Why a Tañada for the Senate

The election news lately has been that of surveys claiming to have a list of specific personalities who will win the senatorial elections come 2013 national and local elections. Both the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia, as well as lesser-known or even fly-by-night survey outfits, predicted more or less the same names in the winning column.

Of course, all of these do not reflect what eventually will be the voter’s choices in the next year’s senatorial elections. The most obvious reason is that it is still a long way from now to election day–the vast majority of the electorate have not yet made up their mind on their voting preferences except for a few candidates.

The name of the game at this point is name recall. This is defined as naming choices from memory of past, present, and claiming senatorial bets, without the benefit of a serious thought about qualifications, character, public service record, and competence. And, of course, voters do not yet bother about platforms or programs of government at this stage.

This fallacy of interpreting survey results this early to make up the senatorial slate results in decisions of convenience, or in opportunistic calculations. By and large, it perpetuates the political culture of personalistic politics, and of populist imagery. The media, of course, share the blame by portraying these survey results as gospel truth, without qualifying and without delineating the boundaries of their truths.

A case in point is Congressman Erin Tañada.  He is among the leaders of the Liberal Party, comes from an illustrious and respected political family, a House deputy speaker, and considered as one of the few reform-oriented young politicians of the incoming generation. He is a strong advocate for nationalism, democracy, and human rights, and author of the constitutionally-mandated Freedom of Information bill–a key legislation advancing transparency and accountability in government. He is supportive of reviving the coco levy case in favor of the coconut farmers and other asset reforms that directly address the poverty of the masses. In a normal world, there would be no question of his inclusion in the reform-oriented Liberal party senatorial slate.

However, the looming big irony of the Aquino-led administration ticket is that Tañada ( and similarly-placed possible candidates) only has a slim chance of being taken into the Liberal senatorial slate. The surveys place him low enough in the scales that he may not be able to win by himself.

The questions hangs in the air. What about reforms? What about good governance? What about the liberal political philosophy? What about a political party platform and program that must be advanced? Decision based on surveys alone, by and large, throws these overboard and favor the popular, the well-known, even the namesake. And, by and large, it speaks of a judgment of an easily swayed, easily manipulated, and easily bought electorate.

We call it traditional politics.

You ask why we have buffoons, clowns, actors, big egoists, and mediocres in the Senate. The answer lies in the surveys. In the real world, surveys are meant as decision guides, to know the strengths and weaknesses of the subject of the surveys, the current thinking of the populace. From the survey , leaders define the strategy, decide on tactics to enable to undertake an electoral campaign and achieve the victory. These are not meant to be the only basis of slate selection.

The late Secretary Jesse Robredo is a recent example. He languished in the low levels of senatorial surveys. Yet when he died and people come to know his reform record and integrity, he had become the reform standard for candidates.

Tañada, in his own right, stands in the same tsinelas that Robredo wore. Will the Liberal Party leave him out?

 

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PNoy’s reaffirmed mandate

The Social Weather Stations (SWS), on its August 24-27, 2012 survey, disclosed a major surge in President Aquino’s net satisfaction rating. From +49% in March 2012 and +42% in May 2012, it now reached +67% in August 2012. 77% or nearly four out of five Filipinos are satisfied with him while only 10% or one out of 10 Filipinos are dissatisfied. This is the highest he got during his entire term up to the present. The survey results cut across geographical areas and across ABCDE class boundaries.

This is very good news to the Aquino administration and bad news to his critics and opposition, especially at this time when the 2013 elections near and immediate decisions need to be made on the alignments and strategies of various candidates. The filing of candidacies on October 1-5, 2012 puts an additional pressure on these decisions.

To be sure, the sudden death of DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo last August 18, 2012 contributed a lot to the rise of presidential ratings, in terms of the tremendous sympathies it generated. However, it is not all a matter of bereavement and sympathy; it is also a matter of public realization that President Aquino’s reform agenda stands not only as a matter of rhetorics of “matuwid na daan” but is backed up by appointments to his Cabinet and administration of solid reformists such as Sec. Robredo.

The series of bold anti-corruption measures such as the filing of cases and arrest of the big fishes of the former Arroyo administration, the impeachment of former Chief Justice Corona, and the transparency and accountability policies in the bureaucracy has led to the people keeping faith with President Aquino through all the open and veiled attacks against him and his administration in the media and elsewhere.

