Philippine ‘democracy’

DEMOCRACY can be defined in a variety of ways, from definitions with

varying complexities to a rather simple one. Let us pick a basic and simple
definition: a form of political association among the people of a state within
a defined geographical area where sovereignty resides in the people who
express such sovereignty by voting to select the leaders of the government
of the state.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato, in his book, Republic, considers a

democracy an inferior form of government and holds the view of its likely
deterioration into despotism.

Later philosophers have expressed their thoughts about the structures of

government. Of particular note are those of Polybius (Roman era) regarding
checks and balances, and Montesquieu (18th century) about separation of
powers (both referenced from The Great Political Theories [Vol. 1], edited by
Michael Curtis).
The most popular country that adopted democracy as a form of government
right from its founding is the United States, with its systems of separation of
powers (executives, legislative, and judicial) and of checks and balances.

Then the Philippines became a US colony during the term of President

William McKinley. Succeeding US political leaders, urged on by Filipino
nationalists, prepared the Philippines to a path towards independence. In
doing so, the influence of the US was very strong in developing the
government structure of the nascent independent Philippines. The resulting
Philippine government structure, as promulgated in the 1935 Constitution
and retained in the existing Constitution, is substantially a mirror image of
the US federal government structure. However, I thought a big mistake was
made when the members of the Philippine Senate were made to be elected
at large in the whole country. This is very different from the US (Federal)
Senate, to where each US state sends two senatorrepresentatives who are
elected statewide by each state. It was an unfortunate oversight. It was not
a case of differentiating a federal senate from a national senate. The
underlying principle is whether the members of a country’s senate (the
second legislative chamber) are to be elected geographically (by province or
by region, in the case of the Philippines) as it is in the US Senate (two
senators from each state).

Interestingly, in my review of the present structures of the state senate

(different and separate from the US or Federal Senate) of large US states
(California, New York, Texas, and Florida), I find that the state senators in
these states are elected by district (one for each district) and not statewide.
There are indications that these structures had developed later than the time
when the Philippine 1935 Constitution was promulgated. What I want to
emphasize is that, even in a US state government itself, the senators in the
state senate are presently elected geographically and not statewide.

More interestingly, I find that California imposes term limits for their state
legislators. It has the novel practice of requiring a term limit of 12 years for a
legislator, the period of which is counted in any combination of four-year state
senate and two-year state assembly terms.It appears that this term limit is
counted cumulatively and not necessarily consecutively.Therefore, when a
state legislator completes a term of 12 years, they cannot run for either the
state house or state senate anymore. We should adopt a similar requirement
to prevent our own legislators to hop from the Senate to the House or vice-
versa and turn around again, ad infinitum.

To this day, the members of the Philippine Senate continue to be elected

nationwide. As a result, the provinces have a weaker voice in the Philippine
Congress, because the perspectives of Philippine senators are not about
specific provincial concerns, unlike their US counterparts whose
perspectives are about the concerns of their respective states. Each
Philippine senator takes the role of a national spokesperson and postures
themselves as the probable next President. No wonder that the national
government has been given the sobriquet “Imperial Manila,” in spite of the
presence of the people’s provincial representatives in the House.

That said, there is a much bigger concern, though. It is clear to me that

Philippine “democracy” has turned into a government of oligarchs, a
condition that may turn into despotism as anticipated by Plato. It happened
before, during the time of Marcos.

The reason is clear. Voting, the people’s expression of their sovereignty, is

not being exercised properly. And our leaders do not seem to care; they
probably like it that way. There are two main causes of this existing condition:
a voter’s lack of adequate information about relevant issues and problems to
enable them to make an informed judgement about who to elect; and vote
buying. These two factors actually overlap.

A voter’s lack of adequate information is a consequence of widespread

poverty and applies to most voters. As a result of poverty, a large majority of
the present adult population did not finish high school and many of them did
not even go farther than elementary school. Because of this handicap, they
tend not to have interest in acquiring a good understanding of important
current problems and issues, not to mention the already existing political,
social, and economic conditions. They generally do not read newspapers,
which are mainly published in English. The television shows they watch are
slapstick programs during the daytime and movies throughout the day. Since
they provide the biggest audience for television, television broadcasters
match their programs to their tastes and, therefore, continue to produce
similar shows over and over. This audience, seldom, if not at all, tune up to
programs that deal with political, social, and economic news, views and
issues which are expressed in English. In any case, such programs are now
rare on mainline TV and are mostly found on cable TV, to which most of the
poor do not have connection.

The other cause relating to most voters’ lack of adequate information is the
unfortunate existing lack of use of a common language. The government,
both national and local, deliberate in English and issue their communications
in English. On the other hand, most of the population do not have the
appropriate level of understanding of English, because of inadequate
education or, simply, they do not use the English language at all. As a result,
they are unable to appreciate the deliberations in government;
communications issued by government; and news, views, and reports in print
media and English TV programs. Had we developed a common language for
common use, whether such language be Filipino, English, or Spanish,
Filipinos, even the poor ones, may have a better understanding of current
events and issues.

Countries in Southeast Asia that were similarly colonized as the Philippines

had conclusively dealt with such an important issue. Indonesia, a former
Dutch colony, right at the time of its independence, chose a native language,
Bahasa Indonesia. Similarly, the former French colonies, Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos use a native language. Among the British colonies,
multi-ethnic Singapore, whose population is predominantly Chinese, chose
English. Multi-ethnic Malaysia, predominantly Malay, had decided on
Bahasa Malaysia, which is similar to Bahasa Indonesia, many years ago. In
Myanmar, the official language is Burmese, a native language.

The lack of adequate information among voters leads to their inability to

make well-evaluated personal choices. Instead, they go for name recall,
which created the development towards movie and TV personalities getting
into electoral contests. Moreover,these voters are also easily influenced and
swayed by strong local leaders to support these leaders’ choices, enhanced
by vote buying.

Vote buying, the other cause of improper expression of people’s sovereignty,

is now common, particularly in elections for local government officials and
House representatives. There are standard prices for vote buying in each
province or region, depending upon the position being contested. The
government is not doing anything about it.

So, under these circumstances, what are the possible solutions? The short-
term solutions are obvious, but could not be promulgated and, if already
promulgated, could not be implemented, because the decision makers,
members of the present oligarchy, will not relinquish their hold on power and
so lose their superior political advantages. The framers of the present
Constitution did recognize the problem and included provisions in the
Constitution that may provide solutions. They provided for the adoption of an
anti-dynasty legislation but, which, sadly, has been totally ignored by
legislators. They also provided for mandatory term limits, but this
requirement cannot stand alone. It has to be paired with an anti-dynasty law
to work effectively. Note that these remedies do not even directly deal with
the problem. These are indirect measures that merely reduce the size of the
problem, because the direct solution of improving the education of the voting
mass will take much time, especially under present political circumstances.
The adoption of a language for common use is highly desirable. But it needs
a strong leader who recognizes the underlying issue to get the solution,
which is necessarily long-term, done.

Vote buying is right in front of our eyes for some time now. But those who
can deal with it, don’t.

So, under these circumstances, the only alternative is to wait for the Filipino
voters to get better educated and, thus, acquire the discernment to exercise
properly their sovereignty by making an informed judgement when making
choices in electoral contests. That, of course, will be a very long wait.

We are not a democracy today. We are under an oligarchical rule, with its
consequent unchecked abuse of power and promotion of self-interest and
the inevitable effects of limiting the sustainability of political and economic
growth and development.