paper ballot, etc. isn't necessarily a crooked, or inefficient, way of conducting elections. Add to this the the run-off elections that have been a feature of France's Fifth Republic presidential system, and there's much that can be said for looking at the French experience with government. The "French model" as we like to call it, is a semi-presidential one and remains attractive to many people: those most influenced by the Marcos years, for example, are often likely to support the French model. I myself am a presidentialist, but I'm also a firm believer in the two-round system for presidential elections, if we intend to retain the multiparty system (although a French scholar of my acquaintance, who has studied Philippine history and politics quite thoroughly, thinks we should return to the two-party system). Either way, I think it's significant that we haven't had a president who can claim over 50% of the vote, since Ferdinand E. Marcos's reelection in 1969. Think, too, in terms of contemporary history: in 1992, 1998, and 2004, if we'd had the run-off system, the first round results would have led to: Ramos vs. Santiago in 92, Estrada vs. de Venecia in 1998, and Arroyo vs. Poe in 2004. Perhaps the outcomes of those races would have been predictable, too: but in each case, the winner would have been armed with a majority vote, making opposition for the sake of opposition less appealing. I always repeat, when I can, what an Indonesian journalist once told me. He said that after they restored democracy, they decided to keep the presidential system as the one best-suited to their national temperament. But then they decided to look at the Philippines, which they considered as the model (culturally, even racially) most relevant to them to study. They came away with the lesson that at all costs, they had to avoid the Philippines' recent record of having minority vote presidents. So they instituted run-off presidential elections. It's more expensive, the Indonesian told me, and takes more time: but it avoids strife and instability in the long run, he concluded. Another thing we need to reconsider, I think, is our habit of synchronized elections. It would make elections more manageable (orderly, etc.) if we didn't elect everyone from Baranggay Kagawad up to Senator, and every six years, including the President and Vice-President, on the same ballot (or at least allowed bloc voting, another advocacy of mine). Have local, and national, elections in different years. And for larger nationally-elected groups, such as senators, keep the number elected at any given time more manageable. If you go over the April 4, 2007 editorial of the Inquirer, you'll see a rundown of the senatorial elections since they were held nationally in 1941. In that first national election for the senate (November, 1941) people had to vote for 24 names, but bloc voting was instituted. When the 24 senators were proclaimed, they, in turn, drew lots: dividing themselves into three groups, the first two serving for less than 6 years, and only the luckiest 1/3 serving out their full, 6 year-term. This permitted the defining characteristic of the senate for the duration of the Third Republic (1946-1972): in each election, only a maximum of 8 senators would be up for reelection at any given time. When we restored the Senate in 1987, in the first election we chose 24 senators, but since then, every election has the electorate choosing 12 names. Now if you recall all the discussions John and I have been having in this blog, you'll note that all the dirty tricks of politics seem to matter more, to the last 5 in that magic 12, and that oddly enough, the top eight are usually considered safe. What does this tell us? The wisdom, for one, in the old system. I haven't looked into why, in the pre-martial law days, 8 senators elected at a time was considered the optimum number, but guess what -the rule of thumb seems to hold true, even today. The 1935 Constitution and its amendments were drafted by people with long experience in practical politics, and perhaps they realized that 8 is about the maximum the electorate can be expected to bother with, in a senatorial slate. Then again, there are some people inclined to challenge the wisdom of debating reforms in national elections. They propose more radical solutions. Take the time to read another hundred years hence, who proposes a different model altogether for elections, one based on the baranggay. His study makes for thought-provoking reading. My only problem with it is a major one: I've seen how truly awful baranggay elections can be. Then again, if you look at the 1943 Constitution, the model of having one group elect the other groups, has been attractive for some time.

