The Arroyo Imbroglio In The Philippines

The Arroyo Imbroglio
In The Philippines
Paul D. Hutchcroft

Paul D. Hutchcroft, professor of political science at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison, has written extensively on Philippine politics. He
is author of Booty Capitalism: The Politics of Banking in the Philippines
(1998), and is completing a book on patronage structures and territorial
politics in the twentieth-century Philippines.

With the exception of Ferdinand Marcos, who held power from 1965
to 1986, no one in Philippine history has had a longer tenure in the
presidential palace than Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. She first assumed
the presidency in January 2001, when a “people power” uprising ousted
President Joseph Estrada from Malacanang Palace and elevated her
from the vice-presidency to the highest office in the land. After serving
out Estrada’s remaining term until 2004, Macapagal-Arroyo was elected
for another six years. Term-limit restrictions require her to step down in
2010, after what will be nearly a decade in office.

In the midst of this longevity, the Arroyo administration has found
political legitimacy to be elusive. President Macapagal-Arroyo’s assumption
of office through extraconstitutional means provided a weak
initial mandate. Over the course of her seven years in office, an already
crisis-prone democracy has faced an unusually high number of travails,
including an uprising by the urban poor that nearly breached the walls
of the presidential palace on May Day 2001; a botched military mutiny
in July 2003; corruption scandals involving the first family; allegations
of presidential involvement in fixing the 2004 elections; a failed coupattempt-
cum-popular-uprising in February 2006 that led to the declaration
of emergency rule; concerted attacks on the press; an alarming
spike in extrajudicial killings; impeachment attempts in 2005, 2006, and
2007; two major bribery scandals in late 2007, one involving the chief
election officer and the other, brazen cash payouts from the Palace to
congresspersons and governors; and a November 2007 bombing at the
House of Representatives that killed a notorious warlord congressman
from Mindanao. Macapagal-Arroyo very effectively wields the substantial
powers of the presidency to keep herself in office, and in the process
she exhibits no qualms about further undermining the country’s already
weak political institutions. As the Philippines suffers one political crisis
after another, its longstanding democratic
structures become increasingly imperiled.

No country in Asia has more experience
with democratic institutions than the
Philippines, dating back to the fledgling
Assembly created by the revolutionary republic
that declared independence in 1898,
after more than three centuries of Spanish
rule. The United States’ rapid defeat of
Spain in the Spanish-American War led to a protracted colonial conquest
of the Philippines, in the wake of which the United States embarked on its
first major overseas experiment in “nation-building.” Elections proceeded
from the municipal level to the provincial level to the October 1907 convening
of a Philippine National Assembly, bringing together prominent
elites from throughout the lowland Christian Philippines.

Several key elements of Philippine democracy can be traced to the
U.S.-colonial era.1 The first is patronage-infested political parties that
rely heavily on pork-barrel public-works projects run through national
legislators. Under U.S. governor-general William Howard Taft’s “policy
of attraction,” which was intended to woo the landlord class away from
the revolutionary struggle and toward collaboration with the United
States, the economic elite of the Spanish-colonial era was transformed
into a political-economic elite that continues to wield power today.
Because representative institutions in the Philippines emerged before
the creation of strong bureaucratic institutions, it was easy for patronage-
hungry politicos to overwhelm the nascent administrative agencies
of the colonial state. Taft liked to evoke images of New England–style
deliberative democracy, but the end result is better thought of as a
Philippine version of Tammany Hall.

Second, the colonial political system ensured exclusion of the masses
and control by a national oligarchy nurtured by U.S. rule. The franchise
was limited to a tiny electorate and did not begin to expand substantially
until the late-colonial and early-postcolonial years. By this time, the
dominance of the national oligarchy was so well-entrenched that challenges
from below faced monumental odds.

A third major legacy is the provincial basis of national politics, as
influential provincial elites thrived in the national arenas established by
U.S. officials. Finally, the strong presidency of the modern Philippines
began with the emergence of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935,
when President Manuel L. Quezon presided over a weak National
Assembly and enjoyed largely uncontested executive authority.

These legacies were the foundations from which Philippine politics
evolved after independence in 1946. Among the trends of the 1950s and
the 1960s were the further expansion of suffrage, the emergence of charismatic
appeals, a new prominence for the media, the expansion of civil
society, enhanced presidential mobilization of the army and communitydevelopment
agencies, and the increasing cost of elections. The genius
of “cacique democracy,” as Benedict Anderson explains, was its capacity
to rotate power at the top without effective participation of those below.2
Ferdinand Marcos undermined the system of regular rotation, however,
beginning in 1969 when he became the first postwar president to be reelected
to a second term. Three years later, partly in an effort to skirt
the two-term limit imposed by the 1935 Constitution, Marcos declared
martial law. His personalistic, authoritarian rule, amply rewarded by successive
U.S. presidents in exchange for continued unhampered access to
U.S. military bases, endured for more than thirteen years until 1986.

