Arroyo in Marcos footsteps?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
THE country sits on a political tinder box as Filipinos went to the polls on Monday to decide whether to give President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo a fresh vote of confidence on the way she has ruled during the past six years.
Immediately confronting the voters are two issues that have overshadowed all other issues the high level of political violence and the heightened public concern over election cheating under an administration fighting for its life and needing to win the election at all cost.
The fear of election rigging and cheating stems from the fact that, after six years in office, Arroyo has consolidated her power and built a political and bureaucratic apparatus of control much like President Ferdinand Marcos did when he ran for reelection in 1969.
The midterm elections were held against the background of death squad executions that have claimed hundreds of lives since 2001, political repression and human rights violations, sluggish economic growth and rock-bottom public opinion disapproval ratings on Arroyo's performance.
These issues are bound to loom large in the back of voters' minds.
What prevents this election from being a straightforward referendum on Arroyo's record is that she is not up for reelection, her first three years being a windfall from the extra-constitutional People Power II that deposed Joseph Estrada.
Thus, we are not on the crossroads of change for a renewal of political leadership.
This is what makes this election odd and so frustrating.
Filipinos are locked, by this electoral anomaly, in a situation where they have to live with Arroyo, whether they like it or not, until 2010.
Unlike the May 6 presidential election in France, which confronted the French people with a clear choice in deciding their political and social destiny between the socialist and the neo-Gaullist conservative visions of restoring their country's glory, Filipinos are facing a no-change election.
If election is about change or renewal, either at the top or at the level of policy, this election locks us into the trap that retains the status quo.
This ambiguity helps explain why the election is so unexciting, so devoid of high expectations for change, and why the only thing exciting about it is the overheating of rivalries in the local elections, which have claimed the lives of more than 100 political partisans.
The Economist magazine highlighted the most compelling and immediate issues and dilemma facing Filipinos in an article titled, "Violence mars the run-up to mid-term elections."
The article said: "Despite the appallingly high levels of voters' intimidation, the results of the mid-term elections ... seem fairly certain: supporters of the President ... are expected to retain control of the lower house of parliament, while the upper house which wants to impeach Ms Macapagal-Arroyo will remain a bastion of the opposition."
This result, said the article, "could perpetuate the deadlock between the two houses, prolonging the government's policy paralysis and adding to the disillusionment of voters ... Moreover, overt violence is only the most egregious form of electoral misbehaviour repeat voting, intimidation and vote-buying are also rampant".
Few Philippine elections have heightened fears of massive cheating since the 1949 presidential election when the "birds and the bees voted" in Lanao province, in Mindanao, as much as the 2007 elections have.
This is so because the administration has mobilised the total machinery of the ruling political coalition (Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats party), and the military, police and the Department of Justice as well as the government's patronage resources behind its all-out campaign to win control of the Senate and retain its majority in the House of Representatives.
In 1969, Marcos consolidated his political apparatus and broadened his patronage base. His Nacionalista Party (Nationalist Party) machine was in control down to the grass-roots.
For four years, Marcos carried out the most extensive infrastructure programme, financed by deficit spending and foreign borrowing, ever launched by any previous administration.
By 1969, Marcos had built more roads, bridges, irrigation systems and school houses than any other administration since 1945.
His machine was poised to crush his Liberal Party presidential opponent, Senator Sergio Osmena Jr.
But Marcos wanted to do more than win the election. His ambition to dominate knew no bounds.
Marcosx wanted to match the landslide of Ramon Magsaysay in 1953. He did not need to cheat.
Arroyo has attempted to duplicate the Marcos reelection machine.
From all indications, she has nearly succeeded.
Marcos went on to rout Osmena and the Liberal Party in 1969. That election was marred by widespread charges of cheating and vote-buying and unbridled election spending on infrastructure development.
The consequences of these excesses were immediately explosive after the election.
The election profligacy and deficit spending fueled the inflation rate up to 17 per cent in 1970, more than three times the average annual inflation rate of 4.5 per cent for the 1960s. Public unrest over high prices swiftly followed.
The scale of the Osmena defeat was unprecedented. He won in only one province, Pampanga.
The sweep was hard to believe.
It reinforced allegations of widespread cheating and vote-buying. The unrest stemming from these two causes fanned the burgeoning student revolt of the late 1960s feeding on social discontent.
The unrest exploded in January 1970, when student demonstrators attacked Marcos and his wife Imelda on the way out of Congress after he had delivered his State of the Nation Address.
The students' attack inaugurated an era of political turbulence that set the stage for martial law.
