Pragmatism

The most polite word most people could find to describe the two major contending electoral alliances is extreme pragmatism.

There are other neutral words, of course. One could try and appear learned by describing the contending alliances as realpolitik.

Then there are the more disdainful descriptions: opportunism, for instance.

A lot were surprised – and many disagreed – with the shuffle pulled by the two major coalitions that past few days. And the disagreement was not at all tame.

Miriam Defensor Santiago was flabbergasted by the choice of Loren Legarda as FPJ’s running mate. So flabbergasted, she quit the KNP senatorial slate and entertained the possibility of joining the pro-administration K-4 bloc.

As this is being written, Miriam is still weighing her options. Meanwhile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ernesto Maceda were taken into the KNP slate.

The choice of Noli de Castro as Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo’s running mate was not much of a surprise. But the composition of her senatorial slate created a tempest across the many constituencies identified with Edsa 2 who seem to hold a certain sense of ownership of the Gloria presidency.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon drifted across the political spectrum in a matter of weeks. He was staunchly with the LDP. Then he took a leave from that party and materialized at the proclamation rally of Raul Roco, listed as one of that bloc’s senatorial contenders. Then he joined the Liberal Party, which is closely allied with President Gloria. Last Monday, he re-surfaced as a member of the K-4 senatorial ticket.

Many religions celebrate reincarnation. But none imagined reincarnation to happen with such intermittence as it did in the political affiliations of Biazon the past few weeks.

It is not Biazon, however, who riles the honorable members of "civil society" and appalls the old hands of Lakas-CMD. The honor belongs to Sen. John "Sonny" Osmeña.

A week before the deadline, Sonny Osmeña went to the Comelec to file his certificate of candidacy as an independent senatorial contender. The KNP was nearly sure he was going to man one of the ramparts of their campaign. Then he turned up at the proclamation of the pro-Gloria senatorial slate.

Although closely identified with businessman Eduardo Cojuangco and Joseph Estrada, Sonny Osmeña is his own man, heir to the powerful Cebuano political clan that has been a presence in Filipino politics for generations. In the eyes of civil society groups, he personifies the politics of the oligarchy.

But he is an important electoral asset. With him and with his main Cebuano rivals both supporting President Gloria’s bid, the K-4 is guaranteed a landslide in the Visayas. From the standpoint of pragmatic electoral calculation, it is obviously better to have him on the K-4 slate than to lose him to the Poe campaign.

In order to assemble a winnable senatorial slate to support the President’s electoral bid, it was necessary to unload some of the patently competent but less popular personalities.

It is, of course, possible to put together some sort of senatorial dream team composed of the likes of Obet Pagdanganan, Angelo Reyes and Bayani Fernando. They deserve to be senators, no doubt. But surveys show they are not at the top of out our voters’ mind.

There are lessons to be learned from the 2001 senatorial contest. The People Power Coalition assembled a more or less homogenous political slate, with a surfeit of confidence in the thought that in the heady aftermath of an uprising a slate that defied the conventional norms of our electoral politics could actually triumph.

We know the results of that overconfidence. The PPC did not turn in the expected landslide. It became necessary for the new administration to poach from the Senate opposition in order to cobble together a working – albeit tenuous – majority.

In a way, we could look at the two contending senatorial slates as suited to compensate for the perceived weaknesses of their principal candidates.

With no political or administrative experience to speak of, Fernando Poe needs a senatorial ticket composed of political veterans to offset his weakness. And so it is that his senatorial ticket is composed of politicians who seem to have been on the political stage for as long as we care to remember.

For her part, President Gloria is handicapped by what one might call a charisma deficit. No one questions her competence. But everyone acknowledges her difficulty to get large crowds swooning.

And so it is that behind her is now assembled a supporting cast of crowd drawers. Beginning from her running mate, she leads a team with an arguably higher charisma quotient than that of the other contending blocs.

The Philippine Senate is not what the Romans imagined a senate to be. In our case, given the stiff requirements of national election, candidacy to a seat in the Senate requires a high level of name-recall. This is the reason why our Senate, in an age of weak political parties and independent mass voters, has become a sanctuary for movie stars, popular athletes and television faces.

At some point, as President Gloria promised, we might have to reinvent our legislature and re-evaluate the potentials of a parliamentary system. That might help restore statesmanship through the reinvigoration of the political party system. It will alter the method of selecting those who will represent us and those who will govern us.

Until the paradigm of elite selection is altered, the existing system constrains everyone to the dictates of the vacuous politics of mere name-recall.

The reality of our electoral practice is not one that the politicians can dictate. It is a reality dictated by the predisposition of our voters – and to which politicians must yield in order to win elections.

The intelligentsia and the ideologues might moan and groan, complain that the coalitions that are the real contenders offer the voters no choices. That is only partly true. The record tells us that when competent choices were offered, the voters rejected them.

The choices we now have on the menu are not the dictates of an omnipotent political class. They are the choices pre-selected by the surveys, decided upon by the least common denominator of voter preference.

The two main contending coalitions have bowed to the politics of the least common denominator, to the dictates of the politics of popularity. The task of statesmen is not to defy the crushing waves of what might be philistine popular preferences, but to surf those waves and hopefully install a leadership that might not be accused of greatness but is reasonably competent to keep our nation from the abyss.