ELECTION AS A DEMOCRATIC INSTRUMENTALITY APPROPRIATED IN

PHILIPPINE POLITICS VIA THE AGENCY OF THE COMMISSION ON

ELECTIONS (COMELEC)

Ruel F. Pepa
Trinity University of Asia

-I-
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The free election of government officials in a country is said to be a classic legacy of

democratic politics. In the context of the Philippines, it is a legacy of what we have come
to know as the American brand of democracy. Generations before the Americans came to
colonize the country after more than three centuries of Spanish colonization, US
democracy had already been an institution in its own right where elections happened at
all levels of government and hence were an institution in themselves. Through time, a
general impression has been created in the minds of the peoples of different countries that
in one way or another have been substantially influenced by US politics largely through
its imperialistic foreign policies. The Philippines is one of them. In Benedict Anderson’s
“Elections in Southeast Asia,” the author mentions that

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National-level elections were introduced in the Philippines by its American

conquerors in 1907. The immediate background for this innovation was Asia’s first
modern revolution, the successful insurrectionary movement launched in 1896
against Spanish rule which began in the environs of Manila and later spread
through much of Luzon and tangentially into parts of the Visayas. While the
movement was led largely by small-town notables and provincial gentry, it also
involved widespread participation of the popular classes, and by women and
adolescents, as well as by adult males. Hence the Americans’ counter-revolutionary
intervention required a ruthless military campaign which may have cost up to a
quarter of a million Filipino lives. (Anderson, pp. 272-273)
I would like to believe that the Philippines is the country most influenced by US politics
to the point of actually having been “brainwashed” to think that the single measure of a
democratic political way is the regular holding of elections at all levels of government. In
fact, the general feeling of the adult population segment when Marcos declared martial
law in 1972 was democracy died because no more elections would be held henceforth. In
a sense, there is some theoretical truth to such a feeling and belief. I myself am prone to
believe that theoretically, involvement in elections is a very concrete manifestation of a
people’s actual taste of democratic life in the politics of a nation. Choosing the leadership
of one’s barangay, municipality, province or country should create in a person a feeling of
importance for being a part of a nation’s political dynamics. If this situation is a reality, it
could be confidently said that democracy is truly alive and well. This is what we call true
people’s power—a political condition where the majority reign and where they reign,
elections are the best channel.

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Free elections are certainly not all there is to democracy; but in every modern
nation that is generally called democratic, free elections are, as they always have
been, the basic device that enables the people to control the rulers. In short: No free
elections, no democracy. (Ranney, p.158)

-II-

It had not been the case in the distant past from the time of primitive communalism to the
time of feudalism. During those days, brute force exercised in warfare, both internal and
external, always with the intent of the powerful to overrun the weak and characterized by
elements of greed, deceit and murderous drives, catapulted leaders of immense power.
Those early stages of social development were in a political climate that bred a highly
stratified social context also known as caste system. The nobility occupied the highest
stratum while denizens of less-than-human recognition inhabited the lowest.

The latter were the farmers and workers who bore the burden of society’s economic
productivity in a situation of exploitation that pushed them to poverty, hunger, sickness
and even death. They were a major factor in sustaining the economic base of society, yet
they were the most dehumanized and disempowered in terms of political signification.
They gave the most of what they could in a society’s economy, yet they had been pushed
to the outer fringes of their society’s politics and government. In fact, a relevant case in
point as we discuss this matter is the society of the ancient city-state of Athens during the
time of the first classical philosophers. Those who belonged to the lowest rung of the
Athenian society were not even considered citizens. Hence, ancient democracy as it was
inaugurated in Athens during that time was not the democracy we know today.

Later within the same wide temporal scope, political power established through sheer
brute force was sustained by the succeeding generations of immense wealth of
geographic scope characteristic of the magnificent monarchies that ruled the world. If the
caste systems were inaugurated in the earlier generations, they were strengthened and
institutionalized during this period. The advent of true democracy, its guiding principles
and ideals, was yet a distant possibility whose reality was not even dreamt of by the most
idealistic political theorist of the era.