When people power confronted Marcos’s tanks on the streets of
Manila in February 1986, the Philippines became a beacon of hope for
democrats around the world. As Corazon Aquino was propelled from
grieving widow to democratic icon and the Philippines began its transition
out of authoritarian rule, there was much to celebrate about the
exuberance of the country’s democratic spirit. Opposition to Marcos had
nurtured the growth of vibrant civil society organizations dedicated to
promoting the interests of farmers, the urban poor, women, indigenous
peoples, and others who had long been marginalized by the country’s
political system. A new breed of investigative journalists, seemingly
fearless in their desire to expose corruption, emerged after the country’s
transition back to democracy.3 Elections brought forth high turnouts and
extensive civic involvement.

The country’s return to democratic structures, however, revealed
many underlying problems. First, numerous coup attempts against the
Aquino government demonstrated the difficulties of returning the military
to the barracks after more than a decade of martial law. Second, the
Maoist insurgency of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its
New People’s Army continued in many parts of the archipelago, assisted
by successive governments’ failures to address immense socioeconomic
divides. In the Sulu archipelago and parts of the large, southern island of
Mindanao, Muslim secessionists challenged the central government and
demanded attention to their longstanding grievances. Third, the effective
reinstatement of pre–martial law electoral and representative structures
facilitated the restoration of the power of the old local clans, who
dominated the newly convened legislature in Manila and used the new
democratic dispensation as an opportunity to reinvigorate private armies
that had been dismantled under Marcos. Fourth, while political parties
expanded in number, they remain today nearly indistinguishable from
one another in terms of programmatic and policy positions.

Politicians have little allegiance to party labels, frequently bolting
from one party to another in search of the greatest access to patronage resources.
Political divides are ever-shifting, uniting former rivals and dividing
former allies in a continual process of alignment and realignment
almost entirely divorced from coherent positions on policies or programs.
At times, it seems as common for candidates to put up parties as it is for
parties to put up candidates. Political scientist Nathan Quimpo provides
perhaps the best description of contemporary Philippine political parties:
“convenient vehicles of patronage that can be set up, merged with others,
split, reconstituted, regurgitated, resurrected, renamed, repackaged,
recycled, refurbished, buffed up or flushed down the toilet anytime.”4

In an environment in which political institutions are weak, differences
in leadership styles have a particularly large impact on political
outcomes. The four post-Marcos presidents vary enormously in the
quality and goals of their leadership. Corazon Aquino (r. 1986–92),
widow of a martyred politician, might be characterized as an elite restorationist,
since her major achievement was to rebuild the elite-dominated
democratic structures undermined by her authoritarian predecessor.
Former general Fidel Ramos (r. 1992–98) was the military reformer
who achieved considerable success in bringing about economic reform
through deft manipulation of old-style patronage politics. Joseph
Estrada (r. 1998–2001), a former movie star, was the populist self-aggrandizer
who built a strong following among the masses and then
redistributed wealth in favor of his family and friends; anger over his
corruption led to his downfall via “People Power II” in January 2001.
Finally, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (r. 2001–present), a former
president’s daughter and the holder of a doctorate in economics, might
be called the great compromiser, given her willingness to accommodate
anyone able to help her retain the presidency.

An Election Scandal and Its Aftermath

On the surface, the 14 May 2007 midterm elections seemed to demonstrate
the vitality of Philippine democracy. Some 87,000 candidates
contested more than 16,000 local and national posts. Two-thirds of
registered voters exercised their right to vote. Hundreds of thousands
of citizens mobilized to guard the polls in four-fifths or more of the
nation’s precincts, and to monitor the vote count afterward.5 In the senatorial
elections, widely viewed as a popular referendum on the Arroyo
administration, candidates running under an ad hoc label of “Genuine
Opposition” ended up winning a majority of the 12 seats at stake, despite
large sums expended by those who campaigned under the president’s
rival banner of “Team Unity.”

