High Stakes in Election Year
May 2004 polls throb with uncertainties, upheavals

The people have nothing to gain from this election as it – like all past elections over the last 100 years - promises no panacea to the widespread poverty, unprecedented unemployment and sheer mass hopelessness across the country. Just the same, this year’s political circus features a high-stakes presidential election that has more do with promoting the dominant business and political interests of the country’s tiny elite than with securing a better future for the mostly poor electorate.

By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com

Current political and economic uncertainties show that the coming May 10 national and local elections will not only be bloody but could lead as well to a bigger political upheaval. The elections will just be a prelude to bigger storms that will torment this country as it continues to suffer an acute economic crisis, unbridled corruption, continuing coup threats, rising criminality and other woes.

Up for grabs in the coming elections are presidential, vice-presidential and congressional seats as well as various provincial and municipal positions – or a total of 17,000 elective posts. About 10 candidates are expected to vie for the presidency out of nearly 60 who would have filed their candidacy for the post by Jan. 5.

Of these, the leading contenders are: incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (Lakas-NUCD); former Senator and Education Secretary Raul S. Roco (Aksyon Demokratiko Party); former National Police chief, Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson (LDP bloc); movie actor Fernando Poe, Jr. (Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino); and Jesus is Lord Movement founder, Bro. Eddie Villanueva (Bangon Pilipinas).

KNP, which is backing Poe’s candidacy, is made up of Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP under Sen. Edgardo Angara), Pwersa ng Masa ( headed by former Estrada Agrarian Reform Secretary Horacio Boy Morales) and PDP-Laban which is led by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel.

Early political forecasts point to Poe as the man to beat although one cannot rule out a strong showing being put up by Roco. There are as well strong indications that Macapagal-Arroyo may win in an election riddled with fraud and terrorism.

High stakes

It would be wishful thinking to call the May polls as a democratic exercise for the country’s 38 million registered voters. It is clear that the people have nothing to gain from this election as it – like all past elections over the last 100 years - promises no panacea to the widespread poverty, unprecedented unemployment and sheer hopelessness across the country. Elections are used by the elite as a mechanism for power competition even as these give false hopes to the masses that the rotten system is within redemption.

Just the same, this year’s political circus features a high-stakes presidential election that has more do with promoting the dominant business and political interests of the country’s tiny elite than with securing a better future for the mostly poor electorate.

In the presidential race, Macapagal-Arroyo has galloped with a “reconciliation policy” which is actually a pretext for getting as much support as she needs and as a gambit to divide the traditional opposition in her bid to remain as president. She was able to shove business tycoon Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. out of the presidential race by having the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan rule in favor of the latter in connection with his San Miguel beer and brewery conglomerate shares.

Cojuangco, a former crony of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and ally of Estrada, is the founder of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), which is part of the ruling coalition. One result of the compromise is that a group of NPC members – including Cojuangco’s congressman-son - have decided to support Macapagal-Arroyo.

The same Sandiganbayan has also allowed deposed president Joseph Estrada to leave detention for a knee replacement surgery in the United States that would last for three months. Macapagal-Arroyo had earlier sent signals to the anti-graft court she would find nothing wrong in allowing Estrada to seek medical treatment abroad.

The virtual concession given to Estrada is the incumbent president’s stroke for either securing the support of the ousted president’s party, Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, and PMAP or at the very least dousing cold water on the support the latter had committed for the presidential bid of his closest friend and supporter, Poe.

Estrada, who has been in detention at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center for heinous crimes, is set to leave early January thus effectively cutting him off from any role in the coming elections. His medical treatment appears to be just a small concession however and his prime objective to have a court acquittal or presidential pardon may yet materialize under a Poe presidency. Unless that has also been part of the deal cut by Macapagal-Arroyo.

Not beholden

On the other hand, Poe, who is the country’s most enduring and popular action king, cannot give credence to his claim that he would not be beholden to any political interest group. Popularity alone cannot deliver the presidency to his grip and he now has to count on the political and financial support of the Marcoses, the Estradas and the ousted president’s own political allies to take him to Malacañang presidential palace.

Aside from the Marcoses, the Estradas and other cronies and associates of previous regimes are cashing in on Poe’s candidacy for their ride back to power that they had lost at Edsa Dos. Some of them had been linked to coup attempts and manipulation of mass uprisings in a bid to grab political power. Among other reasons, the Marcoses are fighting tooth and nail to recover most if not all the wealth that was ill-gotten during the dictatorship.

Lacson, on the other hand, is said to have the support of a segment of the Chinese-Filipino business community. These are the people who are set to gamble on his candidacy under the illusion that he would be able to stop kidnap-for-ransom and other crimes as well as government corruption. A source says that up to 80 percent of some P30 billion ($545 million) that will be poured into the presidential derby will come from the Chinese-Filipino business sector although it is unclear how much of this will go to Lacson. But the former Estrada crony has to answer allegations of unexplained wealth, connections to big-time criminal syndicates, extra-judicial executions and other alleged crimes.

Roco, who claims to have a clean image and is touted to be the candidate most prepared for the presidency, appears to be weighed down by a tight campaign kitty and weak machinery. There are doubts that he can translate his high survey ratings into actual votes on election day.

Divine candidacy

Brother Eddie is the first candidate in the nation’s election history to be fielded by a religious group. This ex-radical’s claim that he has God’s blessings for his visionary mission and that his group has seven million voting members are mere attestations best addressed to his own flock of followers who believe in divine intervention. But in a nation where many people have lost hope in traditional political leaders, he may yet be the surprise candidate.

Reports continue to proliferate that compared to previous elections the May 10 polls have drawn the intervention of more and more financial, political and military interests. The country’s wealthiest dynasties, business groups and even media giants – most notably the Lopezes, Ayalas, Lucio Tan, Henry Sy and others – are throwing their support behind their choice for the presidency. Not being ruled out is the use of plundered money and robbery loot to support some candidates.

This is also one election where the United States holds a high stake, considering its current thrusts in the region and, correspondingly, in making the Philippines as the U.S.’ epicenter for its economic and geopolitical objectives. On this account, Macapagal-Arroyo now supports a charter change that will do away with the last vestiges of national patrimony and other provisions prohibiting foreign military bases in the country. But, despite George W. Bush’s tacit endorsement, the U.S. will not be laying all its cards for the incumbent president considering that her chances at winning the race are thinning by the day.

In previous presidential elections, it is often the incumbent president who is likely to commit the worst forms of fraud and terrorism given the vast resources and instruments at his/her command. Today Macapagal-Arroyo, who has been performing badly in recent poll surveys, is expected to use government resources and manipulate the results of the election in her favor.

The elections are being held amid the constant threat of coups and other extra-constitutional plots that have been at the disposal to sections of the reactionary elite for sheer grab of power. Outside the façade of democratic elections, coups and manipulation of “mass uprisings” have emerged more and more as a potential weapon for factions of the elite to worm themselves into positions of national power. If some of the pretenders to the throne – who had previously resorted to coups to claim power - cannot make it in this exercise they can always use their defeat as a pretext for mounting extra-constitutional means to achieve their objective.

A presidential election won through fraud and terrorism by Macapagal-Arroyo is expected to ignite a political storm far worse than the supposed victor can handle. When this happens, some of the losing presidential contenders would have found a legitimate ground to mount either a coup or other extra-constitutional measures against the president. Bulatlat.com

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