As people in feudal societies of the past realized more and more the value of their
humanity, freedom became an ideal to be pursued for such freedom was the only way
whereby their humanity could authentically be expressed. In the inter-subjective sense, an
individual’s freedom was as important and inviolable as any human being ‘s freedom in a
society. This was the germinal seed of what later on developed into what we now call
democracy where individual freedom to be meaningful in the social context should not
only be guaranteed but in the process should also be subjected to certain principles that
will promote general human welfare and flourishing. In simple terms, we say that the
adult populace of a society, under normal circumstances, is given importance, empowered
and granted certain political responsibilities to make the society healthy, strong,
progressive and dynamic. At this point of modern time, the general will of the people,
regardless of their economic situation in life plays a highly responsible and active role in
politics and the best expression of it should be in the choice of their leadership through
the instrumentality of fair and free elections.
 One of the requirements for a free election is what is often called universal suffrage:
that is, the rule that all adults have an equal opportunity to vote. However, this
principle has never been interpreted to mean that everyone in the community must
have the right to vote. No democratic nation has ever permitted ten-year-old
children to vote and no democratic theorist has ever called their exclusion
undemocratic. Most democratic nations also exclude aliens, people confined to
mental institutions, and criminals in prison, and a few people think this violates the
principle of universal suffrage. (Ranney, p. 160)
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-III-

In the context of the Philippines, the importance of elections is enshrined in the 1987
Constitution being a political right known as the right of suffrage. In Article V Section 1
of the said charter , we find the following provision:
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Suffrage may be exercised by all citizen of the Philippines not otherwise disqualified
by law, who are at least eighteen years of age, and who shall have resided in the
Philippines for at least six months immediately preceding the election. No literacy,
property, or other substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of
suffrage. (The 1987 Philippine Constitution)

Suffrage, however, is more than election. It also includes plebiscite, referendum, initiative
and recall. (cf. de Leon, pp. 144, 145). The agency in the Philippines constitutionally
mandated to oversee, manage and administer elections from the most basic political unit
to the national is the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). Again, referring to the 1987
Philippine Constitution, the COMELEC is one of the constitutional commissions along
with the Civil Service Commission and the Commission on Audit.

Constitutional commissions are independent bodies (cf. Article IX Section 1 of the 1987
Constitution).

In the exercise of their powers and functions, they are supreme within their own
sphere and may, therefore, be considered, in that respect, coordinate and co-equal
with the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Like the other organs of the
government, however, their acts are subject to scrutiny by the Supreme Court on
certiorari. (de Leon, p. 273)

Regarding the purpose of the COMELEC, de Leon (p. 296) comments:

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The purity of elections is one of the fundamental requisites of popular government. It

is obviousl that the sanctity of the ballot and the free and honest expression of the
popular will can best be protected by an independent office whose sole work is to
enforce laws on elections. The Commission on Elections is organized for that purpose.
The intention is to place it outside the influence of political parties and the control of
the legislative, executive, and judicial organs of the government. It is an independent
administrative tribunal, co-equal with the other departments in respect to the powers
vested in it.

-IV-

However, the kind of democracy we have in the Philippines is simply a semblance of

what we find in truly democratic states. We may have the political structure of democracy
but the cultural orientation of the Filipinos has not been given the chance to inhabit the
inner chambers of such structure. Perhaps the forces that prevent them to do so are just so
strong or the structure itself could be illusory and hence non-existent. In the political
evolution of the Filipino people, they have not really broken away from their feudal past
and they have not really imbibed yet the democratic way of life. And if democracy in our
context is flawed, so are its instrumentalities as they operate and function in practically
all political exercises we engage in even the elections we have had since the first time
they were experienced by our American-inspired ancestors. Because of our colonial and
feudal past, we presently have a very peculiar kind of political experience where the
essence of such past and the forcible ramming of theoretical democracy of American
design down our throats have not actually found a connecting point of harmony. This is
basically the reason why the Philippines has not achieved yet political stability and
economic strength. The artificial blending of colonial feudalism and superficial US-brand
democracy more aptly termed by the Irish historiographer Benedict Anderson “cacique
democracy” is actually a parody, for how can feudal lords—even warlords—or
“caciques” become politically dominant in a truly democratic social arrangement? As we
have determined earlier, the entire set-up has totally engulfed the way the
instrumentalities of democracy function in the Philippines to the detriment of the nations
economy, government and culture.

In the same vein, Philippine elections are therefore as less democratic as they can be for
generally, warlords are the ones calling the political shots in both the municipal and
provincial levels of government. Only those who have “guns, goons and gold” have the
supremacy to run in elections, making every election a contest of cacique powers. And
where do we find the masses? They are simply as disempowered as they always are—
sycophants to candidates or simple nobodies. In places wallowing in poverty, vote-buying
is a common thing and the general order of the day is, the more money a candidate has,
the better are the chances of winning an election. Besides this, cheating is rampant in all
parts of the country during the conduct of actual elections as well as during the counting
of votes. Even if the major mandate of the COMELEC is to safeguard the sanctity of the
ballots and protect the purity of the electoral process, this mandate has never been
effected. The resonance of violent drives characteristic of ancient power play are, in fact,
still heard in the sounds of gunfire during the heat of campaigns, during the election
proper, even during the post-election period.
Democracy is corrupted in the graft and corruption found in government people and
offices. Hence, we have all the reasons to say that even the political instrumentalities—
and the electoral process is one of them—of a government that has continually corrupted
democracy are themselves tools of corruption and deception aimed to perpetuate corrupt
people in power. Related to this, Anderson comments:

