‘Filipino Suffrage-101’
PHILIPPINE ELECTIONS:
An Informal Crash Course
Short Quotes excerpted from
ODYSSEY OF THE FILIPINO VOTER:
“Exciting Adventures; Little Progress,” 2004
By Prof. Ed Aurelio C. Reyes of Kamalaysayan
In the pre-election period of 2010, there are new details—some amusing and others simply exasperating—and I’d probably be writing about them a bit later.
But essentially, much of the new details have been covered by their underpinnings adequately discussed in the latest (2004) edition of Odyssey of the Filipino Voter: ‘Exciting Adventures, Little Progress,” which has also been completely uploaded quite recently in the “bookmakers” website of SanibLakas. To read the entitre book for free during this 2010 Election season, please click at http://bookmakers-phils.8m.net/odyssey-opening.htm.
Here are some of the quotes highlighted in the pages of that book:
From the article “Odyssey of the Filipino Voter”:
Have the Filipino voters “arrived” for democratic governance? Yes but only if they can wield the ballot as a symbol and means of asserting their own political will.
From the article “Odyssey of the Filipino Voter”:
We have called (President Jose P.) Laurel’s administration a “puppet government,” and not that of Quezon who also served under a banner that is equally foreign.
From the article “Odyssey of the Filipino Voter”:
Political literacy is quite different from political maturity. The poor may have lacked the knowledge on what these posts should entail. But aren’t they, perhaps, politically matured enough to see that there are no substantial contrasts among our politicians, when it comes to their lives? When (the voters) say “Pare-pareho lang naman ‘yan!” can we really prove them wrong?
From the article “Political Values of the Filipino Voter, circa 1969”:
One factor that led to the exclusion of the aspect of personal integrity when one chose his presidential candidate for the 1969 elections was that as far as many were concerned, there was not much choice.
From the article “Formal Democracy; Descent to Dictatorship”:
This act of calling out the troops from the barracks to perform political functions was irreversible, for this military would thenceforth be playing a consistently increasing role in the nation’s political life.
From the article “Formal Democracy; Descent to Dictatorship”:
Indirect colonialism worked! A local tyrant was getting all blame for our woes, that worsened mainly by subservient economic programs that Marcos was obediently pursuing. In the end, it was projected that we stood much poorer only by how much this tyrant and his group had stolen.
From the article “Formal Democracy; Descent to Dictatorship”:
After having been made to believe that our problem was only Marcos himself, many of our people went along with the assertion that the anti-Marcos rebellion was a real revolution.
From the article “Principled Vote as New Factor”:
The trapos were slinging so much mud on one another that they really were discrediting all the more their entire bunch.
From the article “Principled Vote as New Factor”:
But the NOTA logic has apparently remained, with large numbers of voters and even some politically-active groups agonizing over the task of having to choose one president from this field of candidates.
From the article “Principled Vote as New Factor”:
Has the Filipino finally “arrived” as a voter? Or will he vote the way he and his parents have been voting all these past decades, resigned to and completely absorbed in the periodic farces?
From the article “Principled Vote as New Factor”:
The third-place showing of Roco could not have been attained if his supporters had voted for a “winnable lesser evil.” The principled issues-based vote is shaping up to be a factor to reckon with in subsequent elections.
From the article “Lessons and Milestones in ‘98”:
The most important lesson for all is that it is actually possible for the majority of the electorate who are among the marginalized in our society to decisively determine the results of a presidential election, notwithstanding contrary preferences of the established political and economic elite.
From the article “Lessons and Milestones in ‘98”:
First lesson about Party-List voting is that the window of opportunity now exists. The second lesson is that there are difficulties every step of the way.
From the article “Suffrage in Democratic Governance”:
President Aquino’s policy position on debt, to repay all the debts of the illegal regime of Marcos, without asking for even just moratoriums on these and cancellation of the clearly illegal and onerous ones, has been the biggest single factor behind our annually growing government budget deficits and our plunging peso-dollar exchange rates.
From the article “Suffrage in Democratic Governance”:
We should not limit our democratic right and duty to choosing which politician we would predictably be blaming later, specifically at the time of the next election period. But are we not doing precisely that?
From the article “Suffrage in Democratic Governance”:
Failures of government can not simply be blamed on those identified as trouble-makers, or as a result of widespread graft and corruption, but the result of no less than a systemic dysfunction in Philippine society.
From the article “Suffrage in Democratic Governance”:
Naivete and hysterical self-righteousness can really cloud the otherwise lucid sensibilities of even our best-schooled intellectuals.
From the article “Suffrage in Democratic Governance”:
A landslide electoral victory can very easily be ‘corrected’ if enough people allow the rule of law to be flagrantly set aside, upon the partisan passions of a few millions of people, against the ‘mistaken’ electoral verdict of tens of millions of voters.
From the article “Suffrage in Democratic Governance”:
Without the rule of law consistently upheld, all efforts to level the playing field during campaigns, all efforts to safeguard the ballot, all efforts to keep the count clean are very easily rendered utterly pointless.
From the article “Suffrage in Democratic Governance”:
Many self-righteous and unrepentant intellectuals of the elite are passing judgment on the majority of the voters as “still ignorant ,” totally ignorant as these intellectuals are of the great disservice they had dealt the nation’s adherence to the rule of law by their impatience about it all.
From the article “Suffrage in Democratic Governance”:
“If progress is to be shared and enjoyed by all, then it must be the achievement of all, resulting from joint effort of responsible citizens to make progress a way of life for the nation; not the from some singular heroic effort of some exceptional individual who exists ony in myth.” (--Prof. Nito Doria)
From the article “Separative-Ego Blindfolds Can Result in Attachment to Partican Politics”:
In the country today, the force of darkness is having its heyday as people continue to choose to keep their separative ego blindfolds, expressing in, among others, the attachment to partisan politics. (--Surf Reys)
From the article “Separative-Ego Blindfolds Can Result in Attachment to Partican Politics”:
All wrong comes from separative-self centeredness, or the ignorance of the reality of the oneness of all. And seeing the wrong in others is a good opportunity to see the mirror image of it in oneself, and choose to be rid of it first. . (--Surf Reys)
From the article “Long-Term Challenges”:
Voters must grasp in theory and enjoy in practice two relationships: our relationship with government and its functionaries, and our relationship with political power.
From the article “Long-Term Challenges”:
The summary of my “personal policy” toward (the Philippine) government is one of “maximum tolerance.”
I would not think of raising a call to overthrow it – that would be too much bother! I would rather spend quality time and enthusiastic energy on helping the people attain direct self-empowerment through synergy-building.
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