What One Congressman Can Do

On his second term, Iloilo City Congressman Raul T. Gonzalez Jr. has accomplished the principal authorship of six (6) national laws: Republic Act 9521 (National Book Development Trust Fund Act), R.A. 9646 (Real Estate Service Act), R.A. 9513 (Renewable Energy Resources Act), R.A. 9853 (Customs Brokers Act), R.A. 10024 (Philippine Respiratory Therapy Act) and the soon-to-be-signed Psychology Service Act. Many members of Congress finish 3 terms (or 9 years) without authoring a single law of national importance.

Raul Gonzalez Jr. chaired two House committees: the Committee on Civil Service and Professional Regulation and the Committee on Revision of Laws. Politicians often cite “reforming our government” as their primary reason for entering politics, and thus Raul Jr. chose the Civil Service Committee, which can produce laws that will improve the state of our 1.5 million government employees and the private professionals (doctors, engineers, nurses, psychologists, real estate agents, customs brokers, respiratory therapists, etc.).

When Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia was elevated to the post of Deputy Speaker, Raul Jr. was appointed Acting Chair (for about 6 months) of the committee Garcia vacated, the Committee on Revision of Laws. Thus, he ended up presiding over two committees - a rare distinction because traditionally a senior congressman is given only one committee to chair.

Many constituents expect their Congressman to obtain development projects for their district. Raul Jr. over a three-year period (2007-2010) was able to channel approximately P275 Million worth of projects to Iloilo City, broken down as follows: P52 Million under the “Free Medical Assistance for Indigent Patients” program, P41.8 Million to the Iloilo City government under his “Assistance to LGU” program, P33 Million for the construction/repair of barangay multi-purpose halls, another P30 Million for the construction/declogging of drainage systems, and P73 million for the repair/concreting of various roads and bridges in Iloilo City.

Tens of thousands of indigent Iloilo City residents have benefited from the Free Medical Assistance program since it was started almost 15 years ago by Deputy Speaker Raul M. Gonzalez, Sr. Through the years, an estimated total of P200 Million has been disbursed under the said program. As for the “Assistance to LGU” fund under Raul Jr., it has been used mainly to buy things that the Iloilo City Government was unable to provide: barangay patrol vehicles, police cars, and communications equipment.

The Assistance fund has also been used to augment various initiatives of the City Government such as the Dinagyang Foundation, Paraw Regatta, and even the schooling of the Vice Mayor, 2 City Councilors, and 16 department heads and city hall personnel at the Ateneo School of Government Masters in Public Management program. The rest of the Priority Development Assistance Fund of Raul Jr. was used to repair public structures (roads, bridges, barangay halls) which were damaged by Typhoon Frank in 2008.

Fire in the Belly To Be President

In the humor-laden and award-winning autobiography, From Barrio to Senado (2008 National Book Awards), by public health leader and two-term Senator (1995-2007) Dr. Juan M. Flavier (b. 1935), one reads:

“Fire in the belly is the first pre-requisite for anyone aspiring for the highest political office in our country. I believe you must absolutely want to be president. You must absolutely have the drive to seize the position.

“Without that fire, without that ambition, the position will be ill-served even by the most noble of intentions.

“Raul Roco had fire in his belly. As does Ping [Lacson]. And Loren Legarda. There are a few more young leaders that, I am happy to say, have that drive, ambition, and clear vision to get to Malacañang.” (Flavier, 394-95)

Senator Flavier realized he did not have fire in the belly even after the following favorable events:

Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced on Rizal Day of 2002 that she would not be a presidential candidate in the next election; conscientious persons like Winnie Monsod assured him of support if he wanted to run; Pres. Arroyo explicitly encouraged Flavier, Bobby Barbers, and Jun Magsaysay to “float” their names as presidential aspirants; three “Flavier for President” movements were launched in “Davao, Central Luzon, and Baguio, courtesy of the initiatives of Atty. Raul Lambino” after his name was floated; stickers like “Juan for All and All for Juan” started to appear in Metro-Manila without instruction from Flavier; Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco of RCBC invited him to a meeting to discuss the matter of campaign funds; surveys started to show he was second to Raul Roco and higher than Ping Lacson.

Despite all these favorable events, Flavier did not start organizing, and his media appearances had “no planning, no budget, no strategy, and no real effort.” He narrates:

“Gene Orejana was the first to interview me live on television…He asked me if I was physically up for the rigors of a national campaign. I responded that I was game, but admitted that health would be a consideration. I told him I had asthma, high blood pressure, and mild diabetes.

“Rudy [chief of staff, Senate office] almost had a heart attack, and the next day he had a welt on his forehead where he had slapped himself.

“When Korina Sanchez guested me on her own television program, Isyu, she gave me a second chance to be more politic in my answer. But afterwards, in a text message to her fellow broadcaster…she, too, expressed perplexity in my being ‘deliberately honest’ about my health. She sensed that my heart was ‘not into this float.’” (Flavier, 390)

Why was there no fire in his belly? Deep down the “barrio doctor” in him remained stronger than the politician. The barrio doctor listens, persuades, and heals individuals and communities. The politician can do the same but he or she should be ready and willing to authorize or command coercion or violence whenever it is necessary to enforce the law for the common good.

Flavier’s book intimates that one has to have some deep unhappiness or restlessness to relish the fierce competition for the highest office of Chief Executive and Commander of necessary violence.

