Ten things we should know about Philippine elections

Pro-administration Team Pnoy senatorial slate

The campaign period for the May 2013 by-elections has started.  It is probably the best time to review what we (should or already) know about elections in the Philippines.   

UNA: opposition senatorial slate

1. Even if the Philippines is in the tropics, it also has four seasons like temperate countries. It has a dry and a wet season.  And there’s the Christmas season–purportedly the longest Christmas celebration in the world.  It starts in September and ends in early January of the following year.  Last but not least is the election season, which starts in January and ends in the middle of May.  Note that the election season almost immediately follows Christmas for a seamless stream of festivities.  Formally, elections are held only every three years.  However, politicians (incumbents especially) usually behave as if elections will be held tomorrow.  So they preen, and they tidy up, and they put their best foot forward, and dispense all kinds of goodies to constituents.
2. There are only two kinds of politicians in Philippine elections: the winners and the cheated.  Instead of conceding gracefully, the default behaviour of losing candidate is to claim the occurrence of fraud in favour of the winning candidate.
3. Even if the Philippines is the oldest democracy in Asia, it took more than a century to modernize the way we vote and count votes.  Younger Asian democracies (with larger populations) like India had started using electronic voting machines since 1999.  In contrast, the Philippines adopted similar machines on a nation-wide basis only in 2010.  In both countries, though, the credibility of the voting machines rests on an independent verification system  designed to allow voters verify that their votes were cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to provide a means to audit the stored electronic results. Since every election in the Philippines is governed by a specific law, the continued use of voting machines is not assured. 
   

   Liberal Party: head of the ruling coalition

4. The Philippine Constitution provides for a multi-party system, which is actually more fit for a parliamentary system.  While multiple parties exist in name, most of them are mere vehicles for electoral bids of key politicians. There is no prohibition on party switching and voters do not penalize politicians who switch
   

   Nacionalista Party: a component of Team Pnoy

   parties.  For example, the senatorial slate of President Benigno Aquino is composed of candidates from several political parties.  The opposition line-up is similarly constituted by politicians from different parties.  What makes the situation rather absurd is the

   

   PDP Laban: a component of the UNA slate

   adoption by the opposing coalitions of three guest candidates. It is an indication of the bankruptcy and lack of imagination on both sides.  There is surely no lack of suitable candidates on both camps but they decided instead to guest ‘sure-win’ candidates.  In the past week, so-called guest candidates chose to campaign with the administration candidates.  This prompted threats from the opposition coalition that it will no longer carry said guest candidates followed by inane

   

   PMP: another component of the UNA slate

   ripostes from some of the ‘guests’ that their loyalty is to the Filipino people and not to any political coalition.

5. At the end of an election (general or otherwise), political alignments will either be with or against the incumbent administration.  There is no rule prohibiting those who styled themselves as opposition candidates and won to join the pro-administration coalition after the elections.  The move is explained as a way to ensure funds for district projects, the idea being the President is more inclined to approve projects if they were proposed by political allies rather by political opponents.  Sometimes, it does not work in such a neat way. Presidents may court the critical votes of opposition politicians by providing pork barrel allocations and other forms of patronage.
6. The discussion above highlights the difference between candidate-centered vs. party-centered electoral systems.  In party-centred polities, political parties choose their candidates through primaries, party conventions and caucuses.  In these polities, party discipline prevails; party members follow the party (voting) line in legislative bodies.  It is unthinkable for politicians to switch parties like butterflies flitting from a flower to another.  In sum, what is important is the political party as a ‘brand’.  It stands for something–an ideology, a political program–and its leaders and members are secondary.  Votes are cast for a politician because he is strongly associated with a party ‘brand’.  In contrast, parties are not strong ‘brands’ in candidate-centered systems.  Candidates are the ‘brands’ and political parties are just extraneous packaging or wrappings that may be changed in the next election.  The candidate does not need an ideology or a political program.  Rather, he must have a reputation of performance–of providing divisible favors to constituents,  supporters, and financiers such as hand-outs, jobs, infrastructure projects, and preferential treatment by government such as exemptions and special credits.  He then claims that these ‘public goods’ were made possible by his ‘private performance’.  Thus, the ubiquitous presence of ‘Epal[1] tarps’ in all corners of archipelago make sense.
   

