Torn and frayed in Manila

Manny Villar and the limits of spin

“They should not underestimate the intelligence of the masa. Marunong na sila (They have already learned),” Estrada said.

Back in January I attended a talk by Manuel Quezon on Philippine political image making. He showed how the construction of the presidential myth had changed over the years, from being based primarily on personal appearances at mass rallies towards remorseless media presence, particularly on television.

He charted this process with an impressive range of data, leading up to the campaigns of the two leading candidates for the presidency in the early stages of the 2010 campaign, Aquino and Villar. After hearing of Villar’s much catchier campaign song, his wall-to-wall commercials, his bottomless pockets, and the fading impact of the death of Cory Aquino on her son’s campaign, I am sure most of the audience walked out into the night feeling that an ascendant Villar was destined to overtake Aquino shortly before the election. The spinmeisters had timed it perfectly and a tidal wave of TV infomercials would carry the man from Tondo to Malacanang.

February’s Social Weather Stations poll seemed to confirm this trend as Villar (34%) moved to within two points of Arroyo (36%) and overtook him among class E voters (see the Social Weather station charts in the media release of 11 March here).

However that was the last piece of good news for Manny. From then on Aquino’s second wind saw his curve flatten out and then start to rise. On 10 May it appears Aquino appears to have received 40% of the votes, Estrada made a last minute surge to finish in second place with 26%, while voters deserted Villar in droves and he failed to break through 20% (these are still estimates). Villar conceded less than a day after the polls closed (for which, incidentally, he deserves credit).

What happened to Many Villar’s campaign?

Talking to (not “at” or “down to”) the poor is a tricky business. Villar’s personal rags-to-riches narrative was pushed at every opportunity, but making poverty seem like a hell-hole is not always going to be attractive with people who are smart enough to know they are destined to remain there for the rest of their lives. His campaign slogan “Nakaligo ka na ba sa dagat ng basura (Have you swum in an ocean of garbage)?" proved controversial as at least some voters found the idea that they would let their children swim in garbage insulting.

In the end, class E voters preferred Erap’s jokey bonhomie to Villar’s depiction of them as sewer rats.

It’s also possible that the saturation point for Manny’s Ondoy-like flood of ads was reached too early; while he was the only person showing up on screens from December to February, survey respondents were happy to tick his box. However, as other, fresher, messages churned up the waters, Manny’s initial appeal seems to have dissipated.

Finally, there was the air of untrustworthiness that Villar never seemed to be able to shake off. The issues that arose in the last few months of the campaign about his shady role in the C5 extension road and whether he was really as poor as he claimed probably did for the his middle-class support. While only a tiny percentage of voters actually read Winnie Monsod’s articles and videos on these subjects, such criticisms have a strange way of permeating through the body politic.

So farewell then President Villar. You brought the largest pot to the meanest game in town and ended up busted. Ouch. Oh well, at least your well-funded but unsuccessful campaign demonstrated that unlimited cash and spin aren’t everything. That’s good news.

Police harassment of visiting OFW

Almost every week someone or other pops up and describes the 7 million Philippine overseas workers as "heroes" or "saviors." Words are cheap. Here's a story of how the country rewarded one "hero" on her return to the Philippines (from The nut box, via Sparks)

When my mother went to the Philippines to attend the graduation ceremony of my sister and to seek the opinion of Filipino doctors on her mild cancer two weeks ago, she had no idea she was in for the shock of her life. Last April 14, my mother went to visit a friend named Janet who lives in a slum area in Tandang Sora, Quezon City. That friend owes my mother some thousands, which my mother decided to collect because she needs money for her medication. My mother was accompanied by an old friend, Maximo Gabriel. At around twelve noon, just when my mother and Gabriel were about to leave Janet’s place, two plain-clothed policemen- one called Allan and another named Mar Palic- approached them, accusing them of drug possession. My mother and her friends aghastly denied this, and before the two cops could search them they showed their bags to the police officers and emptied their pockets to show that there was nothing incriminating inside. Still, the cops “invited” them for questioning. “Sumama kayo sa amin (Come with us),” said the cops.

