Philippine ‘democracy’

By Benjamin R. Punongbayan

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.

We, the sovereign Filipino people, now find ourselves inside a straitjacket. We will stay that way
for generations, if we continue to be indifferent. Must we?