‘It should be clear that if we choose poorly, we stand to endanger the future of our enterprise. Or as has been happening we stand to endanger our future as part of the enterprise while those we choose brighten theirs!’
THE Philippines and the United States seem to be traveling on parallel courses, as far as democracy is concerned. In 2016, both countries witnessed the surprise election of populists who at times seemed to have been running against and not just outside the system, and who were happy to stoke the most basest of instincts among voters just to get themselves elected.
Four years after Trump and six years after Duterte, both countries once again seem to be on a parallel path as America and Filipino voters display a deep and apparently unbridgeable divide, a divide that poses the greatest threat to the institutions of democracy in both countries.
I am not sure whether to be more shocked about the situation in the United States or here at home. But I know that they’re both worrisome, which leaves me less and less hopeful by the day.
Let’s start with the US.
In the last, no matter how divisive a presidential campaign is, the winning and the losing candidates and their parties always find a way to come together for a higher calling — the advancement of American democracy and the protection of its systems.
This was most evident in at least two occasions: In the 1960 elections which John Kennedy won (by a whisker) over Richard Nixon, and in 2000 when George W. Bush won the presidency over Albert Gore via a decision of the United States Supreme Court.
Nixon refused to protest the Kennedy victory in the state of Illinois where the city of Chicago provided the needed margin of victory; Chicago was controlled by Richard Daley, a mayor with total control over his city the likes of which the US has not seen in years. Nixon is said to have told his advisers that neither the United States nor the world — then in the grip of the Cold War — could afford a presidential contest that was inconclusive. So he conceded.
Gore, on the other hand, bowed to the Supreme Court decision which decided the way electronic ballots in the battle state of Florida were to be appreciated; this despite Gore having won a majority of all votes cast nationwide.
Trump changed all of that and continues to impose his combative, often anti-democratic sentiments on half of the US population. More seriously, it has left the Republican Party divorced from its democratic and republican roots, and now a wiling tool in efforts to curtail rather than to expand the democratic space.
The Philippines has less to worry about the Duterte legacy, but more to worry about something deeper: not about Duterte but the conditions that made Duterte possible. By which I mean a shallow (if nonexistent) understanding of what democracy is all about, what the Constitution is all about, what the role of government and the specific offices of government are all about, and thus what types of men and women must be recruited into government for the latter to function the way it should.
As voters we evaluate the men and women who present themselves as potential public servants, they to whom we will entrust the powers of the state for the next three or six years so that our aspirations as a people can be met. We are like the Human Resources Department and the Philippines is like our corporation, Philippines Inc.
It should be clear that if we choose poorly, we stand to endanger the future of our enterprise. Or as has been happening we stand to endanger our future as part of the enterprise while those we choose brighten theirs!
It should be clear. But is it?
Democracy is in danger. From within.