Continues here.

Dumb diplomacy

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative. John Stuart Mill

The British Tory party has long been known as the “stupid party” and we didn’t have to wait long for its essential dimness to reveal itself.

Speaking to the Times, the new defence secretary Liam Fox spluttered that Britain was:

"not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country".

Let’s break that down.

Presumably the reference to “education policy” means Britain should not have a broader state-building agenda in Afghanistan, its goals should be purely military.

That was the initial approach of the coalition forces in Afghanistan and it has failed utterly, forcing many ordinary Afghanis into the arms of the Taliban. Military and development experts who know a lot more about Afghanistan than the bellicose Fox are united in their view that success on the battlefield is dependent on creating a viable state that is more attractive to Afghanis than the alternative offered by the enemy. The case was well made by Britain’s new international development secretary while flying to Afghanistan on a British mission (which Fox is also a part of):

Speaking on the flight to Afghanistan, the international development secretary appeared to contradict Dr Fox today. "We need to ensure that we help the Afghan people to build a functioning state," he said. "That's about providing basic education and healthcare facilities. But it's also about ensuring that there are opportunities for promoting livelihoods, that people have jobs.

Quite.

Fox’s reference to one of Britain’s key allies as a “13th-century country" could not be more revealing of Tory attitudes towards foreigners. You don’t have to be a Marxist to see Fox’s ignorant and offensive remark as evidence that the British Tory party has made no progress whatsoever from its jingoistic 19th century roots.

This week’s runner up for dumb diplomacy is another conservative, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Commenting on the report by international experts into the sinking of a South Korean warship in March the Amazonian secretary of state declared:

Let me clear: this will not be and cannot be business as usual.

Meaning what? By “business as usual” Clinton presumably means the largely successful policy of containment that has been followed for many years in response to the problem posed by North Korea. If not “business as usual,” then what? If she is to be taken seriously, presumably Clinton means military and economic measures against the North, steps that could easily lead to a rapid escalation of tensions and possibly war, given the unpredictability of the regime in the North. But perhaps we shouldn’t take her seriously—probably this general threat by Clinton is just bullshit, designed to make her and her sinking superpower sound tough. Let’s just hope Kim Jong-Il sees it that way.

Does the Philippines need a strongman?

A friend just pointed me to Josh Weinstein’s interesting blog on development in the Philippines. The subtitle of his most recent post on the recent election is “the case for a strongman.”

His main point of comparison is China, where in the last 25 years an authoritarian government has managed to raise an incredible 600 million people from poverty. During the same period the Philippines has puttered along, one step forward and two steps backward, with a political class growing bloated on public funds and poverty levels rising to 40% of the population.

In the most recent World Bank Ease of Doing Business Survey, the Philippines lies in 144th place (out of 183), behind all other Southeast Asian countries apart from Cambodia and Laos, both, interestingly, run by “strongmen.” This pitiful ranking, below 20 African countries and Iran (yup, it is easier to set up shop in Ahmadinejad’s Tehran than Arroyo’s Manila), surely drives a stake through Gloria’s claims to have improved the economy during her 9 long years in power. Incidentally, for the category “starting a business” the Philippines does even worse, it is 162 out of 183, a position among the world’s “failed states” that will not surprise anyone who has tried to hack their way through the tangled mess of licences required to start the smallest business here.

While the outgoing president has bragged of her achievements, the bare minimum has been spent on education, health, or infrastructure, again in marked contrast to China.

The results of last week’s election, though not the worst possible by a long way, don’t offer hope for an immediate escape from this wearying cycle of political stasis and economic decline. The president-elect, while personally clean, has a very limited record of achievement; the 12 new or re-elected senators are, by and large, clowns; congressmen and women are already showing much more interest in the spoils of office than in passing legislation to develop the country; the new chief justice was appointed under dubious circumstances, apparently with the main objective of keeping the person who appointed him out of jail … given all this, is it any wonder there is a desire to sweep away all this malfunctioning political machinery with one sweep of a strongman’s arm?

