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.

Doy Laurel's Ordeal

Perhaps the most painful ordeal in Salvador H. Laurel's political life arose from the broken promises of Corazon C. Aquino very early in her presidency. When on 11 December 1985 she agreed to run under the banner of the UNIDO party, which Laurel organized and led, she promised him that he would be the Prime Minister (under the 1973 Constitution) and that he would be closely consulted for most of the Cabinet appointments. Instead, from the first few months of her presidency, a Palace "cordon sanitaire" gradually and systematically denied him access to her. She also refused to be identified with the UNIDO right after assuming the presidency.
Here is an excerpt from the 13 August 1988 Open Letter that Vice-President Doy sent to President Cory and which concluded with his announcement that he was completely disassociating himself from her administration:
"Despite my limited access to you, I tried to focus your attention on the need for a well-defined program of government. Such a program was made available to you by UNIDO from the very start when it made you its presidential candidate. But in total disregard of all political norms, you completely ignored the party platform, refused to acknowledge your obligations to the party that sponsored your bid for power, and tolerated all open or underhanded assaults against it.
"If I have held my peace until now in spite of your decision to ignore me altogether and to listen instead only to the counsel of those whose political, economic and social interests are more congruent with your own, it is because my sense of responsibility for the new government goes much farther back in time. It was I who, although already nominated for President by the UNIDO National Convention in June 1985, offered you, not a million signatures on a petition, but a solid pre-existing political party with nationwide roots and structures that would assure you of victory and a chance to fulfill the hopes and dreams of our suffering people.
"While I accept my share of moral responsibility for having helped place your administration in power, that responsibility must be proportionate to the actual opportunity given to participate in the decision-making process. That opportunity was close to zero."

Salvador 'Doy' Laurel: Missed Statesman

Today is the 6th death anniversary of a Filipino patriot and statesman, Salvador 'Doy' Laurel (1928-2004), who served his country as National Centennial Commission Chairman (1994-1998), Vice-President of the Republic (1986-1992), Assemblyman (1978-1983) and Senator (1967-1972). Doy & Ninoy Aquino were best friends from childhood and entered Congress together.
In a testimony written by Lupita Kashiwahara, Ninoy's sister, one reads:
"Doy and Ninoy served together in the Philippine Senate. Those were the glory years of intelligent, articulate discourse. Can you imagine being in the Senate gallery, listening to those two giants of Philippine politics debating the critical issues of the time? The Senate has not been the same since.
"During martial law, Doy established UNIDO [United Nationalist Democratic Organization], the leading opposition party to [Ferdinand] Marcos. And when Ninoy decided to end his self-imposed exile and return home, Doy took charge of his homecoming.
"In a quiet moment during the turmoil that followed Ninoy's murder, Doy, I was told, cried. Doy the bon vivant, the life of a party, the fierce Batangueno, was a caring and sensitive human being. He felt our pain and his own. We had lost a loved one and so had he."
In the testimony of a loyal friend, Raul M. Gonzalez, Doy "fought valiantly together with other freedom-loving Filipinos during the darkest hours of our democracy, earning the ire of the then martial law regime."
These testimonies and those of many others can be read in the beautiful coffee table book, "Doy Laurel," put together by his talented & devoted widow Celia Diaz-Laurel and published in 2005. His life, ideas, and writings can also be read in the newly launched website: www.doylaurel.com
One my fondest memories of Ninong Doy, who was a main sponsor at my wedding, was the dinner he & Tita Celia hosted for me and my fiancee, Deeda, and our parents, Raul and Pacita Gonzalez and Oscar and Alice Villadolid in December 2002. Ninong Doy & Tita Celia were perfect hosts, and he personally prepared and served us his delicious specialty, Sukiyaki.
May the spirit of Doy Laurel cheer us & sustain us to "help those who cannot help themselves" and to love country above oneself.

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.

Popular Culture and Elections

An election is not only regarded as a legitimate way to choose a political leader in the Philippines but also enjoyed as a spectator sport or a game of chance. The popularity of the game of chance as an activity and symbol is linked to the folk belief that life itself is an adventure or a risky undertaking: Ang buhay ay isang pakikipagsapalaran. Thus, for many of those who want to become overseas Filipino workers, the desire for adventure comes as a close second to the desire for economic improvement. They might have grown tired, too, of the age-old adventure of life on these islands with its generous share of sunshine, rain, typhoons, volcanoes, earthquake faults, floods, flawed laws, and flawed officials. There are few places on earth where all these can happen in a year: the sun dries the rice, lava snaps trees, ash falls and pours, storms level homes, waves and floods drown, and laws catch only small fish and flies but no crocodiles.

Popular culture has to be taken into account by those who want to become elective public servants in a democracy. Popular culture comprises traditions, expressions, and sentiments “common to the general public that in the Philippines is the Filipino masa” (Felice P. Sta. Maria). Multi-awarded journalist Sheila Coronel wrote in a 2004 PCIJ study on lawmakers: “Those who rule must be able to clothe their power with the cloak of legitimacy by tapping into popular belief or ideology. The most successful political families have been able to do this” (The Rulemakers, 84).