In this light, the midterm 2013 elections promises to become an Aquino elections. That is, his political endorsement will stand out as a major, if not the decisive factor, in the victory of many candidates. Conversely, his critique of many candidates may well be the death knell of their own candidacies.

The SWS survey reaffirmed the people’s mandate for Noynoy Aquino’s presidency. However, it also reaffirmed the basis for the mandate–his continued trek on the road to reform both the traditional political and economic terms of reference of Philippine society towards democracy.

He has just been reelected.

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A house against itself

House Aquino is straining in different political directions as it attempts to simultaneously confront the realities of the upcoming 2013 elections and the requirements of a reform government. Preserving unity in this situation is impossible and it is a probability that the post-2013 political landscape will be qualitatively different from the present.

Today, the Aquino-led ruling coalition stands virtually unchallenged with the once-mighty Lakas-Kampi  opposition reduced to a pitiful handful in both Congress and local government units. The main reason, of course, is the continued support of the people–still a 2-out-of-3 majority–for the Aquino administration.

However, the unsavory side of this strength is the wholesale turncoatism of almost the entire rank of the incumbents to the Aquino coalition. Most of them, I am sure, did it for pragmatic reasons–to maintain the flow of largesse from the seat of power to their own bailiwicks. However, along with the good ones, the bad politicians have also gone over to the incumbent president’s side.

These newcomers now make up the overwhelming majority of the president’s coalition, swamping both the Liberal Party original liberal-minded members and the reform-minded civil-society support base of the Aquino campaign.

O course, the reason behind this trend–started in the run-up to the May 10, 2010 elections and accelerating in the present preparatory period to the 2013 elections–is the imperatives of the 2016 presidential elections, including the building of a winning vote base for the presidential contenders.

Unfortunately, almost all the possible contenders are in the ruling coalition. A messy situation therefore arises, with two coalition senatorial slates and coalition members fighting each other in almost all local positions throughout the country.

One can argue that it is nothing new, that it has been that way for so long–dynasties fighting it out for local supremacy with nary a look at the absurdity of “friendly” parties fighting each other. Well, this is actually the wrong thing to happen to a reform administration. To get sidetracked from the reform path because of the political ambitions of some of the purported drivers of the reform bandwagon.

Within the LP “ruling” party, the newly-clothe LP turncoats are being groomed for candidacy in many local contests. Within the ruling coalition, the PDP-Laban-PMP UNA electoral coalition steadily draws away from the LP which has initiated its own electoral coalition with NP and NPC. By the day, the adherence to the reform “straight path” weakens.

Despite his popularity, Noynoy Aquino will end up endangering his own reform agenda and democratic legacy if he cannot rein in his own leaders and his new allies and fellow travellers. The prospect of a lameduck Aquino preesidency looms after the 2013 elections.

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Washington nuances

The nuances of the working visit of President Benigno S. Aquino III to Washington DC showed the intents on both sides more clearly than in the public statements on both sides. Some of them can be gleaned from the statements themselves while others are in the hosting itself.

Both President Aquino and President Obama affirmed the historic ties. President Aquino said that “Ours is a shared history, shared values, and that’s why America is just one of two that we have strategic partnerships with. Today’s meeting has really even deepened and strengthened a very long relationship we have, especially as we face the challenges that are before both our countries in the current situation.” 

President Obama, on his part, remarked that “[H]ow important the U.S.-Philippine relationship was, the historic ties, the 60 years of a mutual defense treaty, the extraordinary links between Filipino-Americans that have brought our two countries so closely together. And we pledged to work on a whole host of issues that would continue to strengthen and deepen the relationship for the 21st century.”

However, President Obama kicked off his remarks with economic issues, citing the Millennium Challenge Grant and the Open Government Partnership as their contributions to developing trade and commerce as well as to the anti-corruption campaign in the Philippines. President Aquino, on the other hand, touched only the strategic and historic ties.

In the official government statement later, Secretary Ramon Carandang would later stressed the “U.S. Government’s strong support for Philippine efforts to build a minimum credible defense posture…” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton only committed that “the United States will support the construction, outfitting, and training of a new National Coast Watch Center in the Philippines.”

Both are more in tune with regards to regional issues. According to Secretary Clinton, “[W]e do … have a clear interest in the maintenance of peace and stability, freedom of navigation, respect for international law, and unimpeded lawful commerce in the South China Sea.”