The temptation for Arroyo to emulate the Marcos overkill with the election apparatus she has built to win the election is hard to resist. The elements of a blow-up exist. Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network
Immediately confronting the voters are two issues that have overshadowed all other issues the high level of political violence and the heightened public concern over election cheating under an administration fighting for its life and needing to win the election at all cost.
The fear of election rigging and cheating stems from the fact that, after six years in office, Arroyo has consolidated her power and built a political and bureaucratic apparatus of control much like President Ferdinand Marcos did when he ran for reelection in 1969.
The midterm elections were held against the background of death squad executions that have claimed hundreds of lives since 2001, political repression and human rights violations, sluggish economic growth and rock-bottom public opinion disapproval ratings on Arroyo's performance.
These issues are bound to loom large in the back of voters' minds.
What prevents this election from being a straightforward referendum on Arroyo's record is that she is not up for reelection, her first three years being a windfall from the extra-constitutional People Power II that deposed Joseph Estrada.
Thus, we are not on the crossroads of change for a renewal of political leadership.
This is what makes this election odd and so frustrating.
Filipinos are locked, by this electoral anomaly, in a situation where they have to live with Arroyo, whether they like it or not, until 2010.
Unlike the May 6 presidential election in France, which confronted the French people with a clear choice in deciding their political and social destiny between the socialist and the neo-Gaullist conservative visions of restoring their country's glory, Filipinos are facing a no-change election.
If election is about change or renewal, either at the top or at the level of policy, this election locks us into the trap that retains the status quo.
This ambiguity helps explain why the election is so unexciting, so devoid of high expectations for change, and why the only thing exciting about it is the overheating of rivalries in the local elections, which have claimed the lives of more than 100 political partisans.
The Economist magazine highlighted the most compelling and immediate issues and dilemma facing Filipinos in an article titled, "Violence mars the run-up to mid-term elections."
The article said: "Despite the appallingly high levels of voters' intimidation, the results of the mid-term elections ... seem fairly certain: supporters of the President ... are expected to retain control of the lower house of parliament, while the upper house which wants to impeach Ms Macapagal-Arroyo will remain a bastion of the opposition."
This result, said the article, "could perpetuate the deadlock between the two houses, prolonging the government's policy paralysis and adding to the disillusionment of voters ... Moreover, overt violence is only the most egregious form of electoral misbehaviour repeat voting, intimidation and vote-buying are also rampant".
Few Philippine elections have heightened fears of massive cheating since the 1949 presidential election when the "birds and the bees voted" in Lanao province, in Mindanao, as much as the 2007 elections have.
This is so because the administration has mobilised the total machinery of the ruling political coalition (Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats party), and the military, police and the Department of Justice as well as the government's patronage resources behind its all-out campaign to win control of the Senate and retain its majority in the House of Representatives.
In 1969, Marcos consolidated his political apparatus and broadened his patronage base. His Nacionalista Party (Nationalist Party) machine was in control down to the grass-roots.
For four years, Marcos carried out the most extensive infrastructure programme, financed by deficit spending and foreign borrowing, ever launched by any previous administration.
By 1969, Marcos had built more roads, bridges, irrigation systems and school houses than any other administration since 1945.
His machine was poised to crush his Liberal Party presidential opponent, Senator Sergio Osmena Jr.
But Marcos wanted to do more than win the election. His ambition to dominate knew no bounds.
Marcosx wanted to match the landslide of Ramon Magsaysay in 1953. He did not need to cheat.
Arroyo has attempted to duplicate the Marcos reelection machine.
From all indications, she has nearly succeeded.
Marcos went on to rout Osmena and the Liberal Party in 1969. That election was marred by widespread charges of cheating and vote-buying and unbridled election spending on infrastructure development.
The consequences of these excesses were immediately explosive after the election.
The election profligacy and deficit spending fueled the inflation rate up to 17 per cent in 1970, more than three times the average annual inflation rate of 4.5 per cent for the 1960s. Public unrest over high prices swiftly followed.
The scale of the Osmena defeat was unprecedented. He won in only one province, Pampanga.
The sweep was hard to believe.
It reinforced allegations of widespread cheating and vote-buying. The unrest stemming from these two causes fanned the burgeoning student revolt of the late 1960s feeding on social discontent.
The unrest exploded in January 1970, when student demonstrators attacked Marcos and his wife Imelda on the way out of Congress after he had delivered his State of the Nation Address.
The students' attack inaugurated an era of political turbulence that set the stage for martial law.
The temptation for Arroyo to emulate the Marcos overkill with the election apparatus she has built to win the election is hard to resist. The elements of a blow-up exist. Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network
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