Manolo Quezon is #TheExplainer Newsletter - Issue #24 (Long View edition)
"We are all students of power," a veteran official once told me (quite flatteringly), and this is true. The coming 2022 election is very interesting not only because it could ( or could not) mark the end of an era; it also presents perhaps the biggest chance for an administration to succeed itself since 1992. Many of my columns over the past couple of years have tried examining this situation from various angles.
In Opposition is total from February 24, 2021 I pointed out how all-encompassing ruling coalitions break up as a presidential term ends and the big players become oppositionists.
On a related note, Why 'pre-campaigning' is necessary from July 7, 2021 explained the dynamics of a president's last year in office and the jockeying for the election to come.
In Welcome to the lost decade from May 12, 2021 I looked into the (dire) economic situation of the country going into 2022; while in Collecting biases from May 26, 2021 I explored political communications where the goal hasn't been the creation of a majority, but instead, the consolidation of minorities into a slightly larger minority than others.
In The ruling money from January 6, 2021 and in An epidemic of clans from June 9, 2021, I tackled political parties as subsidiaries of business conglomerates and the question of political families.
In The Great Fear from June 2, 2021 and in Some LGU leaders bloodier than others from June 16, 2021, I tackled motivations going into 2022: particularly in terms of the so-called "war on drugs."
In a commentary, Today began yesterday from July 6, 2021, I tried to distill my thoughts on local and national electoral dynamics. In The 500-year interval from April 28, 2021 I looked at an intriguing phenomenon: the stripping away of the Western veneer of our political culture.
In Candidates looking for a reason from July 21, 2021 I tackled why candidates can't find a way to prove they have anything besides ego behind their candidacies.
This week's The Long View
Rule of the minority | Inquirer Opinion — opinion.inquirer.net
By: Manuel L. Quezon III - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:05 AM August 04, 2021
A fundamental difference between the democracy we had prior to martial law, and the democracy restored after the fall of the dictatorship, is that the rule of the majority was replaced with the rule of the minority. From 1935 to 1969, the elections under the 1935 Constitution, we only had one minority (or plurality) presidency: that of Carlos P. Garcia in 1957, who got 41.28 percent of the vote. Contrast this with the fact that in all the presidential elections under the 1987 Constitution, from 1992 to 2016, only one president exceeded Garcia’s minority result: Benigno S. Aquino III who got 42.08 percent of the vote in 2010. All others in the same period failed to exceed 40 percent when all others in the period before 1986 had at least 50 percent of the vote. One could argue — adopting either side’s claim of victory — that the last time the country had a majority presidency was with the election of Corazon C. Aquino in 1986.
This had a profound effect on the way campaigns are run, beginning with the controversial campaign of Fidel V. Ramos which defined the role parties would play in our newly-restored democracy. That role would be, at best, a passive one of convenience: the administration party President Aquino had reluctantly allowed to be created as a necessary evil, failed to hold together when confronted with the challenge of refereeing the selection of Aquino’s successor. Unable to counter Ramon Mitra Jr., Ramos bolted the party, and found a convenient vehicle courtesy of Raul S. Manglapus. Ever since, party affiliation has neither been a core political identification, nor more than a vehicle for obtaining election returns and authorizing poll watchers, for aspiring candidates. (Of our post-Edsa presidents, only Aquino III could be considered a loyal party man.)
The nature of our presidential election — multiparty contests, with no run-off election — means it is virtually impossible for a candidate to achieve a majority. Because of this, the traditional idea of a presidency being based on a majority mandate, though still a powerful one, will have had no basis in fact for 30 years, come the 2022 elections. It means that tactically speaking, the presidency is anchored on two negatives: subtracting from the score of the perceived frontrunner, while subtracting from the number of viable candidates close to the actual winner. In practice, this means a take-no-prisoners approach to demolishing the standing of the frontrunner, while quietly working to attract the supporters of less viable candidates who, however, are closer in orientation to a stronger rival.
If we assume that whichever way one slices and dices it — whether it will be a Duterte-Duterte tandem, or two supposedly independent tandems with a Duterte (one for the presidency and the other for the vice presidency) in each, or only one #Daughterte seeking the presidency — one thing potentially problematic for such a campaign is the careless though clever propaganda of the past five years, which boldly (and baldly) claims having been a landslide victory crowned with spectacular majorities in public opinion approval. On the eve of lockdown, for example, some news outfits have pointed to surveys showing the President leading the pack for the 2022 vice-presidency — but by a mere handful of points and below 20 percent at that. What happened?
The pros will say, nothing’s happened: nothing’s been formally announced, which is why there isn’t really any public opinion to speak of. And they would be right to say so. We don’t know what the impact on public opinion of a formal declaration of candidacy would be; but there is one snapshot of public opinion that should give all the players pause. It was a Pulse Asia rider question commissioned by Sen. Miguel Zubiri. Respondents nationally-speaking said only 35 percent would go out and vote if the number of COVID-19 cases in their barangay is high; 46 percent said they’d stay home; a high percentage, 19 percent were undecided. The numbers are higher where the biggest votes are, in the NCR (35 percent would vote; 57 percent would not, only 7 percent are undecided), and Balance Luzon (29 percent would vote; 50 percent would not, a big 21 percent are undecided), while in the Visayas (32 percent would vote, 37 percent would not; a whopping 32 percent are undecided) and Mindanao (50 percent would vote, 40 percent would not, only 10 percent are undecided) which, together, more or less equal Luzon show an advantage for the administration and a disadvantage for its critics (if we assume a significant swathe of the Visayas is anti-administration).
Suddenly, what would normally seem an administration disadvantage — a continuing pandemic — turns into a plus. Gone are the days of Amang Rodriguez when politics was addition; it’s now an exercise in subtraction.
Email: mlquezon3@gmail.com; Twitter: @mlq3
The column above includes information from this slide, which came from a rider to the June 2021 Pulse Asia. The rider was commissioned by Senator Zubiri.
My Monday newsletter also contained this slide as well as updates to the 2022 campaign.
Additional readings
The book below was put together and went through two editions before 2016. I hope you will download it and go through it. You will find the source for the data on past elections in this book.
Philippine Electoral Almanac Revised And Expanded : Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office : Internet Archive — archive.org
The Philippine Electoral Almanac traces the history of Philippine elections. This revised and expanded edition goes as far back as the precolonial period, when the Philippines was a collection of independent polities ruled by datus and sultans. Leading up to the present day, it explores the intricate relationship, in a democracy, between the President and Congress; analyzes the partnerships established between political parties and personalities; fleshes out the history of political coalitions; and details every Philippine national referendum held to date.
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