When he looks back at a childhood in which his parents, both grade-school dropouts, struggled to put food on the table for a family of eight, Juan Flavier has enough inner peace and happiness, as he perceives that his descendants have more opportunities: “Knowing that all my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will have a better life than I did is all I need to know to be at peace with the God that Susan and I try to introduce to them” (Flavier, 402).

Juan Flavier, the public health leader, loved to communicate with the poor, shared with them his jokes and humorous parables, and knew himself enough to recognize that he had no fire in his belly for the Presidency.

Source: Flavier, Juan. From Barrio to Senado: An Autobiography. n.p. 2008.

Missing Element in CBCP Call for Political Involvement

The call of Philippine Catholic bishops for the active involvement of the laity in "principled partisan politics" (24 January 2010 CBCP Pastoral Statement) targets individual candidates and voters but neglects necessary institutions like political parties. More than our flawed elective officials, the bigger national challenge is our weak governance institutions. Enduring and pervasive unethical practices in politics are rooted in flawed systems and institutions, which can outlast individuals & cannot be changed without sufficient competence, imagination, strategic moves & sustained efforts.

The CBCP asks the candidates to educate the people on the situation of our country and “to present their platforms and convictions rather than attack others.” The bishops appeal to voters to exercise wisely their right to vote, and to “follow the dictates of conscience after a prayerful and collective period of discernment” rather than be swayed by “survey results or political advertisements.”
The CBCP encouragement for lay people to participate actively in principled partisan politics should target the strengthening of institutions like the political parties, which are weak in the following: clarifying and promoting their ideologies and platforms, mobilizing resources for political education and electoral campaigns, and disciplining their party members (see “Priorities for Parties,” 15 August 2009 blog). Political parties that are financially stable, ideologically strong, platform-based, and dialogical in practice will be more effective in the political education of the citizenry than the institutional church will be.

In this light, here are some crucial pastoral actions for the institutional church:

(1) Encourage voters, and urge the political parties, to support a Party Development Law that would create a State Subsidy Fund for party strengthening and campaign financing, require an established participatory process for selecting party candidates, and punish party-switching.

(2) Encourage voters to review the platforms, programs & accomplishments of current parties, and to join a party & actively contribute to its capability in formulating & implementing its programs & disciplining its members.

(3) Specify & disseminate criteria to guide voters and neophyte candidates in assessing & choosing to join a political party, e.g. the coherence, the explanatory ability & the explicit & implicit anthropological assumptions of the party ideology & platform.

A radical theologian once suggested that faith without ideology is dead. If ideology is understood as a politico-economic theory on how a society may resolve or balance the competing interests of its members, then the practice of one’s religious faith without ideology tends either to neglect social reform or to pursue reform in incoherent or unsystematic ways. The evangelization of Philippine politics is ineffective when it ignores the institutional weakness of political parties, which are ideologically & financially weak.

Good vs Evil in 2010?

"If we continue to confuse political moralizing with political analysis, we will remain blind to the systemic nature of our political crises. We will forever be ousting leaders and putting in new ones, without ever making a dent on the mass poverty and social inequality that have plagued our nation since its founding." (Randy David)
Politicians who are projecting the 2010 elections as a battle of good versus evil are resorting to political moralizing, and are in danger of misleading our people especially if they reduce the root of the "evil" to one person or family, and obscure the systemic nature and the inter-generational persistence of our unsatisfactory national condition.
The primary root of our inter-generational poverty and inequality of opportunities is the enduring oligarchic system of rent-seeking families among whom are families that control media empires that prefer to entertain and sensationalize rather than provide balanced reports and validated information, and which seem to be excited to portray 2010 as a dramatic showdown between good and evil. Political moralizing is an easy but foolish attempt to raise our citizenry to a higher level of motivation and action. Let us resist this oversimplification of our national condition.

For Optional Bloc Voting in 2010

Optional bloc voting in the 2010 elections is one of the practical and easy ways to strengthen the political party system, and thus strengthen democracy, in the Philippines. Optional bloc voting entails that the design of the election ballot will allow a voter who wants to vote for all the national candidates of a particular party from president, vice-president, to the 12 senators to simply mark a box corresponding to the party. Since this is optional, those who still want to mix the candidates of different parties can do so by shading the boxes in front of their names in the long ballot for the automated elections.
Optional bloc voting will make voting easier for those who do vote straight for a party's national candidates, and will make the counting easier, as long as the counting machines are programmed properly. More importantly, optional bloc voting will encourage the candidates to actively campaign for their parties and to take their party platforms seriously. Thus it will strengthen party discipline, loyalty, and teamwork.
Yesterday, I asked Comelec Chair Jose Melo about the possibility of optional bloc voting in the coming elections, and he said that it would require a law and it did not seem feasible because of insufficient time plus its negative baggage because it was practiced during the 1978 Interim Batasang Pambansa (Transitional National Parliament) elections in which Ninoy Aquino and the Laban candidates were cheated and the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (New Society Movement) of the Marcos dictatorship swept the polls.
Chair Melo might be unaware that bloc voting was practiced during the Commonwealth period before the Second World War, and it is practiced with favorable results in some current democracies. Even though I believe that, strictly speaking, a new law is not required for the Comelec to design the ballot to facilitate optional bloc voting, Congress might have to pass a law in order to obligate the Comelec to offer the option to voters. Conscientious citizens should clamor both Congress and the Comelec to offer Filipinos this option so we can strengthen our democracy. The return of optional bloc voting can be considered one of the priorities for parties today.