Medieval democracy

Johaira Midtimbang Ampatuan garnered 98 percent of the votes, clobbering the challenger in her bid for a second term as mayor of Datu Hoffer Ampatuan. It’s a town located where else but in Maguindanao province, where almost all towns are named after a member of the infamous clan.

Obviously the notoriety gained by the clan due to the 2009 massacre of 58 people in Ampatuan town did not affect the political fortunes of Johaira, the wife of Zaldy Ampatuan, a principal defendant in the mass killing.

The scariest possibility is that Johaira was reelected by a landslide precisely because of that notoriety – an expression of support for a beleaguered family in need.

In the decade that the clan wielded near-absolute power in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), politicians used to go on pilgrimage to the Ampatuans’ fiefdom to secure the clan’s support. The clan always delivered the votes. And as Johaira’s victory indicates, the clan didn’t need to make even the dead vote to deliver on its promise.

Many voters in the ARMM can claim ties by blood or marriage to the Ampatuans, under the super-extended family system in Mindanao where links are established up to the nth degree. Do these relatives serve as a solid voting bloc for the clan wholeheartedly, or simply out of fear? Drawing the line between willingness and fear can be complicated.

Johaira can point out that it’s not her but her husband who’s in jail. And unlike ex-convict Joseph Estrada, now mayor-elect of the city that hosts the nation’s seat of government, or even re-elected (by a landslide) Pampanga congresswoman Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, detained without bail for plunder, Johaira has not been charged with any crime.

About 20 members of the Ampatuan clan won local government positions across the ARMM in last week’s elections. Johaira ran under the opposition, but the clan’s support was also wooed by the administration’s Liberal Party. The rival clan of the Mangudadatus forged alliances with “good” members of the Ampatuans, according to re-elected Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, whose wife, sister and supporters were the principal targets in the 2009 massacre.

The Mangudadatus are building their own dynasty. In this country, dynasties can be ended… by another dynasty. Clan rivalries reign in our medieval brand of democracy, and often the rivalries erupt into armed encounters, in a war of attrition.

Except for the 2009 massacre, the situation in Maguindanao and the ARMM is hardly unique. As we are seeing in the depressing election results, we have once again sent a large band of crooks to feed from the public trough, allowing elections to wash away the most atrocious offenses. When will people feel outraged that public funds will go to the maintenance, operating and other expenses of various forms of lowlifes?

We keep electing close relatives as mayor and vice mayor, eliminating the check and balance mechanism that the vice mayor, as head of the city or town council, is supposed to provide.

Expats from Western democracies always remind me of Winston Churchill’s observation about democracy being the best among all imperfect political systems. But you wish our system could at least be progressively less imperfect with every election.

With the just concluded elections, it looks like the system, in several respects, is even becoming worse.

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Consider what Hong Kong residents think after Ronald Singson, whom they sent to prison for 14 months for cocaine possession, was sent back by Ilocos voters to his old seat in the House of Representatives.

We’ve sent convicted child rapists, murderers and human rights violators to Congress and local governments. Someone based in Singapore asked me how we could elect Erap as mayor of Manila. I asked him why he thought we elect Imelda Marcos over and over as a congresswoman.

Our system rewards jumping bail and evading justice. With the billions taxpayers spend for the upkeep of nearly 300 legislators, why can’t a law be passed banning a fugitive from seeking or holding public office? How can a fugitive legitimately serve his constituents while on the run?

It’s just as well that Cezar Mancao couldn’t get himself elected even as councilman in Compostela Valley. But what if he had won? It does look like someone wants him assassinated, but seeking elective office is not the way to save his neck.

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Even the automated voting system is starting to look tarnished at the hands of the current team in the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

In 2010, then Comelec chief Jose Melo exultantly announced, just hours after the polling centers closed on election day, that Benigno Simeon Aquino III had won the presidential race, and the trend pointed to Jejomar Binay as the new vice president.

Melo announced but did not proclaim the winners, deferring to the Senate, which took its usual sweet time to conduct the official canvass for several weeks. But people were happy enough, and the country’s first fully automated election was deemed a success. The official proclamation validated Melo’s announcement.

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. could have done something similar, and avoided all the flak he is now receiving for proclaiming the Senate “Magic 12” ahead of the completion of the official canvass.

Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal makes sense when he asks what the basis is for the proclamation, when each proclaimed winner does not even know the number of votes he or she received.

If critics follow Brillantes’ advice and take their complaints to the Supreme Court, the Comelec chief might sustain his losing streak before the high tribunal.

All these developments are reinforcing perceptions of some outsiders that the fault in Philippine elections is not in the system but in the people. Britain, for example, has a manual vote, but the system is known for its brutal efficiency.

Brillantes did try to regulate the conduct of the campaign and rein in the abuse of the party-list system, but all his initiatives ended with a whimper.

We don’t make people abide by the law; we make malleable laws that can be bent to accommodate people, starting with those who craft the laws.

Anyone touting the virtues of a democratic system will avoid citing the Philippines, Asia’s exuberant bastion of democracy, as a role model. We give democracy a bad name. Let’s see if we can do better in 2016.