A closer look, however, reveals that the Philippine electoral process
is alive but not well. The most recent elections went forward un-
der the shadow of the 2004 presidential election, after which President
Macapagal-Arroyo was accused of personal involvement in an attempt
to fix the results. Because she came into office in 2001 via people power,
Macapagal-Arroyo’s first three years in the Palace were dogged by
questions of legitimacy—even though the Supreme Court had given its
imprimatur to her ascension. The president was determined to correct
this at the ballot box, and in the 2004 elections her considerable patronage
resources were skillfully deployed to local politicians throughout
the archipelago. There were many allegations of improper use of public
funds, manipulation of government programs, and tampering with the
vote count, but election-monitoring groups were generally happy to declare
the results “free and fair.” Many feared the consequences of victory
by Macapagal-Arroyo’s major opponent, Fernando Poe, Jr., a popular
movie star with close ties to deposed president Estrada. The National
Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), in particular, seems to have
been more concerned with giving Macapagal-Arroyo legitimacy than
with safeguarding the sanctity of the ballot.6

With the help of “free election” monitors, Macapagal-Arroyo managed
to weather criticism and enjoy the legitimation of her million-vote
margin over Poe. By mid-2005, however, things had started to unravel.
In May came accusations that her husband and son were taking monthly
payments from gambling lords. This had particular resonance because
her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, had been drummed out of office partly
due to accusations of heading up a lucrative gambling syndicate. Most
damaging, however, was the bombshell that hit the headlines in June
2005. Tapes of wiretapped conversations were released, thought to contain
the voice of the president talking to a Commission on Elections
(COMELEC) commissioner amid the counting of ballots in the weeks
after the May 2004 election. In one oft-quoted segment said to be from
late May, a female voice expresses concern for the electoral margin (“So
I will still lead by more than one M., overall?”) while a male voice
promises to work things out.7

These accusations produced a firestorm of anger against the Palace
and led to a nationally telecast apology from the president on June 27.
She admitted to improper conversations with the commissioner, unsavory
COMELEC veteran Virgilio “Garci” Garcillano, but denied that it
was her voice on the leaked tapes. In retrospect, it seems that Macapagal-
Arroyo had brought upon herself a string of presidential bad luck perhaps
unrivaled since Richard Nixon decided to record his conversations
in the Oval Office. First, Garcillano had been named a commissioner in
February 2004, seemingly to do whatever might be necessary to guarantee
a decisive Arroyo victory in May. The Palace then brought the
Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) under
its wing to monitor election-related conversations, including those
of Garcillano (likely out of concern that he might cut deals for himself
that could be disadvantageous to the administration). ISAFP proceeded
to tape these conversations, and the president seemingly had the misfortune
of having her own conversations with Garcillano leaked to opposition
figures by disgruntled military-intelligence officers.8

The secret tapes quickly became part of the public domain, and
throughout the country the legendary “Hello, Garci?” greeting could
be heard as a cell-phone ring tone. The country was riveted by what
came to be known as the “Hello, Garci” scandal, and on 8 July 2005
there was a concerted push to force the president from office. First came
the resignation of ten members of the cabinet, followed by calls for
the president’s resignation by former allies: reformist elements of the
Liberal Party, the influential Makati Business Club, and former president
Aquino. Opinion polls registered overwhelming majorities in favor
of resignation or impeachment. Macapagal-Arroyo survived the crisis
with the critical support of former president Ramos and House Speaker
Jose de Venecia, Jr., to whom she reportedly promised that she would
step down from office and usher in a constitutional shift toward parliamentary
government.9

In its fight for survival, the Arroyo administration quickly tried to
shift the topic from electoral scandal to political reform. In her annual
State of the Nation address, in late July 2005, Macapagal-Arroyo declared
that “our political system has degenerated to such an extent that
it’s very difficult to live within the system with hands totally untainted.”
While this statement was no doubt an effort to emphasize systemic
rather than personal accountability, it had become clear to many that
Philippine democracy was badly in need of reform. While the crises
of 1986 and 2001 had been primarily concerned with the legitimacy of
individual leaders, the “Hello, Garci” crisis highlighted the legitimacy
deficit not only of an individual leader but also of an entire political
system. In her speech, the president urged the country to “start the great
debate on charter change” and specifically mentioned (but did not explicitly
endorse) the possibility of shifting the country’s political structures
from presidential to parliamentary and from unitary to federal.

Although the Speaker of the House may have desired more wholehearted
support for a shift to parliamentarism, de Venecia nonetheless
came to Macapagal-Arroyo’s aid in September by ensuring that an impeachment
attempt would not muster the necessary support of one-third
of the members of the House of Representatives. This is consistent with
historical patterns in Philippine politics: The power of the pork barrel
enables presidents to make or break the speaker, who in turn must deliver
the loyalty of the overwhelming majority of the House.

