BOOK REVIEWS Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Philippine Political Science Journal, 2013 Vol. 34, No. 1, 113–129 BOOK REVIEWS Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, by Felipe B. Miranda, Temario C. Rivera, Malaya C. Ronas and Ronald D. Holmes, Quezon City, Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines and United Nations Development Program, 2011, 217 pp., ISBN 9789719310648 Philippine Democracy Assessment: Free and Fair Elections and the Democratic Role of Political Parties, by Edna E. A. Co, Jorge V. Tigno, Maria Elissa Jayme Lao and Margarita A. Sayo, Quezon City, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung with UP National College of Public Administration, 2005, 182 pp., ISBN 9715350291 Making elections expressive of the people’s will is a lofty goal that remains evasive in the Philippines. Elections in the country, claimed to be Asia’s “oldest democracy,” have been tainted by fraud, violence, and overspending – one reason driving most Filipinos to ask again and again whether there is a democracy at all. In the heat of the campaign for the May 2013 mid-term elections, the system of political dynasties has emerged as a core issue among various political observers, NGOs, election watchdogs, and even media. As the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) pointedly says in its latest pastoral statement, “Monopolies in politics limit the entry that can bring in new ideas and offer better services. Political dynasties breed corruption and ineptitude” (CBCP News 2013). Failure of Congress to enact an enabling law on the constitutional prohibition of political dynasties has forced some citizens’ watchdogs to petition the Supreme Court (SC) in a bid to compel the legislature into compliance. Taking the issue of democracy in broader strokes is a book published in 2012 by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP). Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, authored by Felipe B. Miranda, Temario C. Rivera, Malaya C. Ronas, and Ronald D. Holmes, is an anthology of essays that revisits and measures democracy in the Philippine context. It also examines the weaknesses of its constitutional structure and bemoans the endless process of democratization. Chasing the Wind bares the underlying socio-economic institutional and political foundations that breed and entrench political dynasties and the challenges facing civil society on reform. Assessing Philippine democracy in the 25-year transition since the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, the book finds the country, in the words of Miranda, as a “non-democracy and, probably, a non-democratic oligarchy” (23). Patterned after the U.S. model, democracy is supposed to have been introduced by American colonizers more than a century ago. The Filipino scholars invite the reader to walk through a theoretical review of the concept based on the studies and discourses of Aristotle, Joseph A. Shumpeter, Samuel P. Huntington, and other political scientists and search for their meanings in the Philippine experience. But one discerns that a far richer material is woven into the essays as defined by the writers’ own praxis and exposure to Philippine politics which, in turn, is distilled into a scientific treasure of research, publications, and empirical surveys. The reconceptualization of democracy, Miranda writes, must transcend the procedural-electoral grain of democratic governance and its measurement informed by 114 Book Reviews taking a serious look at whether it promotes “a progressively human quality of life for its citizens” (185). Quality of life continues to perplex even regime economists upon realizing that despite statistical claims of gross domestic product (GDP) growth, the levels of poverty, joblessness and hunger keep on rising. They base their economic impact assessments on investments, goods, and services and reject the redistribution of wealth, promoting income equality, genuine land distribution, protecting a national economy, and the productive use of natural resources toward industrialization which is what democratizing the economy is all about. Miranda disputes the utterly liberal bias in allowing anti-democratic regimes to be labeled as a democracy despite deficiencies in popular sovereignty, rule of law, elections, and accountability. Miranda: “Historically, this bias has benefited corrupt, anti- democratic, oligarchic ruling elites that lean on paper constitutions even as they violate these constitutions’ democratic provisions with much impunity” (185). One ponders this iteration when looking at, for instance, the Estrada presidency – installed supposedly by popular vote but ousted by civilian uprising for plunder, corruption and moral bankruptcy. Or think about how President Benigno S. Aquino III’s daang matuwid [clean government] is pursued while he increases Congress’ pork barrel – a major source of political patronage and corruption – and backs the candidacies of members of political clans at a time when many Filipinos are clamoring for an end to dynastic power monopoly. When its electoral contests are perverted by violence and coercion, Rivera notes, a system can hardly be referred to as a “democracy.” Elective positions have been dominated by powerful political clans “foreclosing the prospects of wider electoral competition and political participation,” he says (233). Qualitative and quantitative research attests to the resiliency of political dynasties in the Philippines for over 100 years of electoral exercises. The Senate of the current fifteenth Congress has one political clan represented by two members: Alan Peter Cayetano and his sister Pia. If, hypothetically speaking, all members of traditional clans vying for Senate seat in the May 2013 mid-term elections win, the number of dynasties represented in the Senate with two members each will increase to four (Enriles including the current senate president; Estradas; Cayetanos, and Aquinos), or eight out of 24 senators, 85% of whom today anyway come from political clans. Presumptively likewise, the next Senate will have four past and current presidential families – the Magsaysays, Marcoses, Estradas and Aquinos (Bam Aquino, an unknown, and relative Tingting Cojuangco, wife of Benigno III’s uncle, former House Speaker Jose Cojuangco). The Senate is the training ground of future presidents. Apologists of political dynasties from the academe and think tanks try to differentiate between “good” and “bad” dynasties in their effort to justify the election of clan politicians with a track record. This is the same line that lawyer and now Bicol congressional candidate Leni Robredo, widow of the fallen Local Government and Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, adheres to in describing herself as a “non-purist” on the issue of oligarchic politics. Ironically enough, a few members of political clans sympathize with the anti-dynasty sentiments and themselves have filed bills to comply with the constitutional prohibition. Picking up from Ronas’ “never-ending” process of democratization in the Philippines, Rivera points out that at least many people find comfort albeit disquietingly in qualifying its democracy as “weak, elitist, flawed, formal, and unconsolidated” (185). Blame it on the oligarchs: Traditional politics and patronage allow the centralization of powers in the president, thus, Ronas contends, defeating the principle of separation of powers, and maintaining executive hegemony at the expense of Congress, judiciary and constitutional bodies. But this is not just the point: Concentration of powers permits the president to exercise political patronage by his control of the purse including the pork barrel, promotes.