Manolo Quezon is #TheExplainer Newsletter - Issue #20 (Conventions and Convenors)
Family events meant we missed a couple of issues of this newsletter. Thank you for your patience.
My column yesterday takes off from a column by Prof. Segundo Romero and, as I mentioned in my column, his piece appeared as I've been working on a two-part podcast. So this newsletter serves as an introduction to the topic with accompanying readings.
The main points I've been arguing are these:
Political parties no longer bridge leadership and followership by providing shared principles, because parties are generally top-heavy instruments with hardly any real followers. Many reasons for this but there is a functional one widely overlooked: since 1987 the most basic of local governments, the barangay, have been deemed "non-political" and indeed, removed from the standard electoral cycle. This means no national parties can have real grassroots.
The parties that continue to function beyond being mere electoral vehicles, do so because they are subsidiaries of large corporate conglomerates. So their participation in national elections is purely transactional.
The civic aspect of party participation and identity has atrophied to the extent it's lost any desirability or relevance among the electorate. This is part of a broader trend of organized groups being increasingly unable to attract membership --the exception being fandoms.
This week's The Long View:
Candidates looking for a reason | Inquirer Opinion — opinion.inquirer.net
By: Manuel L. Quezon III - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:07 AM July 21, 2021
This takes a cue from Segundo Eclar Romero’s recent column on party conventions, a topic I was writing a podcast script for when his article appeared. So to preempt that for a bit, some thoughts on what the absence of political party conventions tells about the state of our politics not just today, but for the past 40 years.
We’re familiar with party conventions because of the United States, and our pre-martial law conventions were patterned on those our political leaders attended in the United States because Filipinos would lobby at each party convention for an independence plank to be included in the party platform (we had success with the Democrats but not the Republicans). But even in America, the conventions have become largely ceremonial occasions since 1968, because instead of delegates battling it out, their votes are predetermined through the system of primaries, where candidates compete to win pledged delegates.
Here at home, before the primary system could be copied, martial law killed the old parties. But it is worth reviewing what set our conventions apart from the Americans.
Of political party conventions, we used to have two kinds. The ceremonial and the free-for-all; they happen to coincide with what kind of regime the country was experiencing at the time. When presidents were powerful and exercised tight control of their parties, conventions were ceremonial coronations as was the case under the Commonwealth and again during martial law; in the postwar interval we now know as the Third Republic (1946-1972) conventions were largely battlegrounds; although, had Presidents Roxas and Magsaysay lived, it is likely they would have restored one-party rule and thus, ceremonial conventions, ahead of Marcos doing so, by force, after 1972.
Conventions became battlegrounds because our parties have a long history of breaking up on the question of leadership: the Nacionalista and Liberal divide was not just accidental, but meant to be temporary, when the prewar, monolithic Nacionalista party fractured on the question of accusations of collaboration with the Japanese for much of its prewar leadership. Since presidents could run for reelection, the defeat of an incumbent meant a repudiation of leadership which meant the official candidacy for a party was up for grabs in the next election. Interestingly, it was the Liberal Party that always provided winning candidates—even if, in the case of Magsaysay and Marcos, they had to switch to the Nacionalistas, whose only homegrown successful candidate throughout this period was Carlos P. Garcia in 1957.
Martial law in many ways brought the majority of politicians back to the situation they were (and are) most comfortable with, same as their peers in other Southeast Asian countries: membership in one super- party, the administration party, papering over internal divisions represented by factions (we’re much like the Japanese that way). It was only by accident, as I mentioned above, that this fusion kept on being postponed until Marcos accomplished it by force.
When the nonruling party politicians, belonging to many small groups, had to figure out a way to find a common candidate to challenge Marcos, they approached it in two ways. Salvador H. Laurel and his brothers, holding the franchise to the Nacionalista Party, set up a new party, Unido, and tried to have an old-style convention; but such a ceremonial gathering seemed out of step with the times. So others from different groups combined to create what came to be known as the “Convenors’ Group,” essentially a gathering of respected elders to decide on a candidate. This is how Cory Aquino was selected and Doy Laurel had to slide down and be her running mate. After Edsa 1986, the parties came back; but the old networks had dissolved; barangays became non-partisan, so parties lost their grassroots. Here is where the “political impresarios,” as Randy David calls them, entered the picture.
Just as an impresario in show-biz does the packaging for financing of a show, political impresarios shop around for a candidate, pitch it to backers, and put together an ad hoc coalition. The parties are a legal afterthought, to provide copies of returns and to authorize poll watchers. The parties that function, in the sense of being active not just during elections, are more likely to be regional ones because they are the personal networks of particular families.
Segundo Romero on conventions
The missing link: Party convention | Inquirer Opinion — opinion.inquirer.net
By: Segundo Eclar Romero - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:06 AM July 16, 2021
What I find intriguing in the latest Pulse Asia survey of June 7-16 is that 13 percent of voters from Balance Luzon do not want to say who their presidential preference is. Why is this important? Because this voter segment makes up 45 percent of the electorate. Similarly, 16 percent of the ABC sector—educated, materially secure—declined to answer.
The survey is an early wake-up call. What must candidates do to register more positively with their target segments of the electorate? How do voters refresh their voting preferences based on new information or insights they receive following the last survey?
It would serve the revival of Philippine democracy if political parties did their part and generated and shared useful information about themselves in between these surveys. In the squabble between President Rodrigo Duterte and Sen. Manny Pacquiao, why can’t they just agree to hold a PDP-Laban national convention to choose the party’s presidential nominee? Assuming, of course, that the party has a real national database of members and officers and procedures for nominating a presidential candidate.
A political party convention is a crucial mechanism for internal party democracy, as best exemplified in the United States. According to Russell Berman in The Atlantic, “Technically, the conventions for both Republicans and Democrats are formal party proceedings. Each is a dressed-up legislative session held in an arena, where delegates vote on matters that have both symbolic and actual importance, including the party platform, rules, and, yes, the presidential and vice-presidential nominees.”
When was the last time there was an honest-to-goodness political party convention in the Philippines? It might help to share some images from the past, for the benefit of young voters who never had the experience, and for senior voters who can no longer remember.
Before martial law, we approximated the American party conventions. On April 12, 1953, the Nacionalista Party held its national convention in the Fiesta Pavilion of the Manila Hotel. Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay won the presidential nomination over Camilo Osias by a vote of 702 against 49. Sen. Carlos P. Garcia of Bohol was nominated for the vice presidency by a vote of 594 against 157 for Sen. Jose C. Zulueta.
In the first presidential election under the 1987 Constitution, there was an attempt to revive the tradition and practice of party conventions. The Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) convention of Dec. 1, 1991 chose Ramon Mitra, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, over Fidel V. Ramos, former defense secretary. There were over 4,000 delegates and Mitra won by a margin of over 400 votes. While refusing to belong to any political party, President Cory Aquino had quietly endorsed Ramos. Cardinal Sin, on the other hand, had quietly endorsed Mitra. Ramos conceded defeat, saying “we have waged a good fight, a moral battle to reform our politics.” That was that. Or so it seemed. Ramos eventually bolted the LDP and ran and won for president under the Lakas-NUCD in a record field of six candidates.
After this, the political convention faded into disrepute. By the 2010 elections, the handover by Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party nomination for presidency to Noynoy Aquino was by a gentleman’s agreement. In 2016, the squabble between Mar Roxas and Grace Poe skipped the party convention where it could have mattered the most.
But what would a political party spectacle like a convention be if there were no major television networks to beam it to the people in the hinterlands? The electoral process is a collective ritual that creates a critical convergence of images, messages, and orientations. Nationwide radio and television are part of the magic. When Mr. Duterte cut down ABS-CBN, he decapitated a critical subsystem of the information infrastructure that Filipinos have been relying upon for decades for aggregating and sustaining their interest in politics.
So, in May 2022, the Filipino electorate will not have the spectacle of political parties waking up their provincial machineries, registering delegates, and coming up with a grand political party convention in the capital city, under the glare of television cameras and lights. Political parties will have no grand way of selling alternative platforms of government, and eventually agreeing on a single candidate. The televised concession speech that augurs magical healing for the country will not happen, and losers will likely renege on their commitments.
Related Reading:
A crash course in civic thought, courtesy of Cory Aquino or to be precise, her speechwriter who drew on Western political thought, something that could still be assumed to be part of the shared intellectual patrimony of Filipinos at the time but no longer today.
Speech of President Corazon Aquino at the LDP Convention, September 16, 1988 — www.officialgazette.gov.ph
There can be no democracy without parties, for the various strands of opinion in the country cannot make their influence felt unless they are organized and able to pursue systematically their specific political agendas. Without the organization of political beliefs and programs into disciplined parties, we would have only a riot of conflicting opinions but no effective action. The people, who unavoidably speak in many voices, will be frustrated because none of these voices will be clearly heard.
Perhaps, it is time to have political parties. Perhaps, indeed, the time for realignments is now. Yet, I hope that these realignments do not portend the permanent and total division of the forces of democracy in our country. For should that happen, it will mean the end of all of us. The coming anniversary of Martial Law should be a tragic reminder of what happened the last time the friends of democracy fell out with each other. Democracy was left defenseless, and each of us was left friendless against the small but organized forces of dictatorship.
It is good for the country and for democracy if people with shared ideas and programs organize themselves into separate parties. But it would be disastrous if we divided ourselves again into permanently hostile camps, and thereby divided the attention and energies of the natural leadership of this nation into mutually destructive and frustrating factions.
