Jose V. Abueva: Why Magsaysay matters still

This interview with Jose Veloso Abueva, 85, probably our foremost living political scientist, continues my conversations with our senior seniors, to extract from them insights that would illumine the past and form that important continuum with the young. Abueva has studied and participated in government and politics early on immediately after his doctoral studies at Ann Arbor in Michigan. As an academic, he was the 16th University of the Philippines president (1987-1993) and before this, was visiting professor at the City University of New York, Yale, and Ford Foundation adviser at the Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu. He also served the United Nations University in Tokyo and New York. He authored several books on government and political development, among them the definitive biography of Ramon Magsaysay.

Professor Abueva is married to Maria Socorro Encarnacion whom he met at the UP Institute of Public Administration in Padre Faura where she was attending evening classes. They have four children: Llanel, the very successful potter, Jovert who is vice president of an energy training company in Pennsylvania, Rosanna, a banker in London, and the youngest who is in Manila. The couple has four grandchildren.

In view of the forthcoming election next month, I asked Professor Abueva what to expect. From here, we proceeded to the introspection on our dysfunctional political system.

PHILIPPINE STAR:  How will our citizens vote this May?

JOSE V. ABUEVA: Personal popularity and name recall of the senatorial candidates are vital. These are often based on their celebrity status as political, movie, media, or sports stars. Some political leaders who shine in the media gain celebrity status and name recall. So do certain military rebels and activists in their time (Honasan, Lacson, Trillanes).

Members of political dynasties have an advantage over less known candidates. Senatorial candidates who belong to a wealthy and reputable “family dynasty” are likely to win more votes than less known, “independent candidates.”

Support from national political leaders, national parties or alliances add to the winning chances of the senatorial candidates. For example, the support of President Aquino and Team PNoy on one hand, and of Vice President Binay and former President Joseph Estrada and their Team UNA on the other.

Perceived “win-ability” of particular candidates tend to give them an edge over their rivals who are seen to be losers. In the course of the campaign, the SWS and Pulse Asia national surveys suggest the likely winners and losers. Some voters want to “bet on the winner” because their votes are a form of investment.

Younger candidates may have an advantage over their older rivals. There are now more younger than older voters.

Personal knowledge of the candidates; some vote for the senatorial candidates they personally like. Or the candidates endorsed by someone the voters know, trust, and are beholden to (kamag-anak, utang na loob). It is easier for citizens to know the record and reputation of their candidates for local government positions.

However meritorious they might be, independent senatorial candidates are at a disadvantage.

How do we prevent the election of scoundrels?

This is too complex for me to tackle. For good governance, we need many more empowered, critical, and independent citizens than we now have — who join serious political parties to offer us good leaders, who have a serious platform for good governance and reform. We need a critical mass of honest, transforming leaders. Equally, we need to reform our obsolete political institutions that our 1987 Constitution restored!

Who are your senatorial bets in May?

They are Jun Magsaysay, Pimentel, Bam Aquino, Legarda, Cayetano, Villar, Angara, Hontiveros and Trillanes or Madrigal.

Let us now start from the beginning; tell me about your ancestral home.

It is in Duero, Bohol, deteriorating. It’s my grandfather’s town. But we grew up in Tagbilaran, until my first year high school then we evacuated to Duero during the war. I didn’t know the origin of Duero. One time while camping in Spain, we came across a town called Aranda de Duero. My brother, Billy built a structure and it took so long to finish. Billy is a good friend of David Consunji.

Ah, the builder.

Yes. He rebuilt Manila Hotel and gave Billy two or three chandeliers of the Manila Hotel, so they became the measure of the house he had to build.

I knew you and your brother in the ‘50s and you have also a sister? I don’t think you remember, but I visited you at Ann Arbor in 1955. But my visit to you was not as memorable as my visit to Billy who was in Cranbrook.

Just off Detroit.

I got off at the wrong bus stop and had to walk about two or three miles. Now back to your family. I was in Tokyo with my wife and Billy was also there with his wife. We were having a dinner and our Japanese host asked about your parents and Billy said, they were killed by the Japanese.

My father did not surrender to the Japanese. He was provincial sheriff of Bohol. He was Congressman, by the way, for one term 1922-1925. He was defeated by Carlos P. Garcia, who became President. We were in Duero. My parents decided to hide in the mountains of Duero with guerrilla friends. There was a Japanese garrison in Guindulman, the town next to Duero. The Japanese went around the hills looking for the guerrillas. My father was wanted because he did not surrender to them. The Japanese must have found a farmer who squealed on where my parents were. They were ambushed. Billy hid and was not captured. They were taken to Valencia, the next town, I looked for them. Finally I was told that the Japanese were killing people and throwing them off the cliff in Valencia, that a couple was executed on the hillside. When I went there all I saw was the scattered remains of my parents, skulls, bones and their soiled clothes. I recognized the denture of my mother, her brown San Antonio dress and her white belt, the shirt of my father.