I still can't shake off this sneaking suspicion that the BBC is biased against Segolene Royal, the Socialist candidate for President of France. I got that sense when I watched the BBC's coverage of the first round's immediate aftermath, and (especially) when I read the website's take on the results. But I must say I found the BBC's coverage of Wednesday night's presidential debate, between Royal and frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy, even, balanced. By all accounts, the debate was a slam-bang affair, featuring dust-up after dust-up, an unexpected role reversal, and memorable quotes galore. It also went overtime. The transcripts were almost immediately available online, on many websites, and except for a few lines here and there read as though they were from the same English translation. At least two newspapers found the thinly veiled hostility between the two candidates a reminder of a rather familiar domestic scene. The Australian: At times the verbal argument resembled everyday conflicts between men and women, as Mr Sarkozy accused his opponent of "losing her cool" and Ms Royal charged him with being "condescending" and "contemptuous". The New York Times: By midway, Ms. Royal’s perpetual smile disappeared from her face. Their tone was reminiscent of a couple bickering at the breakfast table, with the husband barely restraining his sense of superiority and the wife attacking him for not listening to her. I read as much of the coverage as I could, and caught the reports on CNN and BBC; I was driven by an almost partisan sense of participation (I am pulling for Sego) as well as a sense of possibility: This is how our elections should be conducted. A battle of ideas, at least as far as ideas can be phrased in public debate; strong party identities; a run-off followed by a face-off between the top two candidates, to create a true majority mandate; not least, an election system (involving over 40 million voters, roughly the same size as our electorate) that provides the results within hours of the last vote. This possibility, this scenario, reminds me of something I realized some three years ago: GMA's biggest lost opportunity. Years from now, she will be remembered for her failure to reform the country's fraud-marred electoral system -- a cancer of the body politic that she herself diagnosed in 2002, when she announced her decision not to run for President. Ah, those were the days.

John hit the nail on the head when he described the differences in our approach to what we write:

In part that difference may be attributable to the difference in our roles as journalists: As an editor, I seek only to describe the world as I find it; as an opinion columnist, and a historian to boot, he seeks to interpret the world, and perhaps change it.

By sheer coincidence, one of the examples John provides, in his counterpoint to one of the points I raised concerning the coming elections, illustrates the differences between us. He cites the case of ABA-AKO, a party-list group which John says truly represents marginalized sectors, and which twice missed sending its nominees to the House by a "hair's breadth": John even points out it was offered victory, but for a price; obviously because it didn't secure victory, it declined to pay that price.

Someone from that party-list, recently sent me an email, because their party-list has been identified as a Malacañang-supported party-list by the Black & White Movement (to which I belong). Let me publish, in full, the email sent me by a concerned member of ABA-AKO:

Dear Mr. Quezon, Hello. My name is Tony Montemayor and I am with the ABA-AKO party list.  The ABA-AKO is a coalition of farmers, fisherfolk, farm workers, urban poor, and supporters of the traditional Filipino family. It has participated in party list elections since it was first held in 1998. I wanted to get your views on how groups like Kontra-Daya and the Black & White (B&W) movement are apparently making sweeping character judgments simply on the basis of a person's job or friendships and perceived leaning on the impeachment issue. I do so with the full knowledge that you are in favor of GMA's impeachment (with is Kontra-Daya's and B&W's key issue) inasmuch as I believe that you are a fair person. For example, Kontra-Daya and B&W have labeled our party list as "palace fielded" just because our 4rth nominee is Percy Chavez who is currently the chairman of the Presidential Commission on the Urban Poor (PCUP). In addition, B&W apparently takes it against us that our 3rd nominee Manny Arejola is "reportedly an adviser of GMA on population matters and closely associated with POPCOM Commissioner Lito Sandejas". We do believe that this is a very simplistic view. First of all, Percy Chavez is our 4rth nominee because he is the Sec-Gen of the Adhikain at Kilusan ng Ordinaryong Tao (AKO), one of the major partners in this coalition representing the urban poor sector. We do believe that if you check the personal history of Percy and the organizational history of the AKO, you will conclude that both are very credible advocates of their sector. We do believe that this is why he was appointed to the Presidential Commission on the Urban Poor (PCUP) in the first place (way before the 2004 elections). He is on leave from the PCUP for the duration of the campaign period. Similarly, Manny Arejola is our 3rd nominee because he is the representative of the pro-life sector group in our coalition. Again, Manny's track record on pro-life issues is very clear. Manny has also never been a so-called adviser of GMA. And so what if Lito Sandejas is his friend? Lito's track record on pro-life issues is also well-known. Is friendship now a basis for making these kinds of accusations? Why is their immediate conclusion that these two people are running for Congress just to protect GMA against impeachment? Why don’t they respect their lifelong advocacies for their sectors? We respect the fact that for their group, impeachment of GMA is the biggest issue. But while we also consider this as an important matter as well, it is not our key issue. The position of ABA-AKO on impeachment is that we will follow the constitution but will reserve judgment until the process is completed.  At the same time, ensure that focus on key sectoral issues is maintained.  We are sorry if this is not enough for B&W or Kontra daya but we are a party list and the key issues for our sector are things like agrarian reform, urban land-reform, abortion, etc. Our first 2 nominees are former DA secretary Leonie Montemayor and farmer leader Diocky Granada. Both are officials of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) which has been in the peasant and labor sector for over 50 years now. Does this not count for anything as well? Ironically, Leonie was removed from his post in the CIFF Oil Mills by GMA because he supported her impeachment. In closing, we think that it is their right to classify groups according to their key issue of GMA’s impeachment. However, we hope that that they would do so on the basis of  "pro," "anti," or "neutral" and not immediately use accusatory terms such as "palace fielded." By all means, expose the supposed fake groups. But there should be much stronger criteria on making these kinds of determinations than just a person’s job or his friendships. Sincerely, Tony Montemayor ABA-AKO Party List