It was like that in the past, it cannot be that way again in the future.
For we have stepped into a new age of politics, an age we ourselves invited when we fought and overturned the dictatorship in the only way possible, by calling out the people to do it. Now that the people have tasted what it is like to make history, they will not go back to being its victims.
The politics of the present and the future is a people politics, just like the character of the revolution that brought us all here, was people-powered. In the same manner, the full recovery of this country and the fulfillment of its potential must be an affair of the people, and for the people. There is no other way.
First, because the people will not allow themselves to be relegated to a minor role again. Second, because our problems are so great, the challenges before us are so daunting, the enemies of our freedom so many and persistent, that only with the active participation of the people can we prevail.
The breakup of the democratic coalition into parties, like the LDP, is, as I have said, an unavoidable, even a necessary feature of democracy. Yet, the popular unease over this development is understandable. For the general feeling is that every hand is needed to work in unison at the great tasks before us: giving justice and jobs to the people, strength to the economy, and security, both internal and external, to the nation.
The people are uneasy at the formation of parties because it has yet to be shown that parties will work for the people, and not against them.
The people must be convinced that this need not be the case.
A Gallery and Scrapbook of Conventions
I will be using these photos as a kind of running narrative for my forthcoming podcast series on political party conventions, and what have emerged as alternatives to them: convenors' groups and political impresarios.
The modern presidency and the campaigns that bring them forth, came into being in 1935. That was a particular time and place; from the start, a feature of Philippine presidential politics was that coalitions and not individual parties, were front and center. The prewar era was the era of the ceremonial convention, as the country essentially became a one-party state with negligible opposition parties to contend with. In a sense, this would be the default preference of Filipino mainstream politicians. But the monolothic administration party started off as a coalition elected as such in 1935, which only achieved fusion in 1938.
White Book Of The Coalition : Internet Archive — archive.org This book was prepared by the Nacionalista Democratico and the Nacionalista Democrata Pro-Independencia Parties. It offers an explanation about the coalition...
United behind Quezon, July 15, 1939 « The Philippines Free Press Online — philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com
“AYE!” With a tired roar that echoed hollowly in the dark bowl of the Rizal basketball stadium in Manila, one night last week, the Nationalist party convention approved the proposal to amend the Constitution, so as to allow the reelection of the President.
“Nay!” A half-hearted and scattered cry in opposition went up, after hours of resounding but futile debate.
An undisputed majority sent up an “Aye!” again, the following morning, approving another amendment, to revive the old senate.
The “Nay!” was even weaker.
For three days and nights last week, the party which rules the country met in the stifling shadow of a gathering typhoon to deliver itself of a series of historical mandates to its members in Malacañan, in the Assembly, in the cabinet, in every important office of the government.
Platform of the Nacionalista Party, August 16, 1941
The Nacionalista Party was organized in response to the age-old aspiration of the Filipino people for independence. It has never broken faith with this ideal. While striving for its attainment, it has won for the people an increasing participation in the exercise of governmental powers and brought about signal advancement of the public welfare. It has at all times used its power in the interest of all the people with a view to insuring the greatest good for the greatest number.
Through the arduous efforts of the Nacionalista Party the Philippines will become independent in 1946. The constitutional process leading to the establishment of independence has already been initiated. The Constitution formulated and approved by the people is now in force, and a government under the Constitution is in operation. To direct the affairs of the new Government the Nacionalista Party, six years ago, offered to the nation the services of its great and trusted leader, Manuel L. Quezon, who was overwhelmingly elected President of the Commonwealth. It likewise offered to the nation the services of Sergio Osmeña, who was elected Vice-President because, through many years of devoted and able public service, he proved himself worthy of the people’s trust. President Quezon has guided the affairs of the Commonwealth with extraordinary wisdom, patriotism, and devotion to the public welfare, and we point with pride to the signal achievements of his administration. These achievements are unequalled by those attained during any similar period in our history and have been accomplished through the capable and patriotic collaboration of the National Assembly.
The postwar era as I pointed out in my column, would be dominated, 1946-1972, by the two party system. But this was accidental; and its remaining a two party system was also accidental: it could have led to the fusion of the two major parties at two points in time: for Manuel Roxas' reelection in 1949, or Ramon Magsaysay's in 1957. But in both cases, both presidents died before they could seek reelection and their successors were weaker than they, which fostered the retention of the two-party system. The press of the era covered conventions as the political intramurals they were.
Leon O. Ty: It’s Up to You Now!, November 7, 1953 « The Philippines Free Press Online — philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com
After a series of negotiations, on the initiative of Senator Tañada, Monching was finally persuaded to quit his Cabinet position, resign from the Liberal Party and join the Nacionalistas.
The Filipino people know that the presidential nomination was not handed to Magsaysay on a silver platter. He had to go to the provinces, campaign among the NP delegates. For one who had just joined the party, it was not an easy task to enlist the support of the men and women who were to pick the Opposition standard-bearer at the coming national convention. Magsaysay’s task became harder because he was to face a man who had done much for the party—Camilo Osias.
There was talk that Laurel, Recto and Rodriguez would double-cross Magsaysay at the convention; that certain arrangements would be made in order to create a deadlock between Osias and Magsaysay; and that once this deadlock existed, Laurel would then be railroaded by the conventionists, thereby making him the party candidate for president...
Subsequent events were to justify Magsaysay’s decision to quit his job. The Filipino people were to witness another political schism in the Liberal Party. This came unexpectedly: General Carlos P. Romulo decided to fight Quirino in the party convention for the presidential nomination. When the former ambassador and head of the PI delegation to the United Nations said he was making a bid for the presidency, most of the best elements of the party publicly announced their intention to rally behind him. And they did.
These outstanding Liberals left the Quirino bandwagon and openly declared themselves for General Romulo: Senators Esteban Abada, Tomas Cabili, Lorenzo Sumulong and Justiniano Montano. In the Lower House, a number of prominent LP lawmakers headed by Congressmen Jose Roy, Domingo Veloso, Cipriano Allas and Raul Leuterio also bolted the Quirino group to support Romulo.
All of these leaders would have remained Liberals had a fair convention been held to choose the party standard-bearers for president and vice president, had not the convention been “a rigged-up affair,” to quote Romulo himself. All that the Romulo backers had asked was that there be secret balloting among the delegates in order to give them complete freedom to vote for the candidate of their choice. But Quirino and his leaders adamantly refused, for obvious reasons, of course. They insisted on an open vote, so they would know which delegates were not backing the Apo and be able to punish them later.
The NP Convention story, 1953 « The Philippines Free Press Online — philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com
Senator Osias tried very trick he knew to quiet a hostile crowd but he failed completely in drawing the sympathy of the NP delegates that afternoon. He even showed a photostatic copy of a letter written to him by the late Archbishop Michael O’Doherty, to prove that he was acceptable to the local Catholic population. In addition he showed another photostat of a plenary dispensation given him by the Pope during his last visit to Rome. But none of these proved effective in swaying the crowd to his side.
As a last resort, Senator Osias challenged Magsaysay to withdraw from the presidential race as he (Osias) would also withdraw. The two of them and Senate President Rodriguez would then constitute a committee to select a “compromise candidate.” The idea behind Osias’ proposal was “to preserve unity in the party,” he said.
Instead of cheers, a chorus of boos greeted his desperate proposition.
The La Union senator did not, however, lose his bearings completely. Before concluding his speech (which would have been effective had he limited it to half an hour, instead of almost one and a half hours) he reminded the crowd that he would not bolt the party in case he lost the nomination.
“My second name is Nacionalista,” he said, and the delegates like it. “Bolting the party is not in the vocabulary of Osias… I am a Nacionalista by instinct, by training, and by conviction.”
This portion was received with loud cheers.
Magsaysay’s speech, in sharp contrast to that of Senator Osias, was surprisingly brief. He consumed not more than two and a half minutes, but the tumultuous ovation which followed lasted about five minutes.
In his straightforward and simple way, Magsaysay said, in part:
“I am a man of action… I am not a speechmaker. I do not believe in words but in deeds…I am giving myself unreservedly unto the hands of this convention.”
A Jaycee official who was at our side made the following comment on Magsaysay’s brief address:
“Monching (Ramon) is wise…He knows his limitations. He might have committed errors had he spoken at length… Not being a good speaker, he might have flopped and created a bad impression among the delegates. But he knew when to stop, unlike Osi (Osias).”
The candidates for vice-presidential nomination—Senators Carlos Garcia, Jose Casten Zulueta, and Arsenio Lacson, Manila city mayor, spoke briefly. Lacson declined the nomination. Garcia’s speech was even shorter than that of Magsaysay. Zulueta spoke in English but he did not feel “at home” in it. So he switched to Spanish, and he became quite eloquent.
A total of 754 delegates participated in the secret balloting. Magsaysay polled 705 votes while Osias obtained only 49. Garcia polled 598 votes, as against Zulueta’s 149. After the 450th ballot in favor of Magsaysay was read, his victory was conceded. At 10:20 that night, Magsaysay’s nomination was announced over the radio throughout the country.
Magsaysay’s wife, the former Luz Banzon of Bataan, and his aged mother, were at the Manila Hotel—Room No. 301—to hear the exciting news of his victory. When asked what she thought of her son’s chances in the coming election, the old lady replied:
“It’s in the hands of God.”