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Naturally enough, the form of electorism introduced [in the Philippines] was
modeled, even if parodically, on America’s own. It is useful to recall that, in the first
decade of the twentieth century, the United States had arguably the most corrupt
form of electorism among all the industrial powers. Not only were women excluded
from the vote, but so were millions of adult non-white males. Poll taxes and
gerrymandering were widespread, to the benefit of court-house cliques and urban
machines. Violence, in the South and the West, was far more a part of electoral
politics than in advanced Western Europe. Furthermore, the United States of that
era was quite peculiar in the general absence of a national-level professional
bureaucracy, such as had emerged in Britain, Sweden, Germany, or France. (p.273)
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We are therefore not surprised if in reality even the very agency that is mandated to make
elections credible becomes itself an instrument employed by the forces of corruption and
deceit to destroy the very foundation of democracy

REFERENCES

Anderson, Benedict. The Spectre of Comparisons, Nationalism, Southeast

Asia, and the Word. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 1998, 2004.

De Leon, Hector S. Textbook on the Philippine Constitution (2005 Edition).

Quezon City. Rex Printing Company, Inc. 2005.

Ranney, Austin. Governing: An Introduction to Political Science. Singapore:

Prentice-Hall Pte Ltd. 1999.

©Ruel F. Pepa

FORMAL EDUCATION AS PRAGMATIC AND TRANSFORMATIVE: A

CHALLENGE TO ACADEMIC DECADENCE

Ruel F. Pepa
Trinity University of Asia

Formal or academic education, to be true to its essence in pragmatic terms, should be

individually facilitating, socially empowering, politically liberating and culturally
challenging. We can envision here individuals whose true education is attested by their
productivity, openness and integrity as expressions of their creativity, responsibility and
sensitivity in a challenging, complex and changing world.

This type of formal education is concrete, functional and progressive not in the
way it is viewed in the academe but in its solid, significant and substantial contribution to
society in general. This type of education is not defined in terms of academic degrees,
transcripts of records and diplomas. This is honest-to-goodness education whose bearers
are capable practitioners, performers, professionals (in the larger sense of the word)
recognized, relied-on and rewarded not because of high fallutin’ descriptions whereby
one speaks of her/himself in the HRD office of a corporate entity but because of how s/he
actually performs effectively, efficiently and, at best, effusively at the workplace. This is
academic education whose single proof of meaningfulness is shown in pragmatic
instance.Academic education is hence pragmatically substantiated.

Formal education as pragmatic education is fundamentally socially relevant. The

social relevance of formal education should be a legitimizing factor to give direction to a
person’s way of life in spite of the abstractness and artificiality of formal education. The
academe that is not a place where current socio-political-economic issues are seriously
brought out, discussed and deliberated on defeats the true essence of education in general
and obsoletizes academic education in particular.
 In the face of this expectation, the academe could only achieve an acceptable level
of credibility as a true bailiwick of pragmatic education if the academe is an actual
participant not only in the deliberation about but also in taking actions transformative of
certain social, political and economic terrains. The academe in this sense is understood as
an arena of praxis where education takes place not only by way of classroom theorizing
but also of on- and off-campus actions. In the process, it is basically important to focus
on consciousness expansion because truly meaningful actions cannot be achieved unless
there is consciousness transformation. Formal education reckoned as pragmatic education
concretely responds to the implied challenge to Karl Marx’s “Philosophy has only
interpreted the world; the point is to change it.” Hence from consciousness-
transformation emanates the energy that pushes world-transformation.

On the other side of this idealized situation of what has been called pragmatic
academic education is the reality of an alienating type of education in the context of a
society hitched on semi-colonial and semi-feudal presuppositions. The academe is a
microcosm of the social realm where it is located and we could almost be certain that the
academe short-changes the students and formal education itself as it continues to be
insensitive and less-concerned of social realities. Formal education banks on the
importance of reflection as a point of entry that leads to action.

However, such could only happen if what is reflected on is not what a generic
textbook says but what is experienced in social practice. In fact, textbooks should be
products of reflections on social experiences and hence, the teachers and students
themselves in an academic location should be the ones to write the textbooks that the next
batch of students should use and likewise reflect on in the whole gamut of an
uninterrupted dialectics of pragmatic transformative formal education.

© Ruel F. Pepa 2007

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