An example is the Payumo family, which has ruled the town of Dinalupihan, Bataan, after the ouster of the Marcoses in 1986. Its most prominent member is Felicito ‘Tong’ Payumo, an engineer-industrialist who became a three-term member of the House of Representatives from the Eighth to the Tenth Congress, before he became chairman of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority for six years. Like many successful politicians, he has used expressions that resonate with the masses.

For instance, in a miting de avance in San Isidro village, Dinalupihan, during the 1992 electoral campaign, Payumo asked the crowd to vote for his team of candidates para tuloy-tuloy ang daloy ng biyaya mula sa itaas hanggang sa baba (so that grace will flow freely from high above to down below). “Biyaya” is a Tagalog term used in both official and popular religion to refer to grace as a gift or help from God, who is usually pictured as dwelling in the heavens above. It is also widely believed that the gift or help reaches the recipient through a mediator like a patron saint. Payumo also referred to Lucy, his sister-in-law, then the mayor running for re-election, as a mother not only to her children, but to her constituents as well.

In January 2007, boxing legend Manny Pacquiao announced over national television that he would run for Congressman of the 1^st District of South Cotabato, which includes his hometown of General Santos City, “upang maging tulay” (to serve as a bridge) to link the poor of his district with the national government in Metro-Manila. He lost to the 2^nd-term incumbent, Darlene Antonino Custodio, a member of the Antonino political dynasty of South Cotabato and whose father, mother, grandfather, and grandmother had been members of Congress.

In general, the cultural tendency of the masses to seek mediators, patrons, and parent-like authority figures is understood better by traditional politicians and members of political dynasties than by reform-minded citizens out to challenge them. Similarly, according to Joel Rocamora, “those who exploit the peasantry are more adept at the rituals and the languages of peasant communities than those who would defend them.”

A sufficient grasp of popular culture, which is part of the intangible heritage passed on within a political dynasty, helps ensure electoral victory, besides the considerable resources of the dynasty to maintain a patronage system. As they are raised and socialized, the offspring of political clans become familiar with the language and practices of the prevalent political culture, and they “get used to a retinue of followers and to entertaining ward leaders and favor seekers” (Rulemakers, 59).

In some locales, dynasties allocate resources for bribing election personnel and hiring goons to intimidate voters and inflict violence on opponents. Perhaps unlike the phenomenon of warlords or brutish bosses among some governors and mayors, the PCIJ study on legislators says: “the so-called warlords in Congress, politicians who keep armed goons and terrorize their constituents, have largely died out” (Rulemakers, 48).

For example, the descendants of Ramon Durano Sr. of Danao City in Cebu, and Ali Dimaporo of the Lanao provinces, specifically Tourism Secretary ‘Ace’ Durano and Lanao del Norte Representative Abdullah Dimaporo, have cosmopolitan manners and high educational credentials and have gone beyond the crude coercive ways of their fathers. “In part, this is because they did not have to muscle their way to power as their fathers and grandfathers did. The descendants inherited the political base and the electoral machine put in place by their fathers.” (Rulemakers, 48)

While congressional warlords are mostly gone, the reality of political dynasties is not on the verge of dying out, as this description from the same PCIJ study shows:

“In the Eighth Congress, the first post-Marcos legislature, 61 percent or 122 of 198 representatives were from political clans….In the 12^th Congress, which was elected in 2001, 61 percent or 140 of 228 representatives came from political clans. In the 11^th House, it was 62 percent. If the percentages are computed without the party-list representatives, however, the numbers increase to 65 percent for the 11^th House and 66 percent for the 12^th.” (Rulemakers, 47)

In my review of the 216 single-district representatives of the House in the 14^th Congress, a sizeable 69 percent, or 150 representatives, are from political clans.

Dynasties can spend so much to keep themselves in power. Says PCIJ: “A congressional campaign in 2004, according to campaign insiders, can cost up to P30 million in Metro Manila. In rural areas, the price tag is much less: P10 million on average, although campaigns can be run for P3 million or less in smaller districts where the competition is not too intense.” (Rulemakers, 86) In this light, reform-oriented citizens who are not members of political clans find the pursuit of an elective office difficult, distasteful, and demoralizing; thus, many of them become cynical about Philippine elections, politics, and democracy, and surrender electoral politics to traditional politicians by default.

State and Family in the Philippines

To Alfred McCoy, a historian and observer of Philippine politics, our republic is a “weak post-colonial state” where “the interaction between powerful rent-seeking families and a correspondingly weak Philippine state has been synergistic” (An Anarchy of Families, 19). This essentially means that these families and their rivalries have been both cause and effect of our weak State.

Over the years, beginning with the 1907 Philippine Assembly elections under the tutelage of the United States, members of provincial families who have risen to national offices have used their positions to obtain “rents” or economic values through government regulations, permits, or low-interest loans that give their families an artificial advantage, special access, or even a monopoly over the markets of goods like sugar and copra, and services like banking and broadcasting.