The La Union delegation did not take part in the voting. After Senator Osias proposed the creation of a committee to name a “compromise candidate” the delegates from the senator’s province decided to ignore the results of the convention.
Why Garcia won, November 23, 1957 « The Philippines Free Press Online — philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com
Was he not afraid of Laurel, Sr.? The Batangueño would not run for president when Magsaysay was alive, but he was only too willing to run for the office now that Magsaysay was gone.
“All I can say about Laurel is that he has been telling me, these many, many years, how old, how sick, how tired he was,” said Garcia. “I’m old, I’m sick, I’m tired,’ Laurel kept on saying. Now he says he is available. It’s up to the convention to decide.”
Who fought Garcia for the Nacionalista nomination?
Laurel, Sr., at one time, Garcia’s strongest rival. But Laurel eventually made it clear that he would withdraw from the race—if his son, Laurel, Jr., were nominated for vice-president. Garcia did not think very much of the proposition.
“The Batangueños will vote for Recto for president and Speaker Laurel for vice-president if the Nacionalista convention nominates young Laurel for my running mate,” said the Boholano.
The Free Press article, “Lord of the Jungle,” noted:
“The followers of Laurel, Jr., would have no alternative but to support Garcia for president in the convention if they would have Laurel, Jr., nominated for vice-president. If the convention nominated Laurel, Sr., for president, young Laurel could hardly be made his running mate; that would be too much for Philippine democracy, such, even, as it is, to stomach. If the convention nominated Paredes or Puyat or Rodriguez for president, that would rule young Laurel out, too, for they all come from Luzon. Those who wanted Laurel, Jr., for vice-president must support Garcia, if only because Garcia comes from the south.
“The nomination would take up the nomination for president first, then the nomination for vice-president. In the fight for the presidential nomination, the followers of Laurel, Jr. would just have to vote for Garcia if they were to hope for the nomination of Laurel, Jr., for vice-president. Once Garcia had won the presidential nomination, however, he would no longer need Laurel, Jr. But young Laurel would need Garcia more than ever if he would be the vice-presidential candidate of the party.
“Garcia’s position, then, with respect to the Laurels, Senior and Junior, was a commanding one. He had them completely at his mercy. As it became clearer and clearer that all Laurel, Sr., was really interested in was the vice-presidential nomination for his son, Garcia would be reported favoring Laurel, Jr. for his running mate one day, then declaring himself neutral the next day. Laurel, Sr., would withdraw from the presidential race, then enter the race again. Garcia had him coming and going….
“How about Garcia’s other rivals for the presidential nomination?
“Paredes was too new a Nacionalista to seriously hope to get the nomination, and he was soon persuaded to withdraw from the race.
“As for Puyat, not very many took his bid for the presidency seriously. It was just a stunt, many believed—to get the vice-presidential nomination. He would shoot for the No. 1 post, and settle for the No. 2. When Puyat insisted that he was after the presidency, and only the presidency, that he was not interested at all in the vice-presidency, well—who was Puyat, anyway? What could he give the delegates to the convention that Garcia could not give them—and more?
“Rodriguez was the most popular man in the Nacionalista Party, it was believed, and when Lacson withdrew from the presidential race to support ‘Amang,’ the man from Rizal seemed a real threat to Garcia in the convention. Rodriguez and Puyat could take away from Garcia enough votes to prevent his nomination. There would be a deadlock and Rodriguez might well be nominated for president by the convention in the interest of party unity. If Garcia could not get the 60 percent of the votes necessary for nomination, why not give the nomination to the popular ‘Amang’?
“But the question remained: What could Rodriguez give the delegates or the Nacionalista Party that Garcia could not give, and more—much more?”
Garcia, we thought, could very well say to the Nacionalistas who would take away the nomination from him:
“If you don’t want me, I don’t want you. If you hurt me, I will hurt you. And I can hurt you. If I go down, you go down. Well?”
Garcia got 888 votes in the Nacionalista convention, Puyat 165, Rodriguez 69. Lacson was booed.
The Winners ’61, November, 1961 « The Philippines Free Press Online — philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com
The vice-presidential nomination was offered to him by a dying man: Speaker Eugenio Perez. Late one night, while the House was discussing the budget, the Speaker, pale and feeble, suddenly appeared in the chamber. Al the solons started up from their seats as if they had seen a ghost, for Perez was supposed to be on his deathbed: the doctors had given him up. Dragging his feet, he shuffled toward Macapagal. “I want to talk to you,” he said.
When they were alone together, Perez said to Macapagal: “The party is putting up Mr. Yulo for president because it has no money, but Mr. Yulo will be attacked. We need someone to run with him whose integrity cannot be questioned. The party has been good to you; not it’s your turn to help the party. If we only had money I would put you up for president. But I tell you: you will be president someday.”
Macapagal says he would have preferred to play it safe and just run for Congress again—but how could he refuse the plea of a dying man?
When he got home that night he woke up his wife to confess that he had made a decision without consulting her: he had agreed to run for vice-president.
“What are your chances?” she asked.
“And what will you do afterwards?”
“I’ll teach and practise law.”
The very next day, he went to the University of Santo Tomas to arrange a teaching contract, so sure was he that his election as vice-president was improbable. But when the NPs put up Laurel junior as their veep candidate and the NCPs selected Tañada, Macapagal began to think that he could win. Laurel junior was manifestly unpopular, and Tañada would divide the Tagalog vote.
But again there was the problem of finances. Macapagal had no money, and neither did the Liberal Party. All the funds came from Yulo and: I don’t think Mr. Yulo ever liked me,” says Macapagal.
Into the picture stepped Amelito Mutuc, an old acquaintance who had married into a wealthy family. Mutuc offered to direct Macapagal’s campaign.
“Can you raise two thousand pesos?” he asked Macapagal.
Macapagal borrowed two thousand from his wife; with the money Mutuc rented a building in Manila, bought a couple of typewriters and set up a Macapagal campaign headquarters.
Says Macapagal: “I had not a centavo for my first campaign. When I ran for the Senate I had about five hundred pesos. And I ran for vice-president on two thousand pesos.”
There were, however, the transportation expenses, which the LP candidates were apparently expected to shoulder themselves. The campaigners had been divided into teams; Macapagal noticed that he was not included in Mr. Yulo’s team. He was told to go to Mindanao and campaign there. But how could he go when he didn’t even have the fare? Instead, he looked up Yulo’s itinerary. He discovered that Yulo was in a certain Visayan town. Macapagal suddenly showed up there, during a rally, and when he spoke he praised Yulo to the skies. Delighted, Yulo told him: “You better come along with my group.”
“And that,” grins Macapagal, “was how I got through the campaigns without any funds. I just joined Mr. Yulo’s party.”
How Lopez won, November 29, 1969 « The Philippines Free Press Online — philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com
Long before the party convention in June, Lopez was ready to give up politics if that was will of the party. After all, unlike most politicians, public office, to him, meant a life of dedication and sacrifice. Few high elective officials in the country today can honestly say that they are, like Lopez, in politics to serve. Rare is the politician who, like Lopez, has remained a gentleman.
But if Lopez was ready to hang up his political gloves, his close friends were dead set against it. When the chips were down, they including President Marcos, rallied behind him, and the Nacionalista Party finally chose him as the vice-presidential standard-bearer. But despite the party’s unanimous choice, only a handful gave Lopez a chinaman’s chance against his youthful opponent, Genaro Magsaysay, an indefatigable campaigner and reportedly the idol of the masses. For one, Magsaysay was many things that Lopez was not – he was much younger, he was a better speaker, more energetic and charismatic than Lopez. He was full of political tricks and had in fact been campaigning for years. He had been to practically every barrio in the country. He certainly had more exposure than Lopez and, what’s more, he had the 600,000 Iglesia votes in his pocket.
Martial Law led Marcos to accomplish what Roxas and Magsaysay would have managed to do (a return to one party rule as in the time of Quezon), but the Marcos way was by force.
Political parties were forced into hibernation by Marcos who himself turned to the Japanese Occupation for institutional inspiration. His Kilusang Bagong Lipunan was essentially the KALIBAPI of the Japanese Occupation. For the various groups comprising the opposition, cause-oriented groups replaced political parties as vehicles; where parties formed to contest elections, new groupings avoiding the stigma of being implicated in the imposition of martial law, came to the fore. When the time came to select a presidential standard bearer, a new formula was devised to select that person: the Convenors Group.
The fabric of freedom, 10 Years After Edsa – Manuel L. Quezon III — www.quezon.ph
TODAY Newspaper Edsa 10th Anniversary Special
The fabric of freedom
by Manuel L. Quezon III
February 25, 1996—ON January 15, 1973, an execution—which, in retrospect, foreshadowed the elements of the rise of Ferdinand Marcos and also of his ignominious fall—took place. The condemned was no hero of democracy; he was a Chinese “alleged drug dealer,” Lim Seng. The execution was staged in the slick style of Marcos’ propaganda machine. It took place in Fort Bonifacio, in front of the reviewing stand. It would be shown on national television, which was unprecedented. The idea was to frighten the living daylights out of the Filipino.
The man had been sentenced to die by a military tribunal, demonstrating the preeminent role that military justice would play in the New Society, in contrast to the agonizingly fastidious civilian tribunals before martial law.