Now John, I don't think, would ever have to deal with such a letter because he wouldn't be inclined to join an organization like Black & White to begin with. Now the organization I belong to has explained clearly enough, why it decided to make certain endorsements and campaign against certain groups; and I reproduce ABA-AKO's letter of protest here, because, indeed, as John points out, as party-list parties go, it has a longer (and more respectable) track record than most; it is definitely not a fly-by-nite party-list, and unlike other party-list groups, it has been transparent about its nominees. The fact that it could invite controversy, is, I think, a sign in its favor: what of the other party-list parties that don't even want to reveal who their nominees to the House would be? The voter, then, at least has both sides: one group says they discourage support for another, based on certain criteria; the other group explains why they disagree with the judgment call made by the group that opposes them. You, the reader, ultimately has to decide: and at the very least, my belonging to one side in the argument shouldn't result in my blocking your access to their views. But still, I have a brief response to make. I think your attitude to the he-said, she-said between the two groups will ultimately boil down to the importance you place on associations candidates, and parties, make, at election-time which is ultimately about deciding to support one side or another. My own approach is simple: when a a person not from the civil service accepts a government appointment, their doing so is an endorsement and acceptance, of everything that administration represents. We can all quibble but it ultimately boils down to whether you're comfortable with endorsing an administration, or stand against it. Critical collaboration, to my mind, is still a decision to collaborate, and thus, accept -which won't be acceptable to others. Anyway, on to John's comments on my comments. 1. John sees civil society playing many roles; I am more interested in what I believe is the evolutionary challenge facing them: that they are poised to replace political parties, but with an accompanying dilemma -they could more ably serve the body politic, because, indeed, they exist for purposes other than winning elections. How to preserve that kind of institutional integrity, is a real problem. But to clarify what I meant by saying this election is a "last hurrah" of sorts, is that those who remain involved, on whatever side, are indeed getting older and I'm not convinced they're being replaced by a younger generation that continues to believe in NGOs playing a reformist role in politics, period. 2. Regarding the middle class: to be sure, the races in Pampanga (particularly Fr. Panlilio's gubernatorial candidacy, and the President's son, Mikey, finding himself opposed) and in Camarines Sur (where the President's other son, Dato, is being opposed by Abang Mabulo) shows some contests where the middle class is mobilizing itself, and where they are doing so in large part, out of the belief that religious principles have to be demonstrated in democratic politics. But I think that's part of the whole Gawad Kalinga-style retreat to the local, in the belief that only in this manner can the national ever be reformed. A retreat, however, is a retreat, strategic or otherwise: it involves abandoning the field, at least for a time. See Measly Meanderings for a description of this approach. But yes, for the record, while there are differences -in approach and interpretation- John and I do agree on a basic thing: abhorrence (a precise and accurate description) for attitudes that drip with disdain for the common voter. By all means, understand the voter, and that there are different kinds of voters; but disdain for the voter  implies there is a superior kind of voter -and if you start going down that road, the ultimate assumption tends to be, if you don't see people voting the way you want them to, you might as well dispense with those voters.

