PUBLICATIONS OCCASIONALPAPER JUNE 2019 ISSUE 12.6 CHARTING THE FUTURE OF THE THE 2019 MIDTERM ELECTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES: FROM PATRONAGE TO POPULIST MOBILIZATION OCCASIONAL PAPER JUNE 2019 02 THE 2019 MIDTERM ELECTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES: FROM PATRONAGE TO POPULIST MOBILIZATION MIDTERM ELECTION'S PATRONAGE The midterm elections resulted in a major victory for the administration's nine senatorial candidates (out of 12 seats) and the majority of governors, mayors, and local legislators. However, the biggest winner in the 2019 midterm elections in the Philippines was not even a candidate. It was Duterte. The May 13, 2019 midterm elections was generally seen as a unorthodox and unfiltered style was tailor-fitted for reality TV and referendum on the first three years of the presidency of Rodrigo R. social media that emphasized his deadly war on drugs. Thus, Duterte Duterte. Midterm elections are usually seen as a referendum on an (and Donald Trump in the United States) has embodied “performative incumbent especially under a presidential system of government where populism” – a style of populism in the age of television and digital there is a fixed term of office for national and local positions. This is in media that draws on a “repertoire of performance” and builds a contrast with most parliamentary systems where a government can be relationship between the leader as the performer and the follower as dismissed on a vote of no confidence and fresh elections are called. the audience based on the following: appeal to “the people” The 2019 midterm elections tested and consolidated the political versus “the elite;” bad manners; and the performance strength of Duterte as the country’s populist strongman president. of crisis, breakdown, or threat. (Moffitt 2016) The rise of Duterte’s populism can be traced to the failure of reformist Following recent works on populist politics, this report will delineate forces to institutionalize their “good governance” anti-corruption how Duterte has been able to eschew patronage-based political narrative, to share the fruits of economic growth to the poor majority, party building in favor of populist mobilization or “a strategy to build and to adequately provide security to a rising middle class. The a mass of supporters to gain and retain power with the minimum election of Duterte signaled the return of a nationalist-populist narrative of institutional intermediation” (Kenny 2017, p. 58). Moreover, it will first articulated by movie actor Joseph “Erap” Estrada in 1998. Unlike provide a reading of the results of the 2019 midterm elections Estrada, however, who has successfully parlayed his working man using the lens of the upcoming 2022 presidential election. and underdog movie roles into his ascent to the presidency, Duterte’s * The views and opinions expressed in this Paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute. Image Credit:rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2019/230486-duterte-says-vote-buying-integral C 2019 STRATBASE ADR INSTITUTE for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved. www.adrinstitute.org OCCASIONAL PAPER JUNE 2019 03 OVERVIEW OF THE 2019 MIDTERM ELECTIONS Table 1. Number of Candidates per Elective Position, 2019 The 2019 midterm elections marked the tenth synchronized Elective Position Number of Seats Number of congressional and local elections and the eight party-list Candidates representative election since the restoration of formal democracy enate 12 2 in 1986. Under the 1987 Constitution, national positions such ouse of eresentatie 2 33 as the president and the vice-president are elected separately roincial oernor 1 23 by a direct vote every six years. Half of the 24-seat Senate, roincial ice oernor 1 1 all 300 members of the House of Representatives, and local roincial oard 0 1,33 ity Mayor 1 1 government officials are elected every three years. The local ity ice Mayor 1 33 government officials include: 81 governors, 81 vice governors, ity ouncil 1,2 3, 780 provincial board members, 145 city mayors, 145 city vice Municial Mayor 1,9 3,1 mayors, 1,628 city councilors, 1,489 municipal mayors, 1,489 Municial ice Mayor 1,9 3,22 municipal vice mayors, and 11,916 municipal councilors (Bueza Municial ouncil 11,91 29,299 2018). The Constitution also introduced a party-list proportional Total 1,02 3, representation scheme of electing one-fifth of the members Source: Commission on Elections 2019 of the House of Representatives (Teehankee 2019). A total of 43,554 candidates contested 18,066 national and Table 2. Number of Candidates per Political Party, 2019 local positions (See Table One). In addition, 134 political parties contested 61 House seats through the party-list system. For Political Parties Number of Candidates the Senate, a total of 172 filed their candidacy but only artido emoratio iliino-aas ng ayan PDP-aban) 9,90 62 were allowed to run (COMELEC 2019). Nacionalista Party ,1 ationalist eoles oalition