Except of course that the Philippines has already felt the lash of the strongman’s arm. Josh Weinstein points out that:

… if you ask a lot of Filipinos who was the best of the last five presidents, many will still say Marcos. He had some positive-minded reforms, despite helping himself and his cronies to the treasury of the country. And, at the very least, he could get things done, which is more than can be said about the current political system.

I guess he is right that you can find people who look back wistfully to the days of a man who could “get things done.” There may even be something in the claim of Blas Ople, the Secretary of Labour under Marcos, that the Philippines’ infrastructure was largely built during the first Marcos administration. But overall, I don’t see how it could be argued that the thousands of dissidents killed or imprisoned (3,257 killed, 35,000 tortured, and 70,000 incarcerated, as estimated by Alfred McCoy), the suspension of democracy during over 10 years of martial law, or the nepotism and breath-taking corruption of the last 20 years of Marcos could possibly form a model for the future.

A much better example would be the Ramos administration from 1992 to 1998, a period of political stability and economic growth. Ramos helped to deregulate the nation's major industries and put in place a more business-friendly culture than has existed before or since. One of his greatest achievements was to forge a workable political compromise in Mindanao. Ramos wasn’t perfect or free from the taint of the corruption himself (as in the AMARI and Fort Bonifacio deals), but he left his successor with a decent platform on which to build. Unfortunately, his successor was Erap.

The Philippines has to get itself back to 1998 and start again. By the end of the second Aquino presidency in 2016, the Philippines will not be an economic powerhouse, but doesn’t have to be a basket case either. The country has many advantages, a hardworking and creative people, a democratic structure, a nascent but rapidly growing call center and back office sector, vast remittances, enormous untapped tourist potential, and so on. Although Noynoy’s own record is limited, his administration promises to be progressive in tone. Many of the “Hyatt 10” who deserted the leaky Arroyo galleon will be back. Dinky Soliman has already agreed to return to her old post at the Department of Social Welfare. I am hopeful that Bill Luz will return to the Department of Education, possibly as Secretary.

If I can rouse myself from my blogging lethargy, I’ll try to talk about some of these specific areas of potential in the next few weeks. Despite everything, I am full of hope that the Philippines is wobbling back on track after 12 wasted years. It will need plenty of strong men and women to support it over the next 6 years, but no strongmen please.

Election day, Manila,10 May 2010

It is 7.30pm and Comelec already has some official precinct results. The first consolidated results are due at 9pm. Fantastic really, especially after all the doom-mongering that has been going on for the last few months.

I’m not cracking open the Tanduay 8 Años yet, since as everyone says, under the old system the cheating occurred at the consolidation stage. Nevertheless, as the CNN reporter just said: “All in all it has gone fairly well.”

That is brilliant news.

The eager Filipino

However early you get to the airport for a Manila-bound flight you will never, ever, beat your Filipino fellow passengers. You won’t even be among the first 50 passengers to show up at check-in.

Something of the same mentality was evident today at the crowded precincts all over the country this morning. The Filipino’s natural get-there-first instincts combined with the novelty of the new PCOS gadgets and fear over the anticipated technical glitches led to huge crowds at precinct offices almost everywhere.

There were failures of some machines, apparently 300—400 broke down during the course of the day, but the main reason for the enormous queues was simply that voters were not spread evenly over the course of the day.

Fort Bonifacio High School, Makati at about 6pm: Quieter than this morning but plenty of voters

Take East Rembo Elementary School in Makati, where my driver spent five and a half sweaty hours this morning waiting to cast his vote for Nicky Perlas. I returned there with him after work and the school was relatively quiet, with voters making it through in just over an hour.

"Holding area" at East Rembo School, Makati at about 6pm: This morning voters had to wait here for up to two and a half hours

Mixed Fortunes

The amount of time taken to vote varied enormously. Not surprisingly, the precincts in poorer areas were the scene of the longest queues, 6 hours for a friend’s maid in Caloocan was the longest I heard of. And of course those in the villages did not exactly suffer (although a friend in Dasma did turn back when she saw the queues).