   Example of epal tarp

7. In candidate-centered polities like the Philippines, the differences between legislators and local chief executives are blurred.  Voters and politicians alike do not consider legislation as the primary work of legislators.  If a legislator behaved as a pure legislator and concentrated on making laws, he will most likely not be re-elected.  Voters will see him as a useless politician since he did not ‘bring home the bacon’.  The legislator must behave like local chief executives (LCEs),  as provincial governors, city and town mayors, and even barangay captains,  who must deliver divisible goods.  For this reason, among others, legislators and  LCEs had seen it fit to play a game of electoral musical chairs especially since the enactment of the Local Government Code (LGC) in 1991.  Through the 1991 LGC,  funds available to LCEs of some local government units (LGUs) became more substantial than those of congressional district representatives.  However, a better explanation for this behavior is the term-limit rule.  Representatives and LCEs can only serve for three consecutive terms of three years each.   The ability to run for other electoral posts helps politicians with expiring terms to maintain their hold on political power. 
8. The other way around term-limits is to field relatives (wife, husband, son, daughter, etc.) for the soon-to-be vacated post(s).  This could just be a bench-warming strategy; the relative keeps the post for a three-year term until the principal is eligible once more to run for the post.  However, it could also be an expansionist strategy.  The ‘bench-warmer’ had gained valuable experience and exposure; these assets could be parlayed into another electoral post.  These circumstances can explain the origins of political dynasties in the Philippines.  Let’s recall the case of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.  Arroyo hunkered into a survival strategy after her electoral mandate was put
   

   Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

   into serious question after the 2005 ‘Hello Garci’ scandal.  The strategy apparently covered the post-presidency period and Arroyo ran for a congressional seat in her home province to acquire a modicum of immunity.  During her incumbency as President, that same seat was occupied by one of her sons.  To accommodate her, the son did not contest the same seat but chose to run for another post instead.  The filial ties between mother and son were key to this unprecedented post-presidential survival strategy. 

9. The Philippine Constitution explicitly prohibits political dynasties.  However, the same constitutional provision is not self-executory and requires that an enabling law must be passed.  However, all attempts to pass such a law have failed so far, and understandably so since most legislators are members of what could be rightly called political dynasties.  The current by-elections can lead to the consolidation of several political dynasties associated with the biggest and brightest names in Philippine politics–Aquino, Angara, Enrile, Cojuangco, Escudero, Binay,  etc.  The political dynasty issue is rather a complicated one.  Proponents of banning or controlling political dynasties argue that it will strengthen Philippine democracy by broadening choice of candidates and removing the undue advantages of dynasties (wealth, experience, exposure, and name recall, among others).  Those who would advise caution think an anti-dynasty law is actually an unconstitutional provision.  It violates the equal treatment clause of the Constitution.  Why should a son or daughter or a brother or a grandson or an uncle be prohibited from contesting an electoral post because a relative is in power?  What would justify discriminatory treatment?
10. One thing that political dynasties have going for them is that they are better able to handle the ever-rising costs of elections.  Key considerations are population growth–the growth of the voting population–and the rather fixed length of the electoral campaign period.  In the past, candidates (especially those for national posts) thought it was adequate to rely on hand-shaking, posters, flyers, city-hopping, and miting-de-avance to win.  However, the increased number of voters and the fixed
    

    TV spot for Pnoy during 2010 election campaign

    campaign period forced candidates to use television and radio as the primary campaign tools.  Not that the mass media corporations are complaining.  They are in fact so happy since a previous ban on electronic campaigning was lifted.  The increased prominence of electronic media in Philippine elections raises serious questions regarding election campaign finance and electronic campaigning.  If TV and radio presence is a function of a candidate’s money, if TV and radio presence enhances a candidate’s name recall and chances of winning, what rules are being implemented regarding these activities?  Are they adequate?  What reforms are needed?