That Lim Seng was to die, not in the hushed privacy of a national penitentiary, but out in the open, at the hands of soldiers, made it clear what martial law really meant. Not surprisingly, Marcos liked and didn’t like the idea. The notion of a civilian shot by a line of soldiers did not appeal to him. Who knew where they would stop?
But Philippine Constabulary chief Fidel V. Ramos, flanked by generals dressed like Nazi officers in flared riding pants and boots, was insistent. He wanted a military execution.
A volley of rifle fire rang out in the gray dawn. Lim Seng, tied to a post, slumped towards the ground. But he was still alive. Traditionally, after a prisoner is shot, an officer administers the coup de grace, discharging a revolver at pointblank range into the skull of the condemned.
According to one account, this did not occur. It was determined that another volley was necessary to finish the job. But the soldiers had not been provided with another round of bullets for reasons of security. Loaded with more than a single round, who knew who else they might shoot?
Another round of ammunition was ordered, but by the time it arrived, Lim Seng had expired. He had bled to death. Assumption schoolgirls rushed to his body to dip their kerchiefs in his blood to show off to their classmates the next day.
Here was a grotesque combination of mailed fist, military inexorability, and characteristic disregard for details. A regime capable of displaying unbeatable cunning but prey to a self-destructive contempt for its opponents, and a tendency to botch things up.
This odd melange of cruelty, casualness and sloppy showmanship would culminate in the final configuration of the Marcos regime as it toppled: a dictatorship propped up by a military composed of phenominally rich generals and common soldiers who did not have decent shoes; buttressed by frustrated technocrats who demanded social austerity for the people, while charging dinners with their mistresses in Washington, D.C.’s Tiberio to the Central Bank. A regime that believed its lies as soon as it made them up; smug about its durability, in the conviction that it had mastered all the tricks of survival—except the one about oneself not being taken in by them.
The truth is that from 1972 to April 6, 1978—the famous noise barrage on the eve of elections for the Batasang Pambansa—Marcos and his men had indeed mastered all the tricks and performed them usually with the desired effect. He took in the Americans with his tomfoolery about a freely-elected dictatorship. And the Filipinos allowed themselves to be taken in by the sham because they did not want to take risks with the truth.
From a President insulted by a populace on his second inauguration with acts of lese majeste unknown in this polite country, he had—with Danton’s verve but Napoleon’s cunning—adopted his motto of “audace, et encoure de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace.” Boldness, and again boldness and always boldness.
The Marcos regime was pure political cancan—a gaudy, garish, prurient show and, for a long while, fun for its beneficiaries.
The supreme act of audacity was martial law: the mass arrest of his opponents, the shutting down of the proud, independently-owned media, and the castration of the traditional checks on executive abuse—Congress and the Supreme Court. He had done it in Asia’s oldest republic,the showcase of democracy. He had done it in the teeth of the republican notables who had once scorned the shortness of his political pedigree.
As Lim Seng’s body was hauled off the field, another execution of sorts was taking place—that of constitutional democracy.
The Constitutional Convention, inaugurated in 1971, had been decimated, leaving only the pliant and frightened. The best were in jail or in exile. Those remained did not have to be, but where nonetheless offered membership in a new parliament if they signed the new constitution institutionalizing martial law and dictatorship. So sign most of them did.
In January, 1973—in a referendum held without regulation—that Constitution was ratified. The proof of it were photos of people holding up their hands in assent, but to what no one dared ask. The rumor was that government officials asked them which they preferred: friend chicken or pancit. “Raise your hand.”
The business community applauded the fact, which the Supreme Court said it was powerless to dispute: a new order was in place. The American Chamber of Commerce hailed the dictatorship:
[The AmCham] wishes you every success in your endeavors to restore peace and order, business confidence economic growth and the well-being of the Filipino people and nation. We assure you of our confidence and cooperation in acheiving these objectives. We are communicating these feelings to our associates and affiliates in the United States.
If anyone did not share these sentiments, they were not saying. Not a peep was heard from the firebrands of the First Quarter Storm.
This is the story of how the opposition—scattered by force, dispirited by self-doubt, divided by jealousy, wavering from fear and opportunism, nonetheless finally pulled itself to together and pulled the rug from under the dictator’s feet, leaving him lying, eventually dead, under a waxen image of himself.
In Filipino Politics: Development and Decay, David Wurfel writes:
“Throughout the late 1970s, martial law prompted essentially three types of opposition: the reformist, the religious, and the revolutionary.” A post-Edsa book—Dictatorship and Revolution: Roots of People’s Power, edited by Aurora Javante-de Dios, Petronilo Bn. Daroy, and Lorna Kalaw-Tirol, gives an ampler account, upon which a great deal of this story is based.
Vanguard
On the eve of martial law, the militant Left, composed of student organizations in the cities and the New People’s Army in the countryside, made enough noise to frighten conservative elements in society and to give Ferdinand Marcos a pretext for emergency government. The First Quarter Storm, the storming of Malacanan Palace, the 12-day Diliman Commune, transport strikes and the spectre of a Red peasantry conditioned the public mind to drastic public measures. No one expected a dictatorship, though.
The press disenchanted the public and itself with democracy by printing Eduardo Quintero’s exposé of the bribery by Malacañang of Constitutional Convention delegates. Bombs went off throughout the city, culminating in the grenade attack on the Liberal miting de avance at Plaza Miranda on August 21, 1971. That the government was suspected of most, if not all of the bombings, merely deepened the public gloom and sense of helplessness.
Rigoberto D. Tiglao, in his essay, “The Consolidation of the Dictatorship,” does not think the Left was prepared—in training or logistics—to fight a proper war. But it had the one thing the milder opposition lacked: the will to fight the military on whom the Marcos dictatorship rested.
In pitiful constrast to the Left were the opposition politicians, who met in different houses after Ninoy Aquino’s arrest, but more to console than conspire. Reminiscent of the meeting of Filipino politicians in Speaker Yulo’s House, as the Japanese were poised to take Manila.
In one of those meetings, the idea of convening a special session of Congress to declare Proclamation 1081 null and void was brought up. The following day the legislative building was occupied by troops who “dismantled the offices, carting away equipment, tables and chairs.” Someone had squealed or the room was bugged.
But the Communist Party, too, was in disarray. Its ranks had been decimated by mass arrests, its unity broken by mutual suspicions of betrayal. The Party’s Central Committee was not able to convene for a year and a half; and while the Armed Forces of the Philippines swelled from 60,000 strong in 1972 to 250,000 by 1975, the NPA’s ranks only increased from 1,230 in 1972 to 1,800 in 1974, and actually declined to 1,200 in 1976.
But there was a fundamental difference between the Left and the Center—as we might call the politicians—was while both declined in numbers, one increased in strength by sheer physical courage and tenacity in actual combat with the dictatorship.
By 1980, the NPA had grown enough to launch offensives. By 1983, US intelligence analysts concluded that it had achieved strategic parity with the dispirited Philippine army. The Communist Party accepted the US estimate of its mass base at 40,000 people and the military’s estimate of its military strength at 16,000.
In hoc signo vinces
Religious opposition was just beginning at the onset of martial law. The Catholic hierarchy had only just affirmed in 1971 Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes, which “clearly delineated the Catholic commitment to social justice.” Jesuit Pacifico Ortiz delivered his “Prayer” at the opening of Congress describing the Philippines as a nation “on the trembling edge of revolution.”
Nothing more was heard from the religious until many years later.
In 1976 Jaime Sin repalced Rufino Cardinal Santos, who was reviled by the youth for his conservatism on social issues. Sin was not a firebrand when he donned the red cap, but he would change.
Wurfel writes that “[o]utrage and compassionate action required no liberation theology when a priest learned of the arrest without charge or the torture of a beloved parishioner…
“And when churchmen did condemn injustice or protest torture, and their activities were halted by the military, both the pastoral and the prophetic functions of milinistry were constrained. Those constraints were resented even by the conservatives…”
This alienation from the government spread to the Protestants, a group which “had also been strongly committed to constitutional democracy,” having its roots in the American democratic ethic.
Of the major churches, only the Iglesia ni Cristo was quiescent. When its radio station was assaulted by government troops at the onset of martial law, it registered its displeasure by giving Marcos a resounding no in a referendum. Then it kept quiet.
Catholic leaders, until the eve of Edsa, remained divided over the best way to deal with Marcos. They worried over the radicalization of the some religious. But government provocation was the most effective catalyst for change among the senior prelates.
An example was Cardinal Sin’s case. One of his first acts as Archbishop of Manila was to issue a pastoral letter condemning the summary arrest of Jesuit priests Jose Blanco and Benigno Mayo. Sin presided over a prayer vigil for the detained priests, “which more than 5,000 persons attended, the largest anti-martial law protest at the time.”
Sin also declared his opposition to a Marcos decree “banning all labor strikes.” US President Gerald Ford was visiting Manila at the time, so Marcos hasty backtracked and limited the ban to strategic industries.
The regime found ways to hit back. Church-owned media, which had escaped closure in 1972, was shut down in 1976-77, among them the weekly newspaper and radio station of Bishop Francisco Claver’s diocese in Bukidnon, Davao’s radio station, and Church magazines in Manila. The government threatened to tax Church properties and subject them to urban land reform.
Sin’s initial policy of “critical collaboration” during this time began to give away to active resistance, as the religious indignation spread over the continuing arrests and more of the clergy became radicalized. Sin may have thought to steal the thunder from the radical priests by hurling the bolts himself. Protestant groups began to rally against Marcos in 1978.
