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Making our choices

05/12/07

Posted under May 2007 elections, Philippine politics

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.

By John Nery
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Inquirer Current. A current-events blog by Inquirer columnist Manuel L. Quezon III and Inquirer editor John Nery.