Other factors also assisted Macapagal-Arroyo in her fight for survival.
First, the late 2004 death of Fernando Poe, Jr., her opponent in the
elections, deprived the opposition of an obvious figure around whom
it could rally. Second, strong public sentiment against the president did
not translate into a repeat episode of people power. Demonstrations were
called, but they failed to draw large crowds. Many at the time spoke of
“people power fatigue,” but there was probably a deeper disillusionment
at play. This time around, it was difficult for citizens to nurse hopes
that a mere change in leadership would fix the problems of the country.
Many seemed tired of being pawns in intraelite squabbles that ultimately
brought little change. Third, Macapagal-Arroyo was aided by widespread
concerns over the possibility that the vice-president, former newscaster
Noli de Castro, might come to power. Although strong in terms of
mass appeal, de Castro is not highly respected among those in the upper
classes and has allegedly profited from unseemly journalistic practices.10
Finally, the president had done a masterful job of cultivating the loyalty
of key generals. Despite significant discontent in the lower ranks, the top
brass has up until now remained firmly in her camp.

A Tendency Toward Authoritarianism

The loyalty of the generals became especially valuable in February
2006, when a combination of junior officers on the right and civilian
forces on the left wanted to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the
downfall of Marcos with a putsch to bring down Macapagal-Arroyo.
When certain top officers were asked to join, they reported the plot to
the Palace. This then led to the declaration of emergency rule, coinciding
with the anniversary of the country’s transition to democracy two decades
earlier. As Sheila Coronel observes, “That morning in February saw the
meeting of the two most powerful narratives of recent Philippine history,
the declaration of martial law in 1972 and the 1986 popular uprising.
What Filipinos got in 2006 were pale versions of both.”11 In the end, the
demonstrations were suppressed, but the state of emergency lasted only
a few weeks and was later ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.

Macapagal-Arroyo’s dependence on the military, combined with her
administration’s own inclination to launch a crackdown, led to the June
2006 declaration of an “all-out war” against the nearly three-decade-old
communist insurgency. This came amid mounting concern over the killings
of hundreds of leftists, activists, and church personnel. “As senior
officials and military officers labeled members of the legal left ‘enemies
of the state,’ and failed to condemn the killings consistently at all levels
of government,” concludes a 2006 Amnesty International report, “fears
grew that elements within the armed forces might interpret this as a tacit
signal that political killings were a legitimate part of the antiinsurgency
campaign.” According to Human Rights Watch, not a single perpetrator
has been successfully prosecuted. President Macapagal-Arroyo’s own
investigative commission concludes that “some elements in the military
were behind the killing of activists” and that ranking armed-forces personnel
have failed in their duty to investigate, punish, and prevent the
killings. After an early 2007 fact-finding mission, a UN special rapporteur
expressed concern about the impact of these killings on the democratic
process: “It intimidates vast numbers of civil society actors, it
sends a message of vulnerability to all but the most well connected, and
it severely undermines the political discourse which is central to a resolution
of the problems confronting this country.”12

Further challenges to democratic discourse have come in the form of
attacks on the press. In 2006, Reporters Without Borders declared that
“[a]fter Iraq, the Philippines is the most dangerous country for journalists.”
Thirty-two journalists were killed for their reporting between 1991
and 2006, but only two cases have led to convictions. The government
commission on media and activist killings points the finger at “local
politicians, warlords, or big business interests” driven by a range of
mainly local motives. A newer mode of media harassment was launched
by the president’s husband, “First Gentleman” Jose Miguel Arroyo, who
in 2006 filed defamation suits seeking a total of $1.4 million in damages
against 43 journalists. He objected to stories accusing him of involvement
in vote rigging and corruption; if convicted of defamation, a criminal
offense, the journalists could also face imprisonment for six months
to six years. A government attempt to charge other journalists with sedition
in the wake of the February 2006 coup attempt was blocked by the
Supreme Court. It is not clear to what extent these legal charges will
intimidate or embolden the media, particularly given that libel and sedition
laws have not in the past been effective means of curbing media
criticism of government officials. Combined with the killings, however,
these legal charges must be viewed as an attack on one of the major
bulwarks of Philippine democracy.13

While demonstrating its authoritarian inclinations, the Arroyo government
simultaneously stepped up the campaign to revamp the country’s
democratic structures. As in 2005, this was motivated in part by a need
to encourage Speaker de Venecia’s active support in quashing a second
impeachment attempt. This goal was accomplished in August 2006, just
as the Palace was mobilizing tens of thousands of local politicians in the
provinces to support charter change via a nationwide “people’s initiative.”
Millions of signatures from throughout the country were solicited
in favor of a shift from a bicameral presidential system to a unicameral
parliamentary system, but the Supreme Court ruled in October that the
campaign fell short of constitutional requirements.