    

    TV spot for 2010 presidential candidate Gibo Teodoro

      

  This is not an exhaustive list; it could be expanded to 50 things about Philippine elections.  Perhaps we can end with the question: is it more fun with Philippine elections?  The response will be mixed.  We do not a have a porn star-member of the Italian parliament who delivers her speeches with a breast exposed.  We do not have brawling

Brawling Taiwanese legislators

parliamentarians as in Taiwan and South Korea.  On the other hand, our elections are fun!  We love our elections!  Elections are fiestas, extravaganzas, spectator sports, boxing bouts, and cockfights all rolled into one.  There are movie stars, starlets, stand-up comics, and dance troupes galore.  And there’s food and drink. And cash gifts!    Reportage on elections reflect these metaphors.   Now you know why a lot of Filipinos want elections to happen annually rather than every three years.

Miting de avance

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[1] ‘Epal‘ is a play on and is derived from the Filipino word ‘mapapel‘.  Roughly translated into English, it means ‘credit grabbing’ or ‘attention grabbing’.  It is obviously a pejorative; the politician is admonished for trumpeting what he is duty-bound to do.  Epal also creates two related discourses: the public should be grateful to the politician and that, perhaps, the politician is spending his personal money for the public’s benefit.  The tarp (short for tarpaulins) became the medium of choice with the advent of appropriate software and large printers.

Political institutions and tax policy-making in the Philippines

In this blog entry, we continue sharing parts of the draft book on political institutions and policy making in the country.  To sharpen the discussion, we focus our attention on tax policy-making with emphasis on tax measures adopted during the presidency of Fidel Ramos.

I believe this discussion is timely given recent warnings that the incoming president will be saddled with fiscal deficits and need to raise revenues by way of raising value-added-tax (VAT) rates and rationalization of current fiscal incentives.

The examination of tax policies is a good way of seeing the policy making process of a country in action.  Taxation touches almost every aspect of the economy and society and taxation is the area of public policy where the most interests are at stake.  For one, a number of public policy decisions (such as public spending and borrowing) and private economic behavior (such as spending and investments) are related to taxation.

Raising adequate tax revenues to finance government programs and support public policy thrusts is one of the key failures of the Philippine state since the colonial period.  During the American colonial period, the efforts of the American-dominated Philippine Commission (which operated as a quasi-executive branch) to raise greater revenues were consistently opposed by the legislative assembly (composed largely of a Filipino elite that acquired land via Spanish land grants and the sale of church lands during the American occupation) (Golay 1984).

In fact, the political dominance of landowners in the legislature helps explain why the real property tax system was not even codified until 1973 (Montes 1991).  In addition, legislators had continually sought tax concessions for constituents and supporters.  Golay (1961) concluded that reliance on tax incentives was the reason why tax revenues did not increase (as a percentage share of the GDP) between 1950 and 1959 despite increasing rates of import duties on American goods.  In his study of the pre-martial law legislature, Stauffer (1970) noted that Congress consistently held back efforts to tax the export industries.  While the martial law government of Ferdinand Marcos adopted tax reforms that increased the tax burden of the wealthier classes, it also granted vast tax exemption privileges to cronies and front-men (Eaton 2002).

Notwithstanding the chronic fiscal crises and crushing debt burden inherited from the Marcos period, legislators were still reluctant to enact tax reform measures after the return to democracy in 1986. However, they were  yet were not immune to tax particularism.  In fact, the most common type of tax bills passed between 1987 and 1994 was designed to grant tax exemptions (Eaton 2002).  President Corazon Aquino (1986-1992) was thus forced to respond to the fiscal bind by relying on domestic borrowing, which allowed her to avoid the politically difficult decisions involved in either repudiating the Marcosian foreign debt or in pursuing tax reform.

Prior to the re-establishment of Congress in 1987, she enacted a limited tax measure which imposed a 10% value-added tax (VAT) on manufactured goods but excluded a wide range of services, including those provided by professionals and financial institutions.

