On the other hand, Lacson suffered from a myth of a different sort, the myth that says that the support of the Chinese Filipino community is enough, and that if there’s anything the electorate loves, it’s blood, vengeance and human rights shortcuts.
In one more suggestion that Philippine elections are inevitably about self-interest, however, the possibility has arisen that Lacson may have persisted in running– despite predictions that the division of the mainstream opposition would result in an Arroyo victory –because he has managed to wrest from Arroyo a promise to stop any further government attempts to resurrect the Kurtatong Baleleng case.
Against elite politics
In the dreary landscape the elite politicians have sketched there is only one bright spot, and that is the possible victory of a handful of reform candidates at the local and provincial levels, and of some of the progressive party-list groups. The partisanship of the police and the military in favor of the dynasties and elite groups was evident in this area, for the first time since the party-list system was put in place.
The killing of the members of progressive party-list groups showed the capacity of the dominant system to protect itself via its instruments of coercion is intact and a barrier to any effort at reform.
The progressive party-list groups’ offense against elite politics was fundamental in that, as mandated by the Party List Act (Republic Act 7941) they presented programs and platforms to the electorate rather than personalities.
What’s more, they also demonstrated, as per their record in the past Philippine Congress, a capacity not only to check and hold the administration accountable for its policies and actions on the basis of principle, but to actually fill the gaps in the social services available to their constituencies through their construction of health centers and school rooms.
This bright spot was dimmed by the killings, intimidation, harassment and threats that before, during and after the elections the party-list groups had to absorb.
In general and overwhelmingly, therefore, starting with the victory of Arroyo through the usual, well- worn paths of patronage, opportunism, the use of public funds and government facilities, and the partisanship of government agencies, the May 10 elections were unique– but only in the possibility that they may have finally restored Philippine politics to what they were before 1972.
