Awareness is the first step

WHILE democracy is very much alive in our country, indicators point that Philippine politics is very much still on its infancy. Our government may have been more than a century old from Pres. Emilio Aguinaldo to PRRD, but there is obviously just very little advancement in our political maturity. We are still babies in politics. Let me qualify this contention.

First, our political system is very much driven by personality rather than platform. Unlike in the United States and other advance countries where their politics are divided by conservatives and liberals with very distinct advocacies, political parties in our country do not have defining identities. It is very common for politicians to jump from one political party to another depending on who’s the sitting administration simply to advance their interest. This just goes to show that we do not give much value to platforms, instead our choice of leadership are greatly influenced by who is running and how we personally perceive him or her. This also explains why a lot of actors, athletes, and other celebrities win elections even if they know nothing about the duties of the positions they are running for.

Even in our choice of national officials such as our senators and even our president, the ones we have elected for the last three decades were not really the most qualified among those who ran, and most of us were even unfamiliar with their platforms if they even had one, but they won because of the “trust” factor of the masses and a lot of name recall. In Philippine politics we are also more concern about who to elect instead of what laws or programs do we need from those we voted for in office.

Second, elections in local government units are mostly won through vote buying. In fact, vote buying has become the rule instead of the exception. This is also perpetuated by the patronage system when a politician is already in office. It is a common practice that those who supported a politician during the election are given the priority for job orders in the local government units. If you vote for me, you are assured of a job regardless of whether you have skills or not. And even if you have the best skills in your field, if you supported my opponent during the last election then you will have no place in my administration. This explains why LGUS develop very slowly because elected officials are somehow tied to the indebtedness they have to their supporters. If they won’t give in to such, they will surely lose the next election.

Third, we seemed to be very thematic with our governance. Our local leaders are fond of building pet projects that would showcase their legacy. Mostly infrastructures that are grand but fleeting and has little to no effect in the lives of the greater majority. Even in the national scene, each president is known for a certain specific brand or advocacy of which he would spend most of our national resources just to achieve them. Pnoy for instance focused on “Daang Matuwid” while Digong focuses now on his war on drugs. While those things are good in themselves, They are not holistic in a sense that other aspects of governance are pushed to the sides and left unattended.

What we failed to see is that great development is achieved more through strategic planning and careful allocation of government resources rather than putting much focus on pet projects or legacy programs.

While such political culture seemed to have stagnated on those levels, the advancement of telecommunications and mass media are actually facilitating public awareness of all these realities. Karl Ombion’s column today speaks of how labor groups in Negros mature over the years and are somehow convening again as one as they slowly step up to fight for what is just. I think people are slowly getting aware of things. And awareness is always the first step.*