NPC) ,11 Ten major parties fielded a total of 15,690 national and local National Unity Party 2,2 candidates (See Table Two). A total of 7,742 candidates ran aas hristian Muslim emocrats aas M) 1,3 under minor parties or as independents. The ruling PDP-Laban iberal arty LP) 1,311 United Nationalist Alliance 766 fielded the highest number of candidates with 9,904. The once aban ng emorationg iliino LDP) 23 moribund party successfully fielded Rodrigo Duterte in the 2016 syon emoratio 1 presidential elections. Soon after, its membership swelled abor arty of the hiliines LPP) 2 from a dismal three House members and handful of local therndeendent ,2 officials to the biggest political party in the country. Total 23,32 For the 2019 midterm elections, there were 61,843,771 Source: Commission on Elections 2019 C 2019 STRATBASE ADR INSTITUTE for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved. www.adrinstitute.org OCCASIONAL PAPER JUNE 2019 04 registered voters and 1,822,173 Filipino voters overseas. Of these 2012, p. 188). Post-authoritarian electoral dynamics in the average of 70.4 percent of district legislators elected to the House numbers, around 46,343,423 (74.89%) voted on May 13, 2019. Philippines has demonstrated specific political pathologies through of Representatives from 1987 to 2016. They are essentially The Philippines remains to be among the Asian countries that the years. These include: (1) the continuing dominance of political composed of “a family and its extended relations or network, whose regularly have a high voter turnout. Yet, despite the elevated families and clans (more popularly called as “political dynasties”); members have controlled for over a long period…the formal elective levels of electoral participation in the country, its quality of (2) the constant and regular practice of party switching by elected posts in a locality or political subdivision” (Gutierrez et al. 1992, electoral democracy has long been saddled with politicians (colorfully labeled as “political turncoatism” by mass p. 8). Generally considered as a grouping within the elites of systemic and structural problems. media); and (3) the use of patronage such as “pork barrel” Philippine society, political clans frequently discharge a wide for political mobilization under the country’s presidential array of economic, social, and political functions (McCoy 1994). system (described as “presidential bandwagon” by POST-EDSA PATRONAGE POLITICS Japanese political scientist Yuko Kasuya). Dynasties continued to dominate the 2019 midterm elections. A significant number of candidates who ran for national and local Philippine elections are candidate-centered and patronage- positions were members of traditional, new, and emerging political driven. Despite more than a century of party politics inherited Political Dynasties families. For the House of Representatives, 71 percent of those from American colonialism, parties in the Philippines are merely elected belong to political dynasties. The party-list election, which “coalitions of provincial bosses, political machines, and local clans, In the Philippines, clans, not parties, have been the building blocks was instituted under the 1987 Constitution to provide representation anchored on clientelistic, parochial, and personal inducements of politics. Political dynasties have been an enduring feature for the marginalized sector, has been captured by political dynasties. rather than on issues, ideologies, and party platforms” (Teehankee of Philippine state-society dynamics. They have comprised an According to an ABS-CBN investigative report (2019), “political families—or families that have produced more than one elected or Table 3. Dynastic Composition of the House of Representatives, 1987-2016 appointed official—have fielded 49 party-list nominees in the May elections, and if their parties garner enough votes, the nominees Congress Total Number of District District Representatives Percent could occupy 83 percent of the [61] party-list seats in the House of Representatives from Political Clans Representatives.” On the other hand, Rappler pointed out that “at th 8 ongress 19-1992 200 122 1 least 46 party-list groups participating in the 2019 polls that have at th 9 ongress 1992-199 200 12 64 least one nominee are linked to a political clan or a powerful figure th 10 ongress 199-199 203 130 64 in the country. In total, there are at least 65 nominees who are th 11 ongress 199-2001 20 13 65 either members of powerful political families, have links to th 12 ongress 2001-200 209 10 67 a government official (either incumbent or former), or have 13th ongress 200-200 212 1 78 a relative also running for office. (Gavilan 2019)” 1th ongress 200-2010 219 1 76 1th ongress 2010-2013 229 11 0 A handful of dynasties lost their long grip on political power in several 1th ongress 2013-201 23 19 3 parts of the country. The most prominent defeat resulted in the 1th ongress 201-2019 23 10 76 demise of the 50-year political reign of the Estrada dynasty.