By 1979, Sin was firmly on the path to his preeminent role in the overthrow of Marcos.
“Unity and Struggle”
The political opposition had been the hardest hit by martial law. “It’s “highly personalized structures, based primarily on the expectation of material gain, were suddenly deprived of access to fuel for their machines. They faded rapidly, collapsed even, in the face of arrests, cooptation, and initially severe restrictions. The parties’ fate thus contributed to the illusion, reported by the foreign press as late as 1973, that there was no significant opposition to the New Society.”
Marcos’s most effective weapon against the politicians was their own cupidity. He paid them off and recruited them into the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan.
Not all of them. A few voices continued to heard, echoing Ninoy Aquino’s protests from his prison. They were those of Lorenzo Tañada, elder statesman and lawyer to detainees; Jose Diokno, after Ninoy the one detained longest by the dictator; Jovito Salonga, counsel for political prisoners, then a prisoner himself. Raul Manglapus and other Filipino exiles in America denounced the dictatorship to a handful of decent Americans who would listen, among them Stephen Solarz.
Adversity made these leaders into men of far higher principle than they were thought to have been previously. Ninoy Aquino, in particular, transcended a reputation for facile, self-centered brilliance and of being a too-ambitious and fluid politician.
Aquino’s court martial trial for alleged subversion and the common crimes of murder and illegal possession of firearms became a cause celebre, after Ninoy declared that he would not dignify it with his active participation.
His case was temporarily shelved in 1974 and resurrected in 1975, during which he undertook his famous fast. He ended his fast after the 40th day, having become the focus of international attention. The sham trial was started again in 1977, and got as far as the rendering of the sentence of death on November 25. Adverse foreign opinion was again aroused, and Marcos held back the execution for another time.
To shore up his international reputation, Marcos announced elections for an interim National Assembly (Batasan Pambansa) as provided for in his repeatedly amended Constitution. He announced that even Ninoy could run for assemblyman from his jail cell. Marcos sat back and waited for the opposition to prove that it could not win an election, and that his regime, after all, was popular.
A party, Laban, was hastily formed under the chairmanship of Tañada. Ninoy would be its star candidate. Jose Diokno disagreed and argued for a boycott. He was joined by remnants of the old Liberal Party under Gerardo Roxas, upon the urging of Salonga.
Ninoy changed his mind and supported the boycott, lest the elections appear to legitimize Marcos.
But when he was interviewed by Palace hack Ronnie Nathanielzs and Juan Ponce Enrile on television, he declared he would participate. “The fact alone that [Marcos] has allowed the opposition to speak for 45 days and to come out with their leaflets is already to me a tremendous opportunity. And I am taking advantage of that opportunity,” Ninoy said.
“The people did seize that opportunity,” wrote Emmanuel de Dios in his essay, “The Erosion of the Dictatorship.”
On the evening of April 6, 1978, “residents of the metropolis came out into the streets and banged on pots, pans, and washbasins, stoked bonfires in the middle of the roads, drove at random through the city in cars, jeeps, and trucks, honking horns and shouting above the mechanical din, ‘Laban! Laban! ’
“This urban phenomenon was unprecedented and surprised even those who had organized it.
“Until then, the only open and large-scale resistance to the dictatorship had been put up by the armed underground movement… The noise barrage, on the other hand, not only added a new locus to the resistance but also succeeded in enlisting open support from the hitherto unorganized majority of the middle classes, apart from the underground mass organizations.”
This event heralded the rebirth of the “reformist” opposition, and the beginning of the war for the hearts and minds of the citizenry. For the issue came down to this: could the people be made to fight, or at least stand up, for their lost freedoms? Thus was the road to people power laid.
Predictably, the regime rigged the elections. The KBL slate, headed by Imelda Marcos, made a “clean sweep.” Even Ninoy lost to “a nobody from the KBL.”
Still, the exercise demonstrated an access to a source of political power by the common man, particularly the middle class. The Church saw an alternative to radical politics for the faithful.
Radicalization
Steve Psinakis, brother-in-law of detainee, then escapee Geny Lopez, summed up the attitude which became prevalent among conservative elements in the wake of the 1978 sham elections. “The Marcoses left the Filipino people with only one solution: force.”
The “Light-a-Fire Movement” ushered in a period of urban terrorism, of a benign cast. From May to September 1979, members of the group used small incendiary devices to put “symbolic targets” to the torch. Their most famous exploit was the burning of the floating casino in Manila Bay.
In December, one of the group’s couriers was intercepted. By the end of the month, key members were arrested; group’s network smashed by the government.
But another way had been shown, to be followed by those with rather more talent than enthusiasm. “The measure of success achieved by what were obviously primitive and amateurish methods… suggested that the same tactics should be attempted on a larger, more professional, scale.” This was the April Six Liberation Movement (ASLM). Its arrival on the scene was announced by the coordinated bombing of 9 city buildings. The dictatorship was embarrassed by the bombing of a convention of American travel agents soon after Marcos gave a speech.
Less squeamish than the earlier group, this one took less precautions against collateral damage. Innocent bystanders were hurt, like singer Nonoy Zuniga.
Ninoy became worried. If it came to violence, no one was a match to Marcos. This was just what he need to reassert the iron fist. He urged the opposition to dialogue with the dictator. Psinakis agreed to a moratorium on bombings.
“The activities of the urban guerrillas…did contribute to the cause of the traditional politicians. For it was the latter, hitherto shut out by martial rule, who were the most able and anxious to take advantage of whatever chinks of concession were opened in the armor of the dictatorship.”
The chinks indeed began to appear.
But none wider than in the economy. And the health of the dictator.
The Armed Forces itself started to show signs of deep weariness in a fight against an enemy more elusive than strong, and which—if it never fought well—never stopped fighting. But in November, 1977, the army scored a coup. Jose M. Sison and other important Communist leaders were captured, bringing the total number of captured members of the party’s Central Committee to twenty out of twenty-six. But it was too late.
Another wider front had opened against the regime. Sensing the onset of change, Marcos himself announced the start of political normalization with the inauguration of the Interim Batasan Pambansa.
Covenants for Freedom
WITH the yet-unreleased National Security Code in his pocket, Ferdinand Marcos declared, on January 16, 1981, that he was going to lift martial law. He did not need martial law with the Code.
The announcement was carefully timed; it helped distract the attention at a time when (Wurfel notes) “the flight of Dewey Dee, Chinese millionaire, had just triggered the financial crisis.” It also coincided with the inauguration Ronald Reagan, and prepared the way for the visit of the Pope.
The next day martial law was formally suspended, with the proviso that all martial law decrees and instructions remained in force.
As the New York Times opined, “He retains all his emergency powers; he can restore martial law at any time. This is the hard substance beneath the welcome symbol.” He was as powerful as ever.
Graciously, he restored the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, but only with respect to those acts that never needed them. The writ remained suspended over Mindanao and for such crimes as speaking ill of the government, subversion and threats to national security.
The “interim” Batasan Pambansa was prodded into making wholesale revisions to the Marcos Constitution, which had envisioned a patchwork, quasi-parliamentary government, in the style of the French Fifth Republic-style. The changes would go into effect between 1984 and 1987. On January 29, 1981, Marcos announced he would seek reelection. By February 27, the amendments he required had been passed.
The president was to be elected at large, have a six-year term but with no bar to any number of reelections. The president would have the power to dissolve the Assembly, but the Assembly would not have the power to remove him.
The Prime Minister would function as something like a glorified Executive Secretary. An “Executive Committee” was to be established to govern the country in the event of the dictator’s untimely demise. It was the first hint that intimations of mortality were intruding on FM’s phenomenal conceit.
A plebescite was scheduled for April 17, to ratify the amendments. Marcos said the opposition could campaign during both the plebiscite and the presidential election scheduled for June 16. In fact, they had to, they could go to jail if they did not. He had made non-voting a crime punishable by imprisonment.
As De Dios writes, “the plebiscite also served as a test run for the dictatorship’s electoral machinery and as a guage of the people’s susceptibility to threats. A boycott of the plebiscite as well as of the coming presidential election was to be treated as a serious crime.”
But a boycott was exactly what the opposition had decided to do as far back as April 17, 1980. Ninoy Aquino, Lorenzo Tanada and Salvador Laurel (head of the Laurel wing of the Nacionalista Party, which parted ways with Marcos in the late 70s) had agreed to demand, as conditions for their participation in any election, “a minimum campaign period, a purging of the voters’ lists, equal time and space for the opposition, and a reorginization of the COMELEC.” These conditions Marcos refused to meet.
Initially, UNIDO President Gerry Roxas opposed putting up any candidate at all, a view shared by the Civil Liberties Union, Diokno, and other “persons thought to be associated with the National Democratic Front”—the Left. Doy Laurel, Ninoy Aquino, in exile in the United States, and Reuben Canoy of the Mindanao Alliance argued in favor of participation. Ninoy said he would return to be Doy’s campaign manager.
UNIDO first decided on qualified participation, and even held a rally on March 21 at Plaza Miranda. Eight thousand people attended, an impressive number given the times. A rump session of the old Constitutional Convention was convened by Diosdado Macapagal, who had been impotent to prevent aproval of the sham that was the 1973 Constitution. But this time Macapagal’s rump declared that Constitution void. Then UNIDO called for a boycott.
