Namfrel tally still favors GO

There is no one way of reading the results of the midterm elections.

Partisans will, of course, oversimplify to achieve a self-serving read of the results. Already, spokesmen of the GO faction claim the results indicate a repudiation of the Arroyo administration. As a counterpoint, spokesmen of the administration point to the overwhelming majority of the pro-administration coalition in the congressional races and among the local governments as evidence of broad political support for the present leadership.

The senatorial tally will, it appears, give the opposition ticket a slight edge of one or, at most, two places. That could hardly be called a landslide or even a definite “referendum.”

More important, the results do not indicate a reinvigoration of Joseph Estrada’s place on the political stage. Note that tally leaders Loren Legarda and Manuel Villar, before they migrated to the Erap camp, were key personalities in the Estrada impeachment process. So was Cory Aquino, the main driver of Nonoy Aquino’s candidacy. Joker Arroyo of TU was the most articulate prosecutor of the impeachment case against Erap.

Panfilo Lacson, we should recall, defected from Estrada at the height of Edsa Dos and then challenged the former president’s anointed contender in the 2004 presidential contest. Many in Estrada’s camp still bristle at the thought that Fernando Poe Jr. might have won in 2004 had Lacson given way.

The only senatorial candidate that featured an Estrada endorsement in his political ads is Sonny Osmena. And he is way down in the tally board, joined in the pits by Tessie Oreta and Tito Sotto, two key Estrada allies who eventually defected to Team Unity.

Jojo Binay and JV Ejercito did regain their mayoral posts by landslides in Makati and San Juan. But those outcomes are hardly surprising in these two fiefdoms.

By contrast, the Team Unity candidate obviously personally favored by President Macapagal-Arroyo, Miguel Zubiri, appears to be consolidating his place in the win column. Along with him, fighting for a place in the win column is Ralph Recto.

I really hope the exit polls indicating a win for both Migs and Ralph are accurate. Of all the candidates in this senatorial elections, Ralph and Migs have the best grasp of the next steps in our economic reform process.

I had the pleasure of working with Ralph for the liberalization of the retail trade and the upgrading of the VAT. In both instances, he impressed me as a courageous reformer who did not let vested interests (nor his own prospects as a politician) get in the way of doing what was right for the country.

The enemies of reform attacked VAT in order to attack Ralph. Cynically exploiting ignorance about the benefits of the VAT was the plank on which Sonny Osmena tried to revive his political career — to no avail.

Yet, I am sure, disinformation about the value of VAT weakened Ralph Recto’s campaign. Every morning, during the campaign period, semi-literate commentators on AM radio heaped uneducated venom on VAT and on Ralph. That demagoguery about a perfectly sane revenue measure is the most unedifying aspect of this last campaign.

This is why I am really keeping my fingers crossed for Ralph — not only because he will fight for more economic reforms but, more important, because a win will help consolidate an educated constituency for macroeconomic stability, fiscal prudence and free market policies.

It is time to slay the dragon of populism. Most of the other candidates in this vacuous campaign tried to side with that dragon rather than help build public economic literacy.

I admired the personal integrity and professional competence of the Kapatiran candidates. Their effort to mount an alternative campaign was truly courageous. But I did not vote for any of them because their program leaned towards populism and protectionism.

The only real surprise in the senatorial race is the unexpectedly strong performance of coup plotter Antonio Trillianes. His campaign was funded by Sen. Jamby Madrigal — who is beginning to build a reputation as Patroness of all Militants. She is the Paris Hilton of Filipino politics: a wealthy maverick with little sense of where mainstream sensibility lies.

There is this unfounded spin going on in the oppositional broadcast media convincing us that the turnout for Trillanes was a “protest vote.” But a protest against what? Against constitutional procedures and mandated authority?

I sought out people who would admit to voting for the detained mutineer. None of those I found could articulate why they cast a vote for him.

My own theory about the Trillianes vote is the long-standing tradition of inclusivism that has characterized voter choices for the Philippine Senate.

Over the last six decades of a Senate elected at large, Filipinos have evolved a peculiar idea of this institution. We look at the Senate as some sort of institutional Noah’s Ark where every streak of opinion ought to be represented. And so, through the years, voters installed the likes of Claro M. Recto, Jose W. Diokno, Jovito Salonga, Raul Manglapus, and, yes, Miriam Defensor Santiago and Gregorio Honasan in this chamber.

Voters kept them there because they were different. They complete the cast of this chamber that is often derisively called a “zoo.”

Or an asylum. I have met people who voted for Honasan not because they agree with his politics but because they somehow think we will all be safer if he is kept in the Senate. The same calculation worked for Trillianes in a major way.