Did you really plan to be a political scientist?

I took pre-medicine. My mother’s sister told me we have no money. So in my second year, I took pre-law, and then moved to Diliman. I took first year law in UP. My classmates were Paeng Salas, Johnny Ponce Enrile. All you do in law school is memorize decisions. I’m not going to spend my life memorizing decisions. (Laughter). So I turned to political science.

What went wrong with our politics, the leaders?

We were doing pretty well. Magsaysay was the zenith of that political development. He was a drop-out of UP but turned out to be the most intuitive in knowing what was wrong with our politics,  namely that it excluded the poor and that’s why I called Ramon Magsaysay, the servant leader with the vision of hope for good democratic governance and a better life for all. Among our leaders he is the one with that perception — intuitively because he did not know it intellectually. He was a prophet of inclusive democracy. Lincoln’s government of, for, and by. Magsaysay added, all the people.

So, back to the question. What went wrong?

In the time of Magsaysay we were already an elitist democracy ruled by oligarchs — the political and economic elite. Magsaysay gathered around him likeminded people like Pelaez, Manglapus, Manahan, Soc Rodrigo, etc. They were already thinking of forming a new political party in order to change our institutions. What was wrong with them? The institutions ensure elite dominance and continuity in power. The idea is to devolve power in order to empower the people because they will never be empowered in that kind of patron-client relationship, the dependence of the poor on the elite. But Magsaysay died.

Could it be that the American influence on our political development was not all that good?

Being a colonial power, the Americans, like the Spaniards, found it convenient to deal with the native elite. And so it was an elitist democracy.

We had a wrong model?

The model of democracy was okay. But the social system was different. The elite were plutocrats. You change that through institutions. This is what we don’t understand, this is what PNoy doesn’t understand. PNoy keeps saying that he doesn’t want to tinker with the Cory Constitution. But you can never transform the system without the devolving power from imperial Manila.

Good presidents like Magsaysay never needed the Constitution; he had the support of the people. And a bad president will always try to mangle the Constitution for his own benefit.

Magsaysay had the right vision, the right sentiments. He had charisma. People loved him. But charisma cannot last, it is personal. You have to have institutions to sustain your goals.

But institutions are made by men.

Yes, but our institutions support a very highly centralized unitary system. So power, resources, are in the central government at the disposition of the President and Congress. We have to change the institutions to devolve power.

Now, crucial question ito, Pepe. Institutions, like I said, are created by men and the men who create these institutions are backed by 1) superior intelligence; 2) a genuine love of country. Our model is mostly American.

You transcend that, go through that. We should not blame the Americans; we have been on our own since 1946.

Since 1935 — the Commonwealth.

But our institutions are presidential, not federal and decentralized. Why? Because as a colonial power, the Americans wanted control. Magsaysay had a sense that power should be with the people because government is oppressive and neglectful. I go back to the hindsight of half a century. Magsaysay was already beginning to turn the system around but he died. Manahan and Manglapus ran for President but lost badly. Maning Pelaez succeeded to be vice president but was defeated by Marcos in the Nacionalista convention in 1965.

So your basic solution is federalism?

We have transforming leaders and there are, as James MacGregor Burns says, “transactional leaders” who relate to their supporters as patrons. Transforming leaders want to pursue the real aims of life like justice, peace and self-fulfillment, etc. We lack such leaders; too many are just transactional leaders, who want to remain in power. Transforming leaders don’t get enough support. We have enough potential for such leaders — it’s just that they have to gain power in our milieu.

Why haven’t we able to create leaders in the caliber of Magsaysay?

Because we also have this electorate who are poor, dependent, insecure. They support transactional leaders. I don’t blame them in their circumstances. They worry about tomorrow’s meals, hospitalization. Magsaysay transcended the structure of power and our institutions. But no one after him did that. I was hopeful that Macapagal would but he did not.

I was also following him. He was pro masa cono but he never really cared much for the masa. When he became president, he had no land reform program and was forced to adopt one. He really had no farm background.

His goal was to live in Forbes Park.

Let us mull over this question. Why have there been no real successors to Magsaysay? This is a crucial commentary on us as a people. Magsaysay wasn’t poor and he wasn’t a peasant.

But he mingled all his life with the common people.