In a desperate year-end move, de Venecia and his allies in the House
tried to push for revision of the constitution—creating a unicameral parliament
—through the alternative mode of constituent assembly. The already
scheduled May 2007 congressional polls would be canceled in favor
of November 2007 elections for an interim parliamentary body that
would serve until 2010. Macapagal-Arroyo would serve out her term as
president until 2010, at which point both she and de Venecia would be
eligible to run for parliament and seek the post of prime minister.14 The
plan was a spectacular failure. Senators, not surprisingly, were opposed
to reforms designed to abolish their chamber, and they were joined by
the Catholic bishops, anti-Arroyo forces, and those who favored constitutional
change but wanted it to come through the more deliberative
mode of a popularly elected constitutional convention.

Election Intrigue

As soon as the plan was defeated, the country’s political elites refocused
their attention on the May 2007 midterm elections. It has already
been noted that in the Senate—where half the 24 seats are elected every
three years from a single, national district—Macapagal-Arroyo’s forces
were soundly defeated. The most stunning rebuke to Macapagal-Arroyo
was the election of opposition senator Antonio Trillanes IV, accused
of being a mastermind of the failed anti-Arroyo mutiny of July 2003.
The 35-year-old former navy officer won eleven million votes (for an
eleventh-place finish) despite campaigning from his prison cell. In the
House, as was to be expected, the president’s control over patronage
resources ensured that the administration coalition would be successful
in gaining an overwhelming majority of the 220 single-member, districtlevel
seats.

In 2007 as in 2004, the elections revealed major shortcomings in the
country’s democratic structures. The Philippine ballot is probably one
of the most archaic in the world, as voters are required to fill in, by
hand, the names of all candidates for whom they are voting. The vote
tally is then compiled, also by hand. With thirty million ballots cast last
May, each containing the votes for roughly 25 to 30 positions, election
officials faced the gargantuan task of counting almost a billion preferences
in all. This laborious process is highly susceptible to fraud: As
official election tallies begin their long migration from local precincts
throughout the Philippine archipelago to Manila over the course of several
weeks, politicians can use a variety of tactics to supplement retail
vote purchases with wholesale manipulation of the vote count.

In each of the last two elections, the Commission on Elections has
demonstrated itself to be fabulously incompetent (and often very corrupt)
in performing its three basic tasks of preparing for elections, executing
the polling process, and counting the votes. NAMFREL reported
that in 2004, due to huge errors in COMELEC’s voter lists, “disenfranchisement
may have run as high as two million voters.”15 There has
long been talk of modernizing the ballot, but allegations of corruption
have impeded change. Most recently, in 2003, a COMELEC attempt to
automate the electoral system was nullified by the Supreme Court due
to bidding violations. Finally, the long vote count provides ample opportunities
for election officials to solicit payoffs not only from trailing
candidates wanting to pad their votes, but also from leading candidates
needing to protect their votes against the cheating of others.

After the May 2007 elections, it took almost two months before the
twelfth-ranked candidate was proclaimed a victor in the Senate contest.
Many of the charges and countercharges focused on Mindanao’s
remote province of Maguindanao, the details of which illustrate complex
interactions between the administration, COMELEC, and local
powerholders. In the run-up to the elections, each region of the country
was put under the supervision of a particular COMELEC commissioner.
Benjamin Abalos, a political ally of the First Gentleman who had
been appointed COMELEC chair in 2002, assumed initial responsibility
for the polls in Mindanao and then placed key lieutenants in strategic
posts. In Maguindanao, his provincial election supervisor was a wellknown
protégé of Garcillano who had merited frequent mention in the
“Hello, Garci” tapes and was linked to suspiciously strong pro-Arroyo
results in the 2004 election. Without the effective oversight of either
COMELEC or election monitors (who were barred from many localities),
Macapagal-Arroyo’s political allies in Maguindanao were able to
deliver a sweep to her Team Unity senatorial candidates.

The key figure in securing this outcome was Governor Andal
Ampatuan, who commands a substantial paramilitary force and has a
reputation for using violence against his political enemies. “Whatever
the president wants, he will follow,” said a family friend to Newsbreak.
“12-0 is what Ma’am wants.” Ampatuan is no doubt well-rewarded by
the Palace, but seemingly cuts deals for his own benefit as well. Among
the Team Unity hopefuls, it is reported that “the ranking of individual
candidates depended on how much they would pay up.” Rumor has it
that the top senatorial slot in Maguindanao went to a northern Luzon
strongman for the sum of 30 million pesos (US$636,000).16