The visit did not answer the old question of the Mutual Defense Treaty, that is: Will the United States automatically come to our aid if we are attacked by any foreign power? It did not also provide an answer to the newer question, that is: Will the US help us if our vessels and aircraft are attacked in disputed territories of the West Philippine Sea?

The message is clear: The United States will still follow its own national interests in the Southeast Asia region and will only act with or in support of the Philippines if these are consistent with its own interests. Granted, there is a wide latitude of common interests at the moment, particularly in the areas of “the maintenance of peace and stability, freedom of navigation, respect for international law, and unimpeded lawful commerce in the South China Sea.”

A working visit is one rank below a formal state visit. It can be construed as one befitting a strategic ally–for the moment. It is definitely not in the same league as the state visits of real strategic allies such as Britain, Japan, Australia or even Israel. The Philippines still does not qualify.

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Why lopsided impeachment vote?

[This opinion-article was published in the GMA News Online on June 3, 2012]

The Senate, acting as an impeachment tribunal, voted 20-3 in favor of the impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato C. Corona. It was a comfortable margin over the super-majority vote of 16 required for conviction. Politically, the outcome solidified the standing of President Aquino and his administration, both among the political elite and among the people themselves.

There was the view at the start and the middle of the impeachment process that the voting would be a close race, or even a bit in favor of CJ Corona. This was glaringly evident in the important 13-10 vote in favor of recognizing and following the Supreme Court’s Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on the opening of CJ Corona’s dollar accounts.

The main political reasons given then were 1) the relative independence of the Senate vis-à-vis the President; 2) the presidential contest of 2016 will divide the ruling coalition this early and affect the impeachment vote; and 3) the efforts of the camp of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to influence the impeachment vote.

The latter was most effective in playing up the possible scenario of the ouster of CJ Corona leading to the favorable ruling for Mar Roxas in his protest against Vice-President Jojo Binay.

Insofar as these factors are operative throughout the proceedings, they constituted a continuing pressure for acquittal. However, there were countervailing factors which—in the end—proved stronger and more compelling towards a verdict of conviction.

First, there is the factor of evidence. The evidence for Article 2 showed that CJ Corona admitted owning properties, bank accounts and other assets amounting to hundreds of millions of pesos, and that he admitted he wilfully did not enter these in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN).

The prosecutor made the case that there is a substantive betrayal of public trust sufficient to remove him as a Chief Justice and justice of the Supreme Court. In addition, it stressed that CJ Corona lied and acted well below the standards set for members of the judiciary, much more as justice and chief justice of the Supreme Court. The body of evidence made it easier for the senator-judges to support a judgment of conviction and made it harder for those who want to vote for acquittal.

It is also contributory that CJ Corona himself admitted both the facts of his huge dollar and peso deposits and that he reportedly insisted on getting Ombudsman and former associate justice Conchita Carpio-Morales as a “hostile” witness. Without the benefit of advice from his legal team,he also reportedly wrote and delivered his disastrous opening statement, and reportedly staged his own surprise walkout.

He thus dug his own impeachment grave. Even the last-minute concession of an unconditional waiver for a look into his bank accounts and the seeming reconciliation of his wife’s family and clan were not enough to turn the tide.

Second, the strong public opinion against CJ Corona—as manifested in the March SWS survey of 73% who judged him guilty—provided an incentive to senators who have a political stake in the 2013 elections to vote against him.

Third, the impeachment was initiated and publicly supported by a very popular president Aquino and the ruling Liberal Party, with the acquiescence from most of the ruling coalition in the House of Representatives. This provided the necessary political and logistical framework to the impeachment campaign.

At the end, only three senator-judges (Senator Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., Senator Joker Arroyo, and Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago) voted for acquittal. They all based themselves on the legal interpretation of the Constitution and pertinent laws provided by the defense and on their own opinion that the quantum of evidence did not support the verdict of impeachment. They would even accept the defense accusation of a persecution of CJ Corona by the Aquino administration.

As such, their position basically is a political position. While Senators Arroyo and Defensor-Santiago are at the end of their respective political careers, Senator Marcos runs the risk of a backlash in his own young political career.

The vote for impeachment, though a touch-and-go affair for a major part of the process, rapidly solidified into a decisive one after the CJ Corona walkout. He never recovered after.

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