The Lopezes of Iloilo, for example, have shown how business and politics can mix and feed off each other. In the period between World War II and the Marcos dictatorship, Eugenio Lopez Sr (1901-1975) became a successful entrepreneur who controlled several large corporations including the Manila Electric Company and ABS-CBN, among the nation’s top broadcasting networks. His brother Fernando (1904-1993) became mayor of Iloilo City, a senator, and then vice-president for three terms.

“Fernando’s political success afforded Eugenio access to government contracts for his business concerns. Indeed, this symbiosis of political influence and corporate growth was a key factor in Eugenio’s spectacular rise from provincial bus operator to the Philippines’ most powerful entrepreneur in only a quarter of a century.” (Anarchy of Families, 447)

This practice of rent-seeking that has persisted to this day has decreased public resources, degraded the political impartiality of the civil service, and diminished accountability, competence, and efficiency among public officials and employees. Whether rich or poor, families in the Philippines are clannish and tend to give greater premium to family loyalty than patriotism. As a result, “we imagine ourselves foremost as brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers of our families instead of as citizens of a nation” (Arnold Alamon).

Compared to family and friends, government, especially at the national level, is remote and distant to many of the rural and urban poor. Even when national officials happen to be honest and efficient, kith and kin are nearer, dearer, and more reliable when it comes to fulfilling one’s needs and wants. The kinship network is relied upon for employment, money, medical help, education, and socialization, among others, especially in hard times.

More importantly, according to McCoy, the family strives to pass on to the next generation its “name, honor, lands, capital, and values.” The kinship network even expands to include acquaintances, peers, and superiors with whom one can be bound through rituals of initiation like baptism with its potentially numerous sponsors, kumpares and kumares.

Democracy and the Catholic Church in the Philippines

A major cause of the weak sense of nationhood among many Filipinos is the historical connection between the Roman Catholic Church, the country’s dominant religious institution, and the colonial powers. To both the political and religious rulers of Spain, it was important that the Philippine Islands, named after the absolute monarch Philip II (1556-1598), be colonized and evangelized at the same time. The Spanish missionaries and friars blessed and legitimized the colonial enterprise. In turn, the colonial Church gained from the Spanish crown martial protection, support for its missionary efforts, resources for constructing churches, control over colonial education, and large estates from which much wealth was derived.

Spanish Catholicism was accepted by the natives partly because it reaffirmed their belief in the necessity of intermediaries in bridging the distance to the supreme deity. The primary structure of intermediation was maintained even though functional substitutions occurred: the saints and angels replaced the ancestral spirits or anitos, while the Catholic priest replaced the native shaman or babaylan. Thus, from the colonial period down to our times, most priests, ordinary devotees, and their popular devotions highlight the powers of the mother of Jesus and the saints as patrons, intercessors, or intermediaries more than their virtues of courage, wisdom, justice, and integrity.

Bishops tend to give great importance to intermediary power and undemocratic hierarchical authority partly because of their inherent duty to be guardians of the Roman Catholic tradition. Conservative pastors predominate in an institution that asserts the apostolic authority of the bishops and the primacy of the Pope. Yet there have been turning points and conjunctions in the history of the Church when, even for brief periods, the Church became both conservative and radical. Locally, one such turning point was the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) in 1991.

With the participation of selected priests, religious, and lay leaders, the bishops at PCP II asserted that, for genuine and lasting social transformation, “people empowerment” is necessary—implying “greater involvement in decision-making, greater equality in both political and economic matters, more democracy, and more participation” (PCP II Conciliar Document nos. 325-326). Nearly two decades after PCP II, however, it remains unclear to what extent the hierarchical Church is a genuine democratizing force in society.

Today, the hierarchy remains undemocratic in that its members—the clergy—are selected in a process with little participation from the laity, who form the great majority in the Church. Also, the clergy tend to be secretive about the assets and liabilities of dioceses, religious institutes, their schools, and their hospitals. Likewise, some Church organizations do not practice what is preached about the dignity of human work and the rights of workers to just remuneration and to “participative management” in which workers are involved in decision-making.

While the Church decrees that “bishops, priests, and religious must refrain from partisan politics” (PCP Decrees Art. 28 #2), and teaches that the laity, and not the clergy, ought to be at the forefront of the task to renew the political community in accordance with gospel values, some high-profile clerics and religious exempt themselves from these precepts. The late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin (1928-2005) had been criticized for sometimes acting more like a political power broker than a prudent moral teacher. To journalist and public relations practitioner Ramon Isberto, the Cardinal “always appeared to relish his role as mediator, go-between, and king maker or unmaker.”

In December 2006, Novaliches Bishop Antonio Tobias publicly called on soldiers “to defend the Constitution” by joining the “prayer rally” against Charter Change to be held at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila, and organized mainly by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. By issuing mostly moralistic or morally judgmental statements against the proponents of Charter Change, several bishops have not helped clarify the complex and muddled issue of the strengths and weaknesses of the 1987 Constitution.

Both Church and State have contributed to the weakness of democracy and patriotism in the country. As sociologist Arnold Alamon puts it: “The State and religion, the two institutions whose primary function is to forge social solidarity, have repeatedly failed in this task owing to their colonial origins. Instead, we continue to draw our moral identities from our clan memberships which served as our pre-colonial moral and political communities.”