The Ramos presidency (1992-1998) faced a harsher fiscal situation compared to the preceding Aquino government.  On top of the foreign debt service burden, Ramos had to contend with the loss of millions of dollars in official aid from the United States following the abrogation of the Military Bases Agreement and the subsequent withdrawal of American military forces from the country in 1991.  With the passage of the Local Government Code in 1991, his government also had to deal with the increased and automatic claim of local government units (LGUs) on national revenues.  He also had to honor international treaty commitments to lower tariffs.

The need to raise revenues is also demanded by his “Philippines 2000” program, a plan to transform the sick Philippine economy into the latest Asian newly industrializing economy by his term’s end.  It was regarded by many observers as the first strategic top-down project for social and economic restructuring since the Marcosian “New Society” program associated with martial law.

On his election to the presidency in May 1992 on a narrow mandate, Ramos faced an economic crisis characterized by nearly zero economic growth, falling average incomes, and daily power outages of up to 8 hours (De Dios 1993).  At 15% of gross national product (GNP), tax revenues in the Philippines were the lowest in Southeast Asia.  In contrast, In­donesia, Thailand and Malaysia had better tax efforts at 19.8%, 19% and 17.5% of GNP, respectively.  Similarly, the level of tax evasion (more than 50% of potential tax revenues are uncollected) in the country clearly reflected the weakness of Philippine tax administration (Manasan 1994).

As a first step, Ramos proposed the broadening of the narrow VAT base and asked Congress to include telecommunications, cargo transport, hotels and restaurants, books, newspapers, broadcasting, and the lease/sale of real estate.  By buying off congressional opposition to the measure through accelerated releases of pork barrel allocations, an expanded VAT law (Republic Act 7716) was enacted in 1994.  However, the new law’s implementation in July 1994 was suspended when the Supreme Court ruled it violated the Constitution.

After the 1995 mid-term elections, legislators from the House of Representatives resumed their offensive against expanded VAT coverage.  The outcome of this new tax policy process was the improved VAT or IVAT law (Republic Act 8241), which took effect on 1 January 1997.  The new law was a setback for Ramos as legislators reneged on an executive-legislative deal to limit exemptions.

Instead of expanding VAT coverage, RA 8241 expanded the list of industries and economic activities exempted from VAT, leading to foregone revenues estimated at US$20 million (Eaton 2002).  In effect, Ramos used up government funds and substantial political capital to end up with a tax law not entirely up to his liking in terms of revenue productivity, economic neutrality, and equity.

LGUs and the policy making process

The president supervises the whole country and its politico-administrative subdivisions—79 provinces, 115 cities, 1495 municipalities, and 41,943 barangays.  These sub-national units enjoy autonomy but are under the supervision through the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

Each sub-national unit has a chief executive and corresponding legislative bodies chosen through elections and an appointed local bureaucracy.  In 1991, the nature of relationships between the national government and local government units (LGUs) changed with the enactment of the Local Government Code (LGC), which devolved significant functions, powers, and responsibilities previously exercised by central national bodies.

Local officials are also players in the national policymaking process largely through their role in policy implementation.  In recent years, LGUs have become more assertive and effective in articulating their concerns through successful organizations into leagues at various levels that are subsequently incorporates in an umbrella organization—the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP).  The political clout of LGUs has increased in recent years such that the current Arroyo administration has increasingly relied on their organizations to push policy change (e.g., constitutional change) and design government programs (e.g., ‘super-regions’ development) that cater to their interests.  This political clout is both a function of LGU capacity to mobilize and deliver votes for the president and to offer countervailing power to Manila-based power-wielders.

It is not a case that GMA draws more support from outside Manila compared to previous presidents.  We have already alluded (in other blog entries) to the symbiotic relationships between national officials and local politicians controlling vote banks.  What is quite unique is the assiduous courtship by GMA of political support from outside Manila to ward off political challenges from Manila-based power-wielders and coup plotters as well as to support constitutional change.  President Estrada tried to rally political support from the ranks of the urban poor in Metro Manila to oppose his political rivals and critics.  President Ramos did not face comparable problems while President Aquino, the first post-Marcos president, was more engaged in fending off military coup attempts.  Aquino had to rely on a professional military hierarchy to defeat the putschists.