The triumph of politics over policy

In two recent reports on the Philippine elections in May, the Washington Post and Time magazine offer the disquieting observation that our election campaigns raise a lot of excitement and expectation among the people while they last, but once the balloting is over, it’s one long descent into failed hopes and decline.

Blaine Harden of the Post writes that in the Philippines “pre-vote largess doesn’t translate into post-vote progress.” Filipino politicians have “a history of stiffing the poor, coddling the rich and rewarding themselves.” And he quotes an economist from the University of Asia and the Pacific who says, “The social conscience of the elite in this country is wanting. The richest people who are involved in politics don’t want to pay their taxes.”

Ishaan Tharoor of Time observes, “From being the second richest country in Asia in the 1950s, the Philippines has dropped to [become] among the continent’s poorest and least dynamic.” He quotes an expert who has monitored the country for over 30 years, who says, “There is a lack of seriousness in the political leadership – institutions are dominated by an uncaring wealthy class.” While noting that the frontrunner Noynoy Aquino and his rivals have spoken about eradicating graft and corruption, Tharoor writes that they “are going up against a problem that is hard-wired into the country’s politics – one whose American-style democracy echoes the cutthroat days of Tammany Hall and whose hacienda culture of feudal oligarchs would seem familiar to much of Latin America.”

We could say that these reports are typical of the way Western media has always covered events and developments in our country: superficial, pessimistic and dismissive of even the more positive developments in national life.

But there’s also a significant reason why the current election campaign is being read so dimly by foreign eyes. It’s because so little that has to do with policy is being discussed. Everything has been superseded by politics. The candidates and the parties don’t bother to spell out policy agendas; they’re all about tactics in winning the propaganda war. What passes for policy is making motherhood statements about national problems and issues.

Neglect of policy

The idea that politics has totally trumped policy in the campaign is evident if we examine the record of the last 30 days. The stories that made it to the front pages of newspapers and the news on TV were:

• Manny Villar’s alleged misrepresentation of his impoverished boyhood according to the camp of Noynoy Aquino

• Two psychiatric reports on the psychological and mental fitness of Noynoy for the Presidency that have been denounced as bogus

• The coverage of Gilbert Teodoro’s campaign in terms of how Lakas politicians are leaving his ship or staying put, never in terms of what he can do as president

• The nightmarish endorsement of Noynoy by Andal Ampatuan Jr.

• The expose by former President Estrada and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile of Villar’s alleged bullying of the Philippine Stock Exchange and Securities and Exchange Commission that later turned out to be a dud

• The periodic and frequent announcement of the latest survey results that seemingly have narrowed down the presidential race to just Aquino and Villar, and the dismissal of the others as lost

• The news that Kris Aquino’s son blurted out the name “Villar” at a campaign rally for his Uncle Noynoy

• The endless braying that the automated elections will fail and that a parallel manual count should be made by the Commission on Elections

One strains to find in the record for some evidence that the candidates and the parties are exerting themselves to come up with policy ideas to address issues of great national concern, and to use those ideas to appeal to the electorate. One gets the impression that nobody has bothered to talk of policy because there is really none. The candidate will cross that bridge when they win the election, not before.

It is striking, for example, that when the Joint Foreign Chambers presented some two weeks ago their wide-ranging policy recommendations for putting the Philippines into the front ranks of emerging economies, not a single presidential candidate bothered to take note or comment. And yet these guys were saying that it is perfectly possible for the country to raise $75 billion in foreign direct investments and 10 million new jobs over a period of 10 years, if we can put the necessary reforms in place.

Our election campaigns focus on politics and not on policy because the assumption is that policy ideas would sail over the vast majority of voters. Those who are interested in policy are too few.

Hostage to fortune

 And yet it’s pretty plain that unless the presidential candidates concern themselves with the issues of far-reaching import, the next administration and the next six years would be one huge question mark.

For example, the Asian Development Bank has recently reported that the Philippines is the only country in Southeast Asia where the absolute number of poor people has increased since 1990. And yet the economy had been growing steadily for about 5.5 percent per year until the onset of the global recession. Clearly, it’s because of our policymakers that poverty, hunger and income inequality have increased along with growth.

National spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product on health care, public education and farm services has declined over time. A third of our people still depend on agriculture for a living, yet investment on farm-to-market roads and other basic infrastructure has fallen.

It’s been estimated that “tax evasion deprives the government of about a third of its annual operating revenue, crippling the state’s capacity to pay down debts or invest in infrastructure that would increase productivity and improve living standards.” But I have yet to hear one presidential candidate spell out his policy on improving tax collections.

In terms of power to effect change, the Philippine presidency is one of the most powerful in the world. He/she has more power than President Obama or Prime Minister Gordon Brown. As constitutionally written, the office has great reach and power to shape government policy, and to execute once policy is made.

It is this power that makes so many of us lament why all these years Government has been so ineffective in revving up the economy and getting the nation going.

It is this power that moves top businessmen to invest in presidential candidates, sometimes not just one but several, in order to secure favorable treatment from the next administration.

It is logical, in short, that the May presidential election should raise expectations across the land because of the would-be president’s capacity to affect what the country can become. But the way we are going about selecting him – the missed chances for examining what each candidate will do in office – is leaving the nation hostage to fortune.