Comments De Dios, “The boycott decision…revealed that it was…more effective, not to mention morally just, to seek forms of resistance outside the realm of electoral politics. The display of unity among all opposition forces, from the old political parties to the Communist Party, in rejecting the election was also unprecedented.” An opposition opinion poll indicated that 50 percent of voters boycotted the election.
A carpet, woven from the thread which Ninoy in his hunger fast, and Tanada and other oppositionists had started to spin, started to take shape. This was the rug that would sweep the dictator off his feet. The rug of mass civil disobedience and people power.
The presidential campaign was a bloody one. Of course, Marcos won “overwhelmingly” against his token opponent, Gen. Alejo Santos, who’s campaign manager was the now-out-of-grace Kit Tatad.
Marcos inaugurated both his new term and his New Republic—to replace the shopworn New Society, and so it would resonate with Reagan’s Republican administration as well—in splendid rites. The sons of old wealth rode past him in their polo ponies, nearly-naked tribesmen blew their conches on the four corners of the PICC building, while the sonorous strains of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus rose around him. The ceremony struck observers as near-sacriligious, if not ridiculous.
Decline and preparation for the Fall
MARCOS looked more firmly ensconced in power than ever, save for the skittish situation of the economy, which was starting to experience the deleterious effects of crony capitalism. But the dictatorship was losing steam.
The expansion of the government and the military, which had been growing at a phenomenal rate—giving bureaucrats and soldiers good prospects for rapid advancement—slowed down. Promotions didn’t come as often, a situation aggravated by the tendency of senior officers to defy age to keep their privileges. Lower-ranked officials turned more and more to petty corruption, following the lead of their seniors. It was no longer, as the businessmen had enthused, centralized corruption. Everyone wanted be on the take.
In 1981, having variously considered appointing Ninoy Aquino (who had hinted that if Marcos made concessions he might take the job), Emmanuel Pelaez, and Arturo Tolentino, not to mention a “gallant proposal” by Enrile that Imelda Marcos be given the job, Cesar Virata was made Prime Minister.
This was meant to signal the country’s foreign creditors that, crony capitalist rumors not withstanding, the country now had the benefit of technocratic government. Even freedom, it was suggested, could now be afforded. Juan Ponce-Enrile told the tightly-controlled media to “snap out of its timidity and sycophancy.” Naturally, when it did, as in Ma. Ceres Doyo’s landmark eyewitness account of Macli-ing Dulag’s Murder—featured of all places in the crony-controlled Bulletin—the writer was picked up and the editor was made to resign.Who magazine writers were daily harassed; Joe Burgos and the staff of We Forum were arrested and the paper shut down.
Inspired by the Pope’s message to safeguard human rights and advance social justice, religious and lay women worked more avidly among the poor. Sr. Christine Tan moved in with a destitute family. Basic Christian Communities in rural areas began to grow, with its reputation with a reputation for being the Catholic version of communist cells. Bishop Antonio Fortich hounded the military to account for the disappeared, even as the savagery of the insurgent war in Mindanao mounted.
In 1977, the same year that their founder was captured, the NDF unveiled a revised program. The party announced that its presence had spread from 300 to more than 400 towns in 47 provinces. This marked the start of their “advanced strategic offensive,” involving assaults on outposts. They claimed 40,000 cadres and the loyalty of 10% of the population, i.e. six million souls. The NPA’s growing offensive capabilities were buttressed by government propaganda, which tried to disguise its own excesses as “NPA attacks.”
The NDF organized rallies in town centers and struck alliances with labor groups which had seceded from the government-controlled trade union, the TUCP, to join the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), formed in 1980.
Steady successes, and the CPP’s ability to come up with leaders of ability to replace those who had been captured, killed, or coopted by the government, buoyed its moral and swelled its sense of self-importance until began that mental condition akin to the hardening of the arteries that leads to stroke and paralysis. As it did when the Left stood stock still while the nation marched to Edsa.
Prescriptions for change
AS the Left boasted of its growing prowess, a new sector emerged in opposition to Marcos—the legitimate businessmen who distinguished themselves from the cronies.
Marcos had plied businessmen with pro-business decrees, and while the economy hummed along no one complained. But when the economy, which had grown by an average of over 6 percent in the first seven years of martial law, began to falter (down to 5.4 percent growth in 1980, 3 in 1981, and 2.6 the year after), businessmen worried about an economy and a country so firmly tied up with Marcos and his friends.
It also became evident at this time that Marcos’s preferential policies towards his friends or dummies had started to take a significant toll on the economy. Businessmen, who just winked at these peccadilloes, now worried that as these bogus, publicly-financed enterprises sank under the weight of mismanagement and plunder, they would take the rest of the economy with them.
Bankruptcies increased, as did unemployment, and some foreign investors pulled out their investments ($100 million worth of equity capital was taken out in 1980).
The Makati Business Club, composed of the Philippines’ top 1000 corporations, was organized and shortly after issued a plenary paper titled “Issues and Prescriptions.” It called for “an environment of honesty, integrity, peace, and greater confidence in the government; a curb to military abuse and government corruption; a stop to red tape, graft, corruption and cronyism; the definition and pull-out of government roles from private sector concerns and business; the removal of lopsided competition from government; and the protection of media in its crusade against injustice and the curtailment of human freedom.” These were uncharacteristically strong words which stuck; the operative words “corruption,” “cronyism,” and “abuse” became battlecries of those social classes who stir when their pockets rather than hearts are touched.
In 1982 the businessmen had summoned up the nerve to present their complaints during the Eighth Philippine Business Conference in 1982. They invited Marcos to be their guest speaker, and were rewarded with a bravura performance by FM who thundered, “This government will, and has the capability to protect itself. The country is presently reeling from world-wide recession and export price slump… but let me warn those who opt to provide further misery to our people: tax evations and frauds in remittances of export earnings will be seriously dealt with the full force of the law. These people are known to me and I have a list of companies right here with me.”
The businessmen blanched. They wanted reform, he would reform them. They had invited him with all the elegant formalities at which they are so good, and he had treated them such as no rabble-rousing labor leader would have dared.
Even as businessmen like Joe Concepcion still fretted about “the danger of punitive action of some kind” as a result of their mild criticism of Marcos, the notion grew that only without Marcos did the country have a chance.
Lone Ranger and the technocrats
THE revulsion among businessmen grew when their stand-ins in the Marcos government were marginalized, as quickly as they had been brought in.
Together with Gerardo Sicat, Roberto Ongpin, and Placido Mapa, Cesar Virata was the compleat technocrat—reputedly honest, certainly proficient in his field. His presence had deodorized the profligate dictatorship with its creditors abroad. Marcos even made him a member of the 14-man Executive Committee, whose ranks took years to fill. In the event of Marcos’s death, Virata was in the running to succeed him. Raised to these lofty heights, the business community was supposed to feel that their own kind were in positions of responsibility and respect in the Marcos regime.
In 1982 Virata asked that the Central Bank stop discounting loans for sugar planters, who had been hard-hit by the collapse of the sugar industry. The planters grumbled that it was all Benedicto’s fault, since he was the head of the sugar monopoly. Virata’s action raised the hackles of the cronies; Marcos allowed them to strike back in 1983.
In April of that year a KBL caucus was held in Malacanang in preparation for a revue of the country’s fiscal performance by its creditor banks. A scene reminiscent of China’s Cultural Revolution took place. After all, Imelda Marcos was an admirer of Chairman Mao.
Leader after leader stood up to shout at Prime Minister Virata and Central Bank Gov. Jaime Laya, accusing them of incompetence, stupidity and cowardice in the face of creditor banks and the IMF. Then Marcos stepped in and chided Virata to “to defend himself.”
He had humiliated the chief technocrat and demonstrated that everyone’s position depended purely on his good will. Virata offered to resign, but he couldn’t forget the perks of his humiliating office. Marcos told him to take a rest abroad.
Thus, these great brown hopes of reform were exposed as toothless fools, essential in making the government look good but powerless to make it so. When Marcos revealed that he had left confidential orders to Gen. Fabian Ver, his chief of security, in the event of his death, everyone realized Marcos respected and trusted only his bodyguards.
Marcos’ Nightmare Year
IN 1983, on the anniversary of the Plaza Miranda bombing, Ninoy Aquino came home to die. The man who was hustled down the side stairs of the airport tube, where his China Airlines flight had docked, was a man far different from the ebullient senator of 1971.
He was a man purified of any suspicion of self-interested action; a proven patriot. He had returned not even to fight, but to try and make peace with the dictatorship and hopefully make it relax its grip. Marcos returned his offer of reconciliation with a bullet.
Except Marcos said it did not come from him, but from the communists.
In front of 2,000 soldiers sent to meet the exiled senator, Ninoy Aquino was taken down by three Philippine Constabulary officers, and before his feet touch the tarmac, shot in the back of the head.
The nation was stunned, first into terror and then into rage.
From the first timid testing of the waters by the people who lined up to view Ninoy’s remains at his old home on Times Street, and followed his bier in the millions, it became apparent that 1983 would be a real annus horribilis for the Marcoses, a real sphincter of a year.