The men who supported him — Pelaez is a rich mestizo, Manahan, too. They transcended their social and economic origins.

Why don’t transforming leaders succeed? Because of the dominance of political oligarchies. They keep the institutions the way they are. The highly decentralized parliamentary system — parliamentary government is alien to the Americans. By the way, in the 1971 Constitution Convention before martial law under Dado Macapagal the convention already decided to adopt parliament. I was secretary of the 1971 Constitutional Convention. Marcos pretended we had the parliamentary system, that’s why we had Prime Minister Virata. Marcos just used the idea; a dictatorship or presidential system favors elitist leadership.

What can our leaders learn from Ramon Magsaysay?

His credo, his fundamental belief that government exists for the people and particularly the common people, the masa. They are neglected, they need to be empowered. The idea of popular sovereignty is a myth. The government should really serve the people and Magsaysay’s political heirs and associates believe in that,including Jovito Salonga. Salonga, of course, cannot transform the system because he did not become president. Marcos won the Nacionalista convention in 1965. That was the turning point. If Pelaez won he would have transformed the system.

Pelaez was such a gentleman, he didn’t want to play the kind of politics that Marcos played.

He was the political ear of Magsaysay. That’s why Magsaysay liked him very much because talagang they were two of a kind.

How do you institutionalize good government? Do you read Boo Chanco? The other day, he wrote about some sections of government where a lot of hanky-panky still goes on because the people there are close to the President.

There’s no accountability in our presidential system, Example: the president has a six-year term, accountability is real when you have a chance to run for a second term. If you only have one term, wala. It is the second term that really makes the President accountable.

In other words, amend the Constitution.

Yes, we have to. Parliamentary, not necessarily federal. People get scared when we talk of federalism. Just regional autonomy and if we achieve that, then after 10 years or so we might decide to go all the way to federalism but we don’t have to. I have been an advocate of federalism but I know now, there is so much resistance to it.

But that exercise, the dispersal of power was responsible for the barangays. They are the worst offenders.

Yes, especially the Barangay ng Kabataan! That’s the worst; they romanticized democracy. We have to ensure accountability, so we have to invent the structure of the system that assures accountability.

This is where the parliamentary system works, when the leaders are asked questions on the floor.

Yes, I have an insight. Why did the famous Cory Constitution not shift to parliamentary system when they knew that our presidential system was not working. Cory could not function in a parliamentary system. If you see the British House of Commons on television, the left side is for those in power, the government and the right side is all opposition. The Prime Minister has to hold forth, answering all the questions, discussing policy. And not only that, Laurel wanted really to be the prime minister but the Cory people didn’t like Laurel so they just continued the old system. Secondly, it’s the political parties that make politics accountable. But we never had these parties. They are just labels, essentially organizations of politicians seeking power. They are not accountable. That’s why it is so easy for them to shift loyalties. And after the presidential election they maneuver for support. If we had a parliamentary system, you stick to your party, you rise or fall.

And even if you don’t have money, you can be a member of parliament!

Yes because of proportional representation, many seats are reserved for their party men to be appointed to parliament. You don’t have to run if you are not inclined to politics but you can still become a member of parliament. Then we adopted this silly party list which is a safer version of the proportional representation in a parliamentary system.

Whose idea was that?

Marcos. In his time they had these so-called incentives for the sectors that are unrepresented. They could not think of anything better than copy a phony Marcos representation. Our political parties do not have mass membership. You and I never join political parties. I did not until lately. We founded a mass membership party, we pay our dues — one thousand pesos a year. We don’t want patrons or financiers. And you know what is ironic after we started this party about a year and a half ago? I wrote to my political science friends from UP who teach us about the need for genuine political parties. Join us — but no one joins.

(Laughter) Our political parties are active only during election year.

They used to have conventions to select candidates but not after 1965. Somebody just decides to run.

In your study of Magsaysay, have you found anything negative about him?

The formation of the Community  Development Program headed by Ramon Binamira — he produced a plan and was training volunteers in Los Baños. Magsaysay was so impatient. He said, “I don’t believe in training, just send them to the barrios.”  But Ramon said, “they have to understand self-help; it’s not patronage, we’re fighting patronage, the dominance of the elite, keeping people dependent.”  Being a drop-out from college, he didn’t  believe in formal training. He was losing his temper and shouting at Ramon. Mrs. Magsaysay came and calmed him down. It was Maning Pelaez who turned him around. He said, “We have to try it this way because it’s a different idea.”

I fault him with pampering the media and as a matter of fact I think he was the first president to give so much attention to media.

(To be conntinued)