‘Is this a good way to view Decision 2022, as linked to the matter of being a passing of judgment on the two seniors, Marcos and Duterte? I suppose there is no other way to look at it.’
IN 99 days, more than 60 million of us Filipinos will, COVID permitting, troop to the polling stations all over the country to elect the next President of the Philippines, some supporting characters, and a host of other “characters.” All together they will constitute the Government of the Philippines for the next three years under the Administration of whoever is President. No question: it is an important decision to make, this year and every three years. But this year there are reasons why this “moment of truth” is special in its own way.
As I think about this Jose Rizal’s words ring in my ear: “tal pueblo, tal gobierno”.
Primarily what makes Decision 2022 uniquely special is the opportunity to provide the Philippines to pass judgment on two presidencies. One is the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, particularly his extended term from September 1972 to February 1986. Some may argue that there is no more judgment to pass on this, because the ouster of Marcos in 1986 was the judgment. To this I disagree because the ouster, while definitive in ending his term, was not definitive in serving as closure. Because forces had to resort to a non-electoral route in a very small geographic area of the country to resolve a national political problem, it left as many questions unanswered as answered, and wounds healed as open.
The fact that the Marcos family has been able to return and reclaim a modicum of political power and influence on a national level and not just in their bailiwick of Ilocos Norte tells you that for many, today, the answers of yesterday do not hold much water.
The second presidency that Decision 2022 will be passing judgment on is, of course, that of the outgoing one, PRRD. Elected by plurality he took a route far more combative and divisive than those taken by his predecessors who also were elected by mere plurality, which was to try to reach out to the other side and forge a working coalition; Fidel Ramos being the best example of them. And because of the force of his personality, the tactic of bulldozing his way past the critics and the political opposition worked for most of his term; by jailing an incumbent senator, for example, he was able to strike some fear into the hearts of almost all of his political opponents (save perhaps Antonio Trillanes and Leila de Lima herself). Similarly, by coming down hard on some businessmen he forced other big business interests to tread softly and not get any funny ideas about funding his critics lest they suffer the same fate.
Shades of Ferdinand Marcos, I used to think, with far less finesse and legality.
And that’s how most Filipinos I think look at the list of the presidentiables and by which they are judged — this one will mean slamming the door hard on both; the other one will be the exact opposite, while the three other serious contenders will be somewhere in between.
Is this a good way to view Decision 2022, as linked to the matter of being a passing of judgment on the two seniors, Marcos and Duterte? I suppose there is no other way to look at it. At least that’s how I look at it: being a question of how I think the Philippines ought to be governed.
Or deserves to be governed, as Jose Rizal put it more than a century ago.
Because, yes, in the end we really get the government we all collectively deserve. It’s our collective choice.