A few days after Ninoy’s death oppositionists formed JAJA—Justice for Aquino, Justice for All and declared:
“We demand the immediate resignation of President Marcos, the entire Cabinet, the Executive Committee, members of the Batasang Pambansa, and top generals of the military. A responsible transition government composed of men and women of unquestionable integrity should be established to pave the way for the realization of genuine democracy in this country. We demand the immediate restoration of the writ of habeas corpus throughout the country, the immediate release of all political prisoners, and the grant of unconditional amnesty to all political dissenters and dissidents. We demand a fair, open, independent and impartial investigation of the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. We demand the complete restoration of freedom of speech, the press, of peaceful assembly, and all other constitutional rights and civil liberties. We demand a stop to US or any other foreign intervention in Philippine affairs. We demand an end to the militarization of our society and to repression and terrorism. we demand the restoration of the independence of the judiciary.”
These objectives would remain the aim of the opposition from then on. Whoever thought of it, was a genius for it cut across party lines and personal agendas—if any still remained in the opposition after 14 years in the desert of anonymity.
In no time, these objectives and sentiments catalyzed the formation of what came to be known as the cause oriented groups, and the partisans of the parliament of the streets.
The gap left by the refusal of the middle and professional classes to take part in sordid, not to mention, dangerous political affairs was now closed. From one end of the political spectrum to the other was a solid band of opposition to the murderous dictatorship.
Marcos swiftly resorted to his old trick of divide and rule, but the more he sought to divide the more convinced the opposition became that he was weakening and could not rule. Concessions could only be interpreted as weaknesses.
Writing after Edsa, Ma.Serena Diokno summed up this period as “a movement of unity and struggle—of oneness in opposition to the Marcos regime, it’s authoritarian apparatus, and its abuse of the Filipino people; of differences within a movement colored by various shades of political understanding, at times sadly marked by personal political ambition; and of unrelenting struggle against a dictatorship propped up by the government of the United States.”
Indeed, it took some groups longer to get over their caution in dealing with others. But the Church was firmly in place in the battlefront, the (in fact if not actually title) Primate directing operations ever since he had officiated at Ninoy’s funeral mass, where he had elevated the martyr with the honors of a head of state.
In retrospect this process seems to have been a continuous march, along city streets lined with buildings raining yellow confetti, to the tune of ati-atihan drums and the wailing of police sirens. In reality, it was a series of skirmishes and crises, of exhilarating advance and painful retreat and regroupment.
It’s defining events were summed up by Diokno as, “the early conflict between the Church’s call for national reconciliation, and the people’s demand for the removal of Marcos, the agonizing period of deciding whether or not to take part in the parliamentary (Batasan) elections in May 1984, the failed Bayan congress… in May 1985, and the founding of the BANDILA….” Through it all, the quibbling among oppositionists would continue, without stop, but also without any harmful effects. The movement was unstoppable, even by the pettiness of some of those who comprised it.
Bound by a yellow ribbon
WHILE JAJA embarked on efforts learned from the leftist teach-ins—education campaigns, forums, mass actions like marches and boycott campaigns against crony businesses, and the use of striking symbols and slogans with the color yellow—its members continued to quarrel among themselves over means and even ends.
They quarreled about the ideal form of transitional government and its legal details, about the need or folly of including the US bases as an issue, and about the restructuring of political processes, if not society itself.
The energy unleashed by Ninoy’s death was too much to be contained within a single group, as people experienced the thrill and euphoria of indulging in daring acts of insubordination. Small groups sprouted like mushrooms on the deadwood of the state: ATOM, GABRIELA, CORD, a flurry of acronyms competed with each other in coming up with gimmicks demonstrating opposition: from jogging for justice, to dressing up your pets in yellow, a piece of kitsch meant for the queen of it, Imelda Marcos.
Any conceivable anniversary was marked by the birth of one of these groups and by spontaneous demonstrations, which by themselves excited a public long revolted by the staged spontaneous actions of the Marcos regime.
Added to the sound of ati-atihan drums were the rumblings of a collapsing economy. In the wake of Ninoy’s death, capital flight accelerated; the peso plummeted; businesses failed, and government, on October 14, declared itself bankrupt and asked for a 90-day moratorium on foreign debt payments. World Bank officials revealed in shocked tones that the window-dressing of the Central Bank’s reserves. Was there no honor among thieves?
Taking a cue from Ninoy’s arrival statement, Cardinal Sin proposed, on the 23rd of September, an eight-member national council composed of 4 representatives from within and outside the government. This was the opening salvo of the Church’s effort to steer the irresistible forces of change into peaceful and orderly channels.
The Cardinal’s call was echoed by the Bishop’s Businessmen’s Conference for Human Development (CBCP). Other groups, such as KAAKBAY, soon took up a similar call, “there can be no reconciliation without resignation,” which impelled an Assemblyman to file a motion asking Marcos to resign.
The ears of other organizations more stolidly establishment perked up. Their meetings began to buzz with talk of Marcos’s succession, an issue even the president of the AmCham raised in November, 1983.
Middle-rank executives and employees joined demonstrations during office hours to test the sympathies of their superiors, who joined them. By October, yellow confetti was raining from office windows, as executives and office workers marched along Ayala Ave. The Church began its “bells and prayers” campaign and that most loyal segment of the faithful, the middle class, sat up and listened. It was time for contingency plans in the event of Marcos’s fall.
Convened and reconvened
ON January 7 and 8, 1984, the Congress of the Filipino People (Kompil) was held, in an attempt to unify the opposition groups. It was composed of moderates, and attempted to answer two questions: should the “Marcos Resign” movement go on, and, if Marcoes ever quit, who should be entrusted with running the government?
These questions were eventually shunted aside as a more pressing issue presented itself (but not before a “dream list” of possible candidates was drawn up): what course of action should the opposition take with regard to the upcoming Batasan elections?
Everyone said their piece, including Jose Ma. Sison who sent a message—a prelude to the last hurrah of the Party, which was rapidly being drowned out in the babel of opposition voices.
Joma advocated a united front decision boycotting the elections. Many disagreed. A compromise was painfully reached: participation under certain conditions. The conditions themselves were decided upon by balloting. The Kompil had succeeded in revealing a way for groups to come up with a position they could hold in common.
Marcos, of course, rejected the conditions, which caused a flurry of renewed argumentation among the opposition. Tanada, Diokno and Butz Aquino called for a boycott, citing the same arguments that dated back to the 1978 and 1981 boycott movements. The boycott group eventually formed an umbrella organization, CORD, which included Salonga, Pres. Macapagal, and Manglapus.
Then the widow spoke. Cory Aquino was for participation, even though she had no illusions about the outcome of the polls. In February, 1984, Cardinal Sin called for participation, too.
UNIDO decided to participate in the election, as did regional parties such as PDP-LABAN, which felt that boycott campaigns in the past had actually hurt the opposition. Another organization was revived to help guard against fraud: NAMFREL. For the first time, the opposition would fight fraud with organized vigilance.
The boycott failed, the turnout was high, and for once an organized group existed to catalog and inform the public of the government’s electoral dirty tricks. The opposition took almost a third of the seats in parliament, after a heavy toll from the administration’s massive cheating.
In the public mind, the opposition had proven its strength.
And it was time to plan for bigger things. Around the time of the May 14 elections, a Jesuit and businessmen’s group began deliberating again on the contingencies should Marcos die. This group called themselves the Facilitators. They finally decided on a way to find a candidate quickly. They called it the “fast-track system.” Its aim, to avoid the inevitable bickering and internecine strife sure to attend the selection of a common presidential candidate should elections be suddenly called.
Emmanuel Soriano, Dr. Alfredo Bengzon, Ricardo Lopa, Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ, and Ramon del Rosario Jr., all members of Manindigan!, were the architects of this process. They met with the Convenor Group, composed of Tanada (representing the “Left of Center”), Jaime Ongpin (representing moderates), and Cory Aquino, the “symbol of unity.”
Both groups met on November 13, 1984,and came up with a list of “potential standard bearers”: Butz Aquino, Jose Diokno, Teofisto Guingona, Eva Kalaw, Salvador Laurel, Raul Manglapus, Ramon Mitra, Ambrosio Padilla, Aquilino Pimentel, Rafael Salas, and Jovito Salonga. A month later these people met with the Facilitators and the Convenor Group, and agreed to sign a Declaration of Unity. Kalaw and Laurel abstained.
Laurel did not sign because to the already tone-down anti-US bases line in the declaration. He did not think the cause of freedom needed to add to its enemies. He also offered an alternative method for selecting a united opposition’s champion, one that sidestepped the cause-oriented groups, relying purely on the politicians. His group called itself the National Unification Committee or NUC.
The Convenor’s Group and the potential standard bearers, in an agreement signed on January 2, chose a system in which the potential candidates would chose in secret ballot the standard bear from among themselves by a simple majority vote. They committed themselves to look for a more creative method, but in the meantime this would do.
The NUC offered a compromise solution, whereby the cause-oriented groups would be entitled to 30 percent representation in the convention that would choose the standard bearer. It invited the Convenor’s Group to a meeting. The Group declined, sending Mitra to read a message politely explaining that it could not abandon the fast track system.
But the negotiations went on, in time-honored political fashion, with a continuing exchange of proposals and counter-proposals. They came to a tentative agreement on the actual selection of a candidate, save for one loose end: what to do about Manglapus and Salas who were abroad.
But a common position with regard to the US bases remained elusive. The original draft was written by Salonga: the opposition would “comply with the US-RP Military Bases Agreement of 1947… which will expire in 1991, and oppose the continued existence of foreign military facilities in the Philippines. No military bases should thereafter be allowed.”