Aside from money, violence is also a useful tool for gaining political
power. According to police statistics, there were 148 election-related
killings in 2004, more than double that of the last general elections
in 1998. In 2007, there were 121 election-related killings, marginally
more than the 111 persons killed in the last midterm elections, in 2001.
According to political scientist Joel Rocamora, the high stakes of the
political game encourage candidates to use whatever means possible to
achieve victory:

Elections provide the formal expression of local political contests that have
historically been mainly about who controls the resources from the central
government, and illegal economic activity. . . . The contest over control
of these activities gives a premium to leaders with skills in manipulating
illegality and the uses of violence. 17

At the least, one can say that the national police and the Philippine
armed forces are unable to safeguard the electoral process; far more
disturbing is when their coercive power is deployed in favor of one
candidate over another. Another armed force, the communist National
People’s Army, has used its coercive capacity for a combination of entrepreneurial
and political ends: extorting permit-to-campaign fees in
the areas that it controls, occasionally hiring itself out for intraelite political
assassinations, and intimidating rival opponents on the left.

The analysis thus far has focused on the challenges of democratic
process, in particular the conduct of free, fair, and safe elections.
Equally important is the capacity of a political system to provide the
citizenry with the opportunity for democratic outcomes, notably clear
choices among contending views and programs. Democracy should, after
all, involve citizens in their own governance. Philippine democracy
as it has developed over the past century, however, privileges personalities
and patronage over parties and platforms. Electoral victory thus
frequently involves promising voters some short-term gain, whether it
be the purchase of a vote or the pledge to construct a health center, road,
or neighborhood basketball court.

This produces high-cost politics—costly in monetary terms and in
the gross undermining of the democratic ideal. When candidates buy or
coerce their way into office, they have little reason to be accountable
to the electorate. Their accountability, rather, is to those who have financed
the past campaign effort and to those who might be called upon
for assistance during the next elections. As Philippine elections have
become increasingly costly, they have encouraged politicians to become
more creative in raising funds, whether through the promise of legislative
and regulatory favors, real-estate scams, involvement in gambling
syndicates, or links to drug lords and the underworld. In a surprisingly
candid moment, Speaker de Venecia explained the system: “It’s the
drug lords and the gambling lords . . . who finance the candidates. So
from Day One, they become corrupt. So the whole political process is
rotten.”18

Prospects for Political Reform and Charter Change

The Philippines has now had a longer stretch of life after Marcos
than life under Marcos. As the post-Marcos era enters its third decade,
the high hopes for democracy voiced in the mid-1980s have given way
to disillusionment with the country’s low quality of governance. Polls
measuring overall satisfaction with “the way democracy works” were
in the range of 46 to 70 percent under Ramos and 42 to 70 percent
under Estrada, in each case peaking at 70 percent after their respective
victories in the general elections of 1992 and 1998, respectively. Under
Macapagal-Arroyo, the range is 33 to 54 percent, peaking at 54 percent
in the wake of the 2007 midterm elections that brought opposition
victories in the Senate. No other post-Marcos president has had lower
approval ratings than Macapagal-Arroyo, who is the first to plunge into
negative numbers in her “net satisfaction rating”: -33 percent in May
2005, improving to -3 percent in June 2007. One major bright spot for
Macapagal-Arroyo, however, has been the very respectable economicgrowth
rates, which have gained her substantial support from elements
within the business community. The administration can also point with
pride to recent progress in peace negotiations with the major Muslim
secessionist group in Mindanao.

These important successes notwithstanding, Philippine democratic
institutions are not inspiring faith among the citizenry. In the month
prior to the 2007 elections, 69 percent of those surveyed expected vote
buying and 53 percent anticipated cheating in the vote count (substantially
higher percentages than those registered prior to the 2001 and 2004
elections). In a 2006 survey, COMELEC was among the four agencies
that the public rated as “very bad” in terms of “sincerity in fighting corruption.”
There have long been problems at COMELEC, but the level
of politicization under the Arroyo government is perceived to be particularly
grave. Similar stories can be told regarding the decline of other
important political institutions, including the House of Representatives
(currently subordinated to the Palace even more thoroughly than usual);
the judiciary (with the Supreme Court an important and encouraging exception);
the Office of the Ombudsman (now headed by the president’s
former chief legal counsel); and the military (recall the use of military
intelligence for electoral purposes, discussed above).

Many believe that the best way to address this disillusionment is to
reform democratic institutions. But those who advocate “political reform”
have a range of ideas as to what should be changed and to what
extent, as well as how to accomplish the changes. Given current levels
of disillusionment, some suggest that whatever political set-up the
Philippines presently has should be discarded. If the country is currently
under a presidential system, it should shift to parliamentarism. If it is
currently unitary, then federalism is the solution.