Yet the quickest votes were cast by friends outside the villages; a friend in Mandaluyong, Barangay Plainview, took only 10 minutes. Frayed in Malate claimed it took her 2 minutes!

Rage Against the Machine

All in all about 400 machines broke down, some because they were “too hot.” In Masbate two PCOS machine apparently caught fire ...

Having said that, it seems that most of the machines were either replaced or fixed well before the close of polling, so fair play to Smartmatic for that.

The famous PCOS in action

Rough hands cause voter failure

There was a lovely explanation for low voter turnout from an election official in Maguindano in answer to Ricky Carangdang asking why, out of 901 voters in the precinct, only 350 voted. Our official’s answer? Voters found it difficult to shade in the ovals because their hands were too rough. They were more used to holding ploughs. On further probing, it turned out that a bomb had exploded about 25 meters from the voting booth this morning.

UK election 2010: everyone’s a loser babe

Damn voters!

You wouldn’t think it possible, but all three main parties lost in last Thursday’s UK general election.

Labour got hammered, losing 81 seats, mainly to the Tories.

The Liberal Democrats actually lost 5 seats, despite the surge of optimism when they briefly overtook Labour in second place in the polls only two and half weeks ago.

Even the Tories, who gained 87 seats, fought a poorly focused campaign that never caught fire. As a result they failed to gain an absolute majority—quite an achievement considering the disillusionment with Labour across the entire political spectrum and the prime minister’s personal unpopularity.

In fact the only party that didn’t wake up with a postelection hangover was the Green Party, which captured its first seat, Brighton Pavilion. Good old Brighton, my old stamping ground.

The “moral right” to govern

I don’t agree that the Tories have some sort of right to form a government, just because they have the largest number of seats in Britain’s crazily unfair electoral system. If the Tories were supported by 36% of the electorate, that means 64% of the electorate voted against them, so who has the majority here?

Cameron’s failure

I have enjoyed some of the criticisms of smoothy David Cameron from his own party:

Another senior and normally loyal Tory MP complained that Cameron's big idea for the campaign – "the Big Society", under which armies of volunteers would come together to tackle the country's ills – was "complete crap". "We couldn't sell that stuff on the doorstep. It was pathetic. All we needed was a simple message on policy. We could have won a majority if we had not had to try to sell this nonsense."

Ha, ha, tough luck! That’s what you get when you put PR and spin ahead of serious practical issues.

This one from a “senior frontbencher” is even better:

He ran his campaign from the back of his Jaguar with a smug, smarmy little clique – people like Osborne, [Oliver] Letwin and Michael Gove. He should get rid of all of them. The party will settle for nothing less.

Love it.

Broon the Loon

Mind you, the Labour leader comes across as less likable every day. Fresh from his display of charm on the campaign trail where he in advertently called a voter a “bigoted woman” on TV ...

... according to a "very senior Lib Dem source who is involved in the negotiations with the Conservatives" Brown has now taken his bullying manner into the delicate negotiations with the Liberal Democrats:

The source told the BBC's Jon Sopel that during the leaders' conversation last night, the tone went "downhill" at the mention of resignation. It was claimed Mr Brown's approach was to begin "a diatribe" and "a rant" and the source said the Labour leader was "threatening in his approach to Nick Clegg". Mr Clegg was said to have came off the phone assured that it would be impossible to work with Brown because of his attitude towards working with other people.

If it is true that Brown’s obnoxious personal style has prevented a Labour—Lib Dem deal (which surely most voters for both parties would prefer to a Tory—Lib Dem alliance) that means that Brown has managed to carry his capacity for self-inflicted wounds right to the bitter end of his premiership.

What now?

This Liberal Democrat website has quite a good summary of the options that face the party, which amount to three: (i) a deal with the Tories, (ii) a deal with Labour, or (iii) no deal, but allow a minority Tory government.

The author reckons the third is the most likely, which means Britain could well be going to the polls again in 18 months.