Laurel opposed the draft. He was open to the renewal of the bases agreement, subject to a plebiscite. Diokno was dead-set against recognizing the validity of the bases agreement altogether. And so it went, until, finally, on November 21, 1985, an agreement was reached and the platform approved. The bases provision finally read, “Consistent with our rights and duties under international law and the soveriegn rights of our people, foreign military bases on Philippine territory must be removed and no foreign military bases shall be thereafter allowed.”
The opposition was almost whole. The success of the NUC-Convenor negotiations proved the resilience of the old politicians who would finally agree to anything for the sake of unity and political effectiveness, because ultimately words meant nothing to do them. Hence, they would survive into the era and the new political forces would die. It was now time for the Last Hurrah of the Left.
BAYAN no more
THEIR manifesto was brave, and embodied what they perceived to be the lessons of the struggle of the last decade. Those lessons might be summed up as the need for a new politics, an alternative to the old patronage system, and the transformation of Philippine society as a whole. They were, after all, composed of the activist cause-oriented, the streetfighters who had electrified the nation with their marches. They were the future, the politicians were the past. They wanted respect, their own identity. On March 20, 1985, they formed their own umbrella group and called it Bayan, no less.
“Bayan’s major functions are to unify and consolidate the leadership of popular organizations… and to adopt a broad and comprehensive strategy for a struggle that will integrate all forms of non-violent political action: That strategy will be based on a new politics: the politics of the people, a politics that does not wait for elections to air the people’s grievances and press their demands… [T]heir aspirations [are] for an authentic, popular, pluralist democracy, real and effective sovereignty, a just and human society that cares equally for all and offers a better life,and true national unity, a unity of all social sectors and classes, a unity of the people more than tht of the politicians.”
Stirring words, indeed, and the myriad groups that flocked to Bayan’s convention on May 4 were full of fervor and romantic hopes. In two days, they were reduced to angry, even bitter, tears, their dreams in ruins. It had become apparent in those two short days that Bayan was intended to be a Communist show and nothing else. Entire groups walked out: ATOM, SAPAK, AKKAPA. Finally progressive but non-communist leaders who had helped form BAYAN, and been elected officers, resigned. Diokno lists them as including her father, Jose Diokno, “Justice J.B.L. Reyes, Zeneida Quezon-Avancena, and Edmundo Garcia”. Of the veteran oppositionists, only Tanada decided to say on, the great dissenter, as always.
The disenchanted groups organized Bandila. It would give the so-called leftist elements a chance to be a part of the final push that would shove out Marcos.
And FM?
BY this time he was a sick man behind whose back sycophants were jockeying for the power they thought would survive his demise. Every permutation of ambitious greed was mulled. Imelda and Ver versus Enrile and Ramos, old military officers against new.
Meanwhile, his administration continued to leak technorats. Vicente Paterno, a KBL Assemblyman, in a weepy moment, was convinced to quit the KBL altogether. In the countryside the NPA was at the nadir of its armed might, whether from the brilliance of its tactics or the indifference of any army sensing the command center was ceasing to hold. And while diehard rightists in America toasted him—such as George Bush’s asinine remark, “We just love your commitment to democracy,” which set tongues wagging on both sides of the Pacific—he was actually a pariah among leaders.
His rhetoric had gotten stale, and his old tricks failed to impress anymore. Illness had imposed on him a clinical isolation from the germ-infested world. With this came that fatal retreat from reality that convinced him that he could still pull it off. In November, 1985, he released his bombshell, on This Week with David Brinkley.
Brinkley: Mr. President, are there any catches? Can everyone run in this election?
Marcos: Oh, anyone… anyone.
B: If Corazon Aquino wants to run?
M: Yes…
B: Senator Laurel wants to run?
M: Anyone…
B: Anyone can run?
M: Oh yes…
B: Of course you know the allegation is that you control the judiciary…
M: Oh, come on…
B: Are you then saying that we can expect an election in the Philippines, say in January or February of 1986?
M: Yes, if I can convince the Batasan, and I think I can. We control two-thirds of the membership.
Here, for the penultimate time, was the soft cunning, which could suddenly revert to the mailed fist, but oh how whittled down by age and disease—and tripped again by that fatal indifference to detail as in the execution of Lim Seng. Did he have enough bullets? And who would fire the shots for him? He did not think.
End of one road, beginning of the next
EDSA, the apotheosis of the middle class (in contrast to Marcos’ hollow self-apotheosis in 1981) lay ahead. The inauguration at Club Filipino, which the Left grumbled was a mere restoration, which of course, it was. They had a right to grumble. If they had not been in the last act, their bloody struggled had composed all the previous ones.
But the people who had marched and fought alone in the 70s and 80s should have expected nothing less from those who suddenly swelled the ranks of the opposition after Ninoy’s murder. These people had decided that the time for involvement had come precisely because the things the Left despised but which they valued—order, decency, the safety of property—were in grave peril. They, who were leery politics, had taken over it completely to restore everything to the way it was, and put politics and power again in its subordinate place. These people were the warp and woof of that rug that would be pulled from under Marcos, and would throw him flat on his back.
Teodoro L. Locsin Jr.: Triumph of the Will, February 7, 1986 « The Philippines Free Press Online — philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com
It is well to remember that the unity she forged was not among dependent and undistinguished clones, like the KBL that Marcos holds in his hand. Doy Laurel, Pepito Laurel, Tañada, Mitra, Pimentel, Adaza, Diokno, Salonga and the handful of others who kept the democratic faith, each in his own fashion, through the long years of martial law, are powerful political leaders in their own right. Each has kept or developed, by sagacity and guts, a wide personal following. Not one thinks himself subordinate to another in what he has contributed to keep alive the democratic faith. As far as Doy is concerned, his compromises had enabled him to kept at least one portion, Batangas, of a misguided country as a territorial example of viable opposition. An example to keep alive the hope that the rest of the country could follow suit and become free in time.
We have forgotten how much strength and hope we derived from the stories of Batangueños guarding the ballot boxes with their lives and Doy’s people keeping, at gunpoint, the Administration’s flying—or was it sailing?—voters from disembarking from the barges in which they had been ferried by the Administration. This is the language Marcos understands, the Laurels seemed to be saying, and we speak it.
After the EDSA Revolution and the restoration of democracy, political parties came back. But they were different from their pre-martial law incarnations.
Edward R. Kiunisala: Cory’s “Army”: Organizing People Power, January 10, 1987 « The Philippines Free Press Online — philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com
“Doy’s” liaison with the Marcos-Enrile gang and the muscle-flexing of the Marcos political tail, the KBL, and the so-called NP wings of Palmares and Cayetano prompted Cory’s supporters to do some seducing and muscle-flexing of their own. Lakas ng Bansa attracted to its fold political parties while the five-party coalition of the CCA underscored the political clout behind Cory. The lady President is clearly far from helpless as she sometimes appears to be.
The CCA’s lead party is the PDP-Laban, founded by the late Ninoy Aquino, now headed by Cory’s brother, “Peping” Cojuangco. Cory’s brother-in-law, “Butz” Aquino, with his militant Bandila, is also there. So is Salonga’s wing of the Liberal Party. Ramon Pedrosa’s Pilipino Democratic Socialist Party and Raul Manglapus’s Union of Christian Democrats complete the five-party coalition.
Speech of President Corazon Aquino at the PDP Laban Convention
I am happy to be here today upon the invitation of Senator Nene Pimentel. Last year I had told both Speaker Mitra and Senate President Salonga that if I were invited by their respective parties I would attend their conventions. The multi-party principle is intended to take in and advance every shade of opinion and every kind of interest. Yet the result should not be a universal standoff but rather the advancement of the nation – on the broadest front, if possible, but never to stop moving because this is necessary. For there is a lot of catching up that we must do.
With due allowance to inevitable differences among leaders, parties, and groups, the ground for agreement should be equally broad and compelling: we are first Filipinos: no one else will care for us as we do. We are also tested friends and long-time campaigners for democracy. The enemies of freedom are powerful against each of us individually, but powerless before our unity.
Within the wide framework of our democratic faith, let us work together where we agree, and respect each other where we do not. And never doubt each other’s patriotism.
Aquino Endorses Ex-Army Chief in Vote - The New York Times — www.nytimes.com President Corazon C. Aquino announced today that she was endorsing the former Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos, a leader of the 1986 uprising that brought Mrs. Aquino to power, as her choice to succeed her in Philippine elections in May.
My own views
Some of my thoughts relevant to how parties stopped functioning as a means to confer legitimacy on candidates.
The ruling money | Inquirer Opinion — opinion.inquirer.net In 2013 and 2016, conversations with professional politicians convinced me of two things.
Opposition is total | Inquirer Opinion — opinion.inquirer.net You often hear that all politics is local, and yet in our political system, the truly local is, officially, “nonpolitical.” I’ve written about this repeatedly and am doing so again, because of my colleague John Nery’s interesting column asking who, exactly, is the opposition.
Today began yesterday | Inquirer News — newsinfo.inquirer.net Politics in our popular imagination is like the Balagtasan. We think it began in ancient times, but it only began in the heyday of party politics in the 1920s. We view our politics as a spectator sport, but we see it through old-fashioned lenses, as if our candidates still entertain us by making speeches for hours in public plazas.
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Manolo Quezon is #TheExplainer is creating Historical and political thinking, writing, and broadcasting. | Patreon — www.patreon.com
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