Even though the three hypotheses I offered at a talk before business professionals last week were phrased specifically to provoke discussion, Manolo was right to highlight our difference of opinion on the outcome of the coming elections. In part that difference may be attributable to the difference in our roles as journalists: As an editor, I seek only to describe the world as I find it; as an opinion columnist, and a historian to boot, he seeks to interpret the world, and perhaps change it. Let me elaborate on our difference of opinion. Davao Today, under the editorship of good friend Caloy Conde, has started a must-read resource, a series of Q&As with political analysts in the run-up to the May 14 elections. (The questions, incidentally, remain the same, concert piece-like.) Manolo launched it; he was followed by journalism professor Luis Teodoro.  I will take Manolo's answers in this series as my own springboard for discussion. 1. Manolo says that one of the things at stake in the coming elections involves "a divided civil society," and posits the view that "it’s the last hurrah of an entire generation of middle-class activists who became politically involved in the ’80s, and who are fighting to remain relevant." I do not see this at all. Is he referring to, say, Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel, who ably represented Akbayan in the last Congress? Or Kiko Pangilinan, who was actually one of those who joined the boycott of the 1986 Snap Election but has of course since seen the light? Is he perhaps referring to the earnest idealists he works with in the Black and White Movement, such as Leah Navarro and Enteng Romano? They don't strike me as about to throw in the towel; in fact, I see a natural progression in Romano's involvement from his Erap Resign days. Or is Manolo referring to the grizzled veterans like Dinky Soliman or, say, Percy Chavez, to name a civil-society activist who now finds himself on the other side of a "divided" movement? They all remain relevant, in part because they have evolved with the times, and in part because winning elections is emphatically not their reason for being. ABA-AKO, a party-list group representing truly marginalized sectors, has failed to break into the winning circle by a hair's breadth twice (it was offered victory in the last elections, for a price), but as far as I know it remains committed to the fishermen and farmers and urban poor it represents. There is a danger in defining political relevance by election success; it can lead to an active misunderstanding of the many roles that civil-society organizations are supposed to play. 2.  Manolo also says, not for the first time, that a sizable chunk of the electorate will boycott the elections. "The middle class, in my view, has decided to boycott this election. They will go on vacation and enjoy the three-day weekend the president proclaimed for election day." Again, I do not see this happening. To be sure, some will take advantage of the long weekend, but surely that will not be unique to this particular mid-term vote. The question is, Will there in fact be a boycott? I think it will be relatively easy to answer this question. We can track the numbers. A turnout of 80 percent should be high enough, yes? That gives us an actual voter turnout of some 36 million. (In other words, if the usual turnout is 80 percent, the 20 percent of voters who do not vote do not constitute a boycott.) Of the 36 million voters, how many should be considered to come from the middle class, before we can use the b-word? Indeed, how many non-voting voters from the middle class constitute a boycott? 3.  My friend Manolo also says: "What has not been stated is that midterm senatorial elections are a dry run for the presidential elections that come next. This means that any sitting administration needs to show it can deliver the votes, because that is what will give it the clout to be courted by those who top the senatorial elections. An administration that has its slate defeated in a mid-term election becomes a lame duck." I think that the Arroyo administration will lose the Senate race -- that is, that the opposition will win a majority of the only national seats at stake. But that won't make the administration a lame duck. Far from it. I agree with Manolo when he says of President Arroyo: "If she discovers, however, that the leading senatorial candidates are hostile to her, and are poised to run strong campaigns in 2010, the temptation to either pursue charter change, or find other means to protect herself politically, will be irresistible." The difference is, I think the President has already reached the decision to succumb, yet again, to the temptation. Loren Legarda is poised to become the first senator to win more than 20 million votes. Mar Roxas and Manny Villar will definitely consider a presidential run in three years' time. Perhaps (a long shot) even Dick Gordon will throw in his hat too. That makes four of the five likely standard-bearers (the fifth, of course, is Vice President Noli de Castro) potentially hostile. What does this mean? After the administration stops a third impeachment complaint in its tracks in August or September, it will have another go at a people's initiative. The lessons of 2005-2006 remain clear to Palace strategists: They have to continue to play offense, continue to keep the opposition off-balance. Call it the politics of momentum. Other differences of opinion exist, about the elections' outcome or even significance. Let me end, however, with something I think I share with Manolo: an abhorrence for the attitude (as exemplified by Professor Teodoro's answer to Caloy's last question) that drips with disdain for the common voter. Dean Teodoro says: "I don’t think they [that is, the Filipino people] care [about the elections] because they’re unable to think things through. They think this is just another election; they can’t put in the context of the Arroyo regime drive for total dominance at the expense of the Bill of Rights." This is arrant nonsense. Filipinos care about elections; the historical record of high voter turnouts bears this out. And who says they -- we -- don't know what is truly at stake?