Narrative

Our post-Edsa presidential elections all eventually revolved around an overriding narrative. The narrative of the moment determined who would win and who would lose.

In 1992, after six years of ineffectual leadership and numerous coup attempts, voters conversed about restoring order and effective government. Former general Fidel Ramos was the main beneficiary of that conversation.

The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 undercut the optimism captured in Ramos’ “Philippines 2000” slogan. The economy was thrown into a tailspin, harming the most vulnerable sectors. The poor wanted an ally who will look after their concerns and sympathize with their plight.

Joseph Estrada’s “Erap para sa Mahirap” slogan was right on the overriding narrative of the moment. He was swept to the presidency by the poorest and most numerous voters.

Estrada’s term in office was brief. His presidency was cut short by scandals at the highest level. After the wild and wooly Estrada years, the middle and upper classes found comfort in the predominantly technocratic narrative of the Macapagal-Arroyo years.

Macapagal-Arroyo managed to win over the populist challenge posed by Fernando Poe Jr. in 2004 by her record of far-sighted economic management. The political opposition raked up scandals to bypass her strength in economic management and picture the administration as infested with corruption.

As it was a decade before, the global financial meltdown of 2008 again stoked uncertainty among the most vulnerable sectors. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III anchored his campaign on the slogan “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.” It conