The elections are a period when these conflicting forces play out an act in a long-running drama. For those who control power, each election is crucial. They cannot afford to lose. They can, in another sense, afford to win through “guns, goons, gold and Garci.”
BY PROF. GILL H. BOERINGER*
Contributed to Bulatlat
ELECTION WATCH
Volume VII, No. 16, May 27-June 2
Months before the elections last May 14, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) moved into areas across the country, particularly in rural areas as well as in Metro Manila. The soldiers were supposed to protect the communities and maintain order. However, it seems that their deployment was part of a more strategic policy of harassment, intimidation, elimination, surveillance and direct participation in the campaign.
Indeed, the military campaigned against the progressive party-list groups (PPLs) using a variety of tactics to associate the PPLs with the communists. We were amazed to see a news report by Edith Regalado published in the Philippine Star (May 13) quoting Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Obaniana, chief of the AFP’s Eastern Mindanao Command, as saying that it is part of the AFP’s policy to “expose (the) hidden agenda” of PPLs. He also admitted “vigorously campaigning against party-list organizations” and that he is “not politicking as (he) will continue this crusade even after the elections.”
The Commission for Elections (Comelec), on the other hand, was not thoroughly investigated despite accusations of widespread cheating in the 2004 elections which allegedly allowed more than one million votes to be “padded” for the President, thus assuring her victory.
In the recently held elections, there were violations of electoral laws, procedural breakdowns, and many inefficiencies all of which and more indicating that Comelec was certainly inefficient and probably corrupt at various levels. There seemed to have been decisions taken with regard to certification of party-list groups which were wrong. The Supreme Court seems to have recognized this but in one significant case upheld the Comelec decision on a “technicality.”
Vote-buying is very widespread and it is acknowledged throughout Filipino society that it happens on a massive scale. The Asian-based observers mission (ANFREL) said that vote-buying was blatant and their presence did not make any difference. This seems to happen in the local elections much more than at the national level where other techniques of cheating and gaining unfair advantage are used.
One of the more popular forms of election cheating is called dagdag-bawas, a Filipino expression for padding and shaving votes. It is widespread and is used at all levels. Dagdag-bawas is a way to win elections after the votes have been cast. This was demonstrated in 2004 when the President was elected on the basis of votes “obtained” in this manner in Mindanao.
There are also numerous ways of preventing people from voting and abusing the right to vote. The list of registered voters, for example, is unreliable. The presence of the military threatens people, preventing them from voting. On the other hand, “spurious enfranchisement” happens as dead people’s names are used by unscrupulous individuals to vote. It is also possible for one person to vote several times.
On election day itself, there was general chaos and confusion as the electoral precincts are often full of people moving in and out of the polling precincts. This situation allows a great deal of illegal activity to take place like the lack of privacy of voters and illegal campaigning of poll watchers and even members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI). The presence of the police and military does not always seem to lessen this and even becomes part of the problem in some cases.
There seems to be a general acceptance that the electoral process is largely corrupt. A gubernatorial candidate’s wife who talked to us admitted that her husband would buy votes like other candidates. She said vote buying is normal. I remember a conversation with an elderly taxi driver who took me to the airport who said, “Pity my poor country.” A young Filipino worker who was on a plane with me from Melbourne to Sydney told me, “I missed the election (in Masbate) but it is always the same, violence and corruption.”
Perhaps the atmosphere is best summed up by the full-page advertisement in the Philippine Star (May 13) which was placed by the Philippine Democratic Caucus and the Filipino Movement for New Politics. It was an edited version of a speech given by former Sen. Francisco Tatad to the Rotary Club of Pasig, Metro Manila dated April 19, 2007. It was a scathing attack on the candidates of the traditional mainstream parties for the prestigious position of Senator. The headline reads: “NONE OF THEM DESERVE OUR VOTE.”
It should not be surprising therefore to find many Filipinos in a state of fear and anxiety. Given what I’ve already discussed, people have great and justifiable concerns. This is perhaps most obvious in those rural provinces where feudal social relations exist and people are at the mercy of landlords and other members of the elite who wield power and influence. We found out that a woman was paid P500 ($10.86, based on an exchange rate of P46.05 per US dollar) to vote for a candidate. But since she was unable to vote, she was very concerned about her payment. She said that there were ways in which politicians know how people voted, thus the possibility of retaliation from those who failed to follow instructions.
Getting involved in election-related activities at whatever level presents grave dangers. A person could be “red-baited” or be the subject of black propaganda which could extend to his or her family. There is also the possibility of being fired from your work or being deprived of employment or benefits and services. Threats, beatings, intimidation, harassment and even killings could happen. One needs only to be perceived to be involved to suffer consequences. And of course since mistakes are made, “collateral damage” occurs in the form of bystanders or other innocent people being victims of election-related violence.
With regard to the actual counting of votes, there seems to be three stages, all of them done by hand (and by very tired people). This process takes several weeks. In addition, problems like brownouts and death delays the counting. There are therefore opportunities for cheating and manipulation.
Election workers at the local level are, for the most part, school teachers and other government employees. While the pay is in a sense a “bonus” for poorly paid people, it is given often after considerable delay and sometimes pressure brought to bear by those unpaid. They work long hours for at least three days and, except for short breaks, they are often kept in the polling precincts and canvassing rooms even at night. As what happened in Batangas, they can be killed by rogue elements. And it would be naïve to believe there is no coercion, harassment or intimidation (as in the case of Maguindanao) or even corruption of such workers.
The electoral process, after all, is awash with money. Senatorial aspirants spent hundreds of millions of pesos for advertising alone. While the amount spent for vote-buying is unknown and unknowable, our data show that it cost P50 ($1.09) in one case. However, vote-buying usually cost P100 to P300 ($2.17 to $6.51) per vote. In Metro Manila and some provinces, it was pegged at P300 to P500 ($6.51 to $10.86) and in one case, P1,000 ($21.72) per vote was mentioned. There were also payments in kind like rice, movie passes, gas certificates and insurance certificates.
It is not hard to understand why so much money is spent. From the top down, those in power have direct legal access to governmental funds on a significant scale (especially for “pork barrel” from which they get a healthy cut). They are also in a position to receive funds from the private sector. Given the natural wealth of the country and its beautiful environment, there are many opportunities to “assist” developers, miners, landlords and investors of all kinds to achieve success in their business plans and strategies. Little wonder that the stock market and peso were stronger in the wake of an election which seemed to have produced an administration-dominated House of Representatives where “business as usual” is the overriding theme for the next three years.
Analyzing the composition of the Senate and the House of Representatives, one notices the existence of political dynasties. One observer noted that there are about 120 dynasties in the country. The recent elections did not change the situation.
As we understand it, the old style of a political dynasty was mainly based on the political success of a single patriarch and his or her allies in different sectors and classes. There seems to be evidence of a consolidation within a family where many of its members would seek positions at different levels of government.
The significance of this situation is still not clear. One view is that it simply represents a political fragmentation within the ruling class. Another is that it may be a kind of new and different structuring of political “sovereignty” as the political elite attempt – through the politics of personality and celebrity – to restore legitimacy in circumstances where the state has to rely increasingly on repressive state forces and laws.
In addition to the many formal state forces, the AFP and the Philippine National Police, along with other para-military groups, are usually connected with political candidates in areas where the competition is fierce and to some extent out of the major glare of national publicity. Some of the members of these groups are in fact “moonlighting” as security escorts. In some provinces, with many millions of voters, the fighting is pervasive and persistent and murder is done with impunity.
Ask any Filipino and he or she is wont to say that winning in an election requires “guns, goons and gold” (with the current addition of “Garci,” the nickname of a former Comelec official who allegedly helped Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cheat her way to the presidency).
Under the Arroyo regime going back to her ascendancy in 2001, there has been a regime of violence. The Special Envoy from the UN Philip Alston has suggested that this is not state-sanctioned violence. Whether that is so or whether a cautious diplomat was simply unable to satisfy himself to some degree of certainty that it is so, is not clear. Nevertheless, he was able to establish what others on the ground have been saying for years. Opponents of the Arroyo administration, human rights activists, trade union and peasant leaders, progressive politicians, journalists and others involved in legitimate activities have disappeared in very considerable numbers (about 150) and more than 800 have been killed. This is an extraordinary record. And there can be no doubt that as Alston established, much of the anti-people activity constituting that record was carried out by the military.
So that is the “backdrop of violence” against which the 2007 elections were held and must be understood. It
is hardly an environment about which the Arroyo administration, the business community and the U.S. embassy can justifiably claim that the elections were “peaceful and orderly” and the expression of the people’s individual choices in a free and fair election, exemplifying a “vibrant democracy.”
Since the campaign for the election started earlier in the year, about 150 deaths have resulted from “election-related” deaths. If the 32 dead at Virginia Tech are a world resounding “massacre” providing a field day for the media, what then do we have in the Philippines? A super massacre surely.
The implications of this were not lost on ANFREL, members of which said that in the South, parts of Mindanao were “more dangerous than Afghanistan” and that the atmosphere was “not conducive to elections.” ANFREL observers from Southeast Asian countries were not judging the elections from the point of view of First World country elections. These were observers who have seen fraud, cheating, corruption and the involvement of the state armed forces and private armed gangs in their own countries or regions. Their observations were, however, very similar to those of the IOM which form the basis of the notes above.
Finally, it must be remembered that the RP is a very wealthy country with great potential for even far greater wealth. But it has been subjected to imperial conquest and exploitation in different forms over the last five centuries. The result is plain to see: Massive poverty and a huge imbalance in wealth. In such circumstances it is not surprising that there is substantial resistance to a corrupt and repressive state personified by the Arroyo administration which seeks to aid in the further exploitation of the human and natural resources of the Philippines.
Some of that resistance is armed struggle which is also not surprising and, of course, follows in a long tradition in the country. But even more pervasive, in every sector of Filipino society and in every part of the land, is the resistance of people in civil society organizations. The Philippines must have one of the most “dense” civil societies in the world. No one who goes to the Philippines from abroad can fail to be impressed by the people’s courage, dynamism and clarity of understanding of the state and neocolonial forces arrayed against them,
Thus the elections are a period when these conflicting forces play out an act in a long-running drama.
For those who control power, each election is crucial. They cannot afford to lose. They can, in another sense, afford to win through “guns, goons, gold and Garci.” Bulatlat
* Prof. Gill H. Boeringer of Australia joined the People’s International Observers’ Mission held from May 13-18, 2007 to monitor the conduct of the May 2007 Philippine elections.