The bigger the change, however, the greater the risk of unintended
consequences, leading some to call for well-targeted incremental reforms,
instituted with particular goals in mind. A central, overarching
goal should be the fostering of stronger and more programmatic political
parties. In these pages nearly a decade ago, Gabriela Montinola argued
that “[m]eaningful social change has been inhibited because political
parties have failed to structure political competition to allow for the
representation of the interests of the poor and marginalized sectors.”19
A good starting point would be such modest electoral reforms as preprinted
ballots, a consolidated ticket for the election of presidents and
vice-presidents, and an option for straight-party voting.

Two somewhat more ambitious electoral reforms, one for the Senate
and one for the House, could have much greater impact in promoting
stronger parties. The first would be to scrap the current system in which
senators are elected from one nationwide district; this leads to intraparty
competition and forces each candidate to cut his or her own deals
with local powerholders throughout the archipelago. The second change
would be to abolish the current party-list
system, through which 20 percent of the
members of the House are selected. While
most standard proportional-representation
systems require parties to achieve a
certain percentage of the vote in order to
have seats in the legislature, the Philippine
party-list system is distinguished both by
a very low floor (2 percent) and by the
presence of a ceiling: Incredibly, no single
party is permitted to have more than
three seats in the legislature. This entirely undermines the goal of aggregating
interests under one party label. Following the example of Japan
and South Korea, the Philippines could consider adopting a mixed system
involving both single-member-district seats and some element of a
more standard proportional-representation system.

Another well-targeted reform, more relevant to process than to outcomes,
relates to electoral administration. COMELEC should be restructured
from top to bottom—from its central office in Manila to its
extensive nationwide field structure—in order to develop the capacity
to maintain accurate lists of voters and execute an accurate and expeditious
vote count. Allegations of election fraud involving politicians
and COMELEC officials need to be investigated by independent prosecutors
willing and able to press charges for wrongdoing. The perfect
opportunity for leadership change comes in early 2008, as COMELEC
chair Benjamin Abalos steps down in the wake of bribery charges, and
three additional slots on the seven-member national commission will
also need to be filled.

As a practical matter, incremental measures of political reform, rather
than a wholesale shift to parliamentarism or federalism, seem to hold
greater promise for success. In response to the two late-2007 bribery
scandals, the Palace dusted off proposals for charter change in yet another
attempt to change the topic to political reform. Such patent political
opportunism has turned much of the public against the idea of
constitutional revision. After his attempts were spurned in late 2006,
even Speaker de Venecia now seeks a moratorium on charter change.
Senators continue to oppose the abolition of their chamber, and one can
presume that the five senators considering bids for the presidency in
2010 are particularly averse to the parliamentary option. Considering
these factors, there is unlikely to be renewed momentum for sweeping
constitutional changes until after the 2010 presidential elections.

In the meantime, democratic institutions in the Philippines continue
to be under major stress. For some, democracy has lost its appeal and
military intervention has become an attractive option. Those who want
to see the perpetuation of civilian democratic structures might draw
some comfort from the reflection that the Philippine military has never
launched a successful grab for power, despite many attempts. Given the
current weakness of political institutions, however, it would be a mistake
to dismiss the possibility of a coup. After all, the odds that such an
attempt might succeed depend not only on the capability of a group of
disgruntled soldiers but also upon the nature of the political institutions
that are being targeted.

Although the Philippines can boast the oldest democratic structures
in Asia, they are currently weak and lacking in legitimacy. Battered
by scandal after scandal, these structures need careful and well-considered
reform if they are to survive. With particular attention to the goal
of strengthening political parties, it is important to build a democracy
that can overcome its historical shortcomings and begin to demonstrate
responsiveness not just to the privileged few but to the citizenry as a
whole.

