Third force

There are intermittent reports of one or the other political faction trying to initiate what they prefer to call a "Third Force."

The fact that it is being called a "Third Force" strikes me as an admission of weakness. It concedes to the ragtag band of residual pro-Estrada politicians the position of being the primary challenger to the awesome political force being assembled by the ruling coalition.

It seems to be that the politicians behind the effort have conceded to an inferior place in the order of battle – way before the battlefield has been defined and the forces arrayed against each other adequately measured.

Historical precedent is quite unkind to third forces that have tried to break the dynamic of bi-factionalism in Philippine politics. All such "third forces" – most memorably the Manglapus-Manahan ticket that contested the 1965 elections – have been roundly trounced in all previous elections.

Pro-administration tacticians scored early by defining the forthcoming contest as yet another round in the never-ending political melodrama between former president Joseph Estrada and the incumbent Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The latter has won every previous round: the 2001 turnover, the Supreme Court cases establishing the constitutionality of what had happened, the so-called Edsa Tres incident, the electoral contest with Estrada proxy Fernando Poe Jr., the two preceding senatorial contests and the two impeachment efforts.

The main pro-Estrada personalities have unavoidably cooperated in that prejudicial characterization of looming contest. Frantically attempting to hold on to the semblance of being the rallying point of the anti-administration forces, they have convened news conferences centered around old and discredited politicians from the Estrada period.

Although they have tried to capture media attention by announcing one list of senatorial contenders and revising it the next day, stoking speculation about who might be in that list and who will be excluded, there is little evidence that the pro-Estrada politicians have invested any effort in building a party ready to do battle in the next few months. They are trying to sustain a specter without supporting it with an organization that will function when the pressures of an electoral campaign kick in.

It seems everyone in this camp is waiting for the detained former president to release a substantial war chest for this effort to get going. That did not happen during the Poe campaign. It does not seem likely that will happen now.

Last year, the pro-Estrada politicians were telling all naïve enough to listen that the forthcoming electoral contest will be a referendum on the Macapagal-Arroyo presidency. That, of course, is unlikely. There is no single major policy issue – like the Iraq War during last year’s midterm elections in the US – that could compel voter polarization.

Philippine elections have been about political clans at the local level and high name-recall at the national level. There is nothing earthshaking enough to throw our electoral politics off those tracks.

Besides, all the contrived issues raised during the two impeachment efforts since July 2005 have thinned out. They have lost whatever grip they had on the public imagination.

And so, while the properly retired politicians sitting around the Erap campfire wait for some money to materialize from either Estrada’s or Jojo Binay’s coffers, there is nothing other than revived recriminations happening on the ground. At one time it was announced that former vice-president Tito Guingona will lead the "opposition" senatorial ticket. The next day, apparently because of dissension from within the hard-core Erap loyalists, his name disappeared.

During one press conference that was supposed to be an opportunity for the pro-Estrada "opposition" to show strength and a breadth of alliances, one spokesman from the FPJ presidential campaign stood up and announced his group would withdraw if Sen. Francis Pangilinan was included in the senatorial ticket. That appeared to be a signal event.

All those outside the administration tent (but uncomfortable in boarding the sputtering pro-Estrada train) seeking elective office in the next elections began a more visible effort at putting up a "third force." At the core of this effort are those who threw in their political stock with Sen. Franklin Drilon and found themselves in the political wilderness as a result.

Add to this core the wife of the late Sen. Raul Roco who announced her candidacy for the Senate, although the event created few ripples. Add those who are casting an eye out for the possible impact of the CBCP’s announcement that church would be mounting a massive "voter education" campaign this year.

And, finally, add those with personal issues about joining the pro-administration ticket. These issues have nothing to do with policy positions. They have everything to do with personal comfort in the company of other people likely to be in the administration senatorial ticket.

Add all of them up and what we have is something better called an Alliance of the Inconvenient.

These are the guys who were highly visible in the impeachment movement against Estrada and now find it inconvenient to be in a pro-Erap slate. These are the guys who called on President Macapagal-Arroyo to resign and could not now conveniently take their place in the pro-administration senatorial ticket.

In a word, it is inconvenient for them to be on one or the other side.

To ease their inconvenience, they try to imagine that there is a constituency out there that is unwilling to restore the Estrada boys to power and yet also unwilling to work it out with the incumbent President. That constituency might be a revival of the old Cory Aquino coalition, the civil society networks and those that might be moved by advisories emanating from the Catholic bishops.

This Alliance of the Inconvenient might share the common feature of being repelled by either the administration or the pro-Estrada camp. But, apart from that feature, what will hold them together?

That seems to be the biggest hurdle for those trying to assemble an amorphous coalition now being labeled a "third force": the challenge of having an affirmative definition of what they are and what, in heaven’s name they stand for.