NOTES
Thanks to Cleo Calimbahin, Sheila Coronel, Jose Luis Gascon, and Joel Rocamora for offering
valuable comments and suggestions. Any errors or omissions are mine alone.
1. For a more detailed study, see Paul D. Hutchcroft and Joel Rocamora, “Strong
Demands and Weak Institutions: The Origins and Evolution of the Democratic Deficit in
the Philippines,” Journal of East Asian Studies 3 (May–August 2003): 259–92.
2. Benedict Anderson, “Cacique Democracy and the Philippines: Origins and Dreams,”
New Left Review 169 (May–June 1988): 3–33.
3. The current exemplars are the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ)
and Newsbreak magazine.
4. Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, “The Left, Elections, and the Political Party System in the
Philippines,” Critical Asian Studies 37 (March 2005): 4–5.
5. Bantay Eleksyon (People’s Coalition to Monitor the 2007 Elections), “Final Report
on the 2007 Elections,” www.iper.org.ph/CER/bantayeleksyon2007/reports/final-report-
07-election.html.
6. Roberto Verzola, “The True Results of the 2004 Philippine Presidential Election
Based on the NAMFREL Tally,” Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies
Vol. 19, No. 2 (2004): 92–118. For a brief summary of corruption charges against the
Palace, see “Shame and Scandal in the Family,” “The Queens’ Gambit,” special edition,
i-Report (Quezon City, Philippines), July 2005, 28–29.
7. The “Gloria-Garcillano” tapes can be heard at http://pcij.org/blog/wp-files/tapes.
php; transcriptions from one key tape are printed in “The Queens’ Gambit,” 39–51.
8. See Sheila S. Coronel, “The Unmaking of a President,” in “The Queens’ Gambit,”
3–5.
9. For polling data, see Social Weather Stations, www.sws.org.ph; Macapagal-Arroyo
was the vice-presidential candidate on de Venecia’s 1998 Lakas Party ticket; she won the
office while de Venecia lost badly. De Venecia seems to have concluded that the only way
he could become chief executive of the Philippines would be as party leader in a parliamentary
system.
10. Luz Rimban, “The Man Who Would Be President,” i-Report, no. 3 (September
2005), www.pcij.org/i-report/3/noli.html.
11. Sheila S. Coronel, “The Philippines in 2006: Democracy and Its Discontents,”
Asian Survey 47 (February 2007): 176.
12. Amnesty International, “Philippines: Political Killings, Human Rights, and the
Peace Process,” 15 August 2006, 1–2, http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA
350062006?open&of=ENG-PHL; Human Rights Watch, “Scared Silent: Impunity for
Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines,” June 2007, http://hrw.org/reports/2007/ philippines0607web.
pdf, 3; Report of Independent Commission to Address Media and Activist
Killings, 22 January 2007, 1; The UN Office at Geneva, “UN Expert Says Extrajudicial
Killings in Phillipines [sic] Have a Corrosive Effect on Civil Society and Political
Discourse,” Press Release, 22 February 2007.
13. Reporters Without Borders, “Philippines—Annual Report 2006,” available at www.
rsf.org; Committee to Protect Journalists, “Attacks on the Press in 2006, Philippines,”
www.cpj.org/attacks06/asia06/phil06.html. For fuller analysis of the current state of civil
liberties and rule of law in the Philippines, see Hutchcroft, “The Philippines,” Countries at
the Crossroads 2007 (New York: Freedom House, 2007), available at www.freedomhouse.
org.
14. “It’s Done: House Set to Convene Constituent Assembly,” Philippine Daily
Inquirer, 8 December 2006.
15. NAMFREL, “The Terminal Report to NAMFREL Operation Quick Count 2004,”
30 June 2004, 2. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the report refutes those who allege
“massive disenfranchisement,” which might be taken as further indication of NAMFREL’s
eagerness to legitimize the elections.
16. Aries Rufo, “The Sins of Abalos,” Newsbreak, July–September 2007, 34–36; and
Gemma Bagayaua, “Guns, Fealty, and Money,” Newsbreak, July–September 2007, 51–
53.
17. Rocamora, “Equal-Opportunity Violence,” i-Report, 7 February 2007, http://pcij.
org/i-report/2007/political-violence2.html; Alecks Pabico, “Were the 2007 Elections Less
Violent?” 5 July 2007, http://i-site.ph/blog/?p=217#more-217; for a critique of police
statistics, see Bantay Eleksyon, “Final Report of the 2007 Elections.”
18. See Alfred W. McCoy, “Covert Netherworlds: Clandestine Services and Criminal
Syndicates in Shaping the Philippine State,” in Tim Lindsey and Eric Wilson, eds.,
Government of the Shadows (London: Pluto Press, forthcoming). “De Venecia calls on
Arroyo to set up new administration,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 18 October 2007; De
Venecia’s candid appraisal came amid mounting tensions between him and the president,
in the course of which his influence has been curbed.
19. Gabriella R. Montinola, “Parties and Accountability in the Philippines,” Journal
of Democracy 10 (January 1999): 133. On the dangers of unintended consequences, see
Allen Hicken, “Party Fabrication: Constitutional Reform and the Rise of the Thai Rak
Thai,” Journal of East Asian Studies 6 (September–December 2006): 381–407. An argument
for incremental reform can be found in Jürgen Rüland, “Constitutional Debates in
the Philippines: From Presidentialism to Parliamentarism?” Asian Survey 43 (May 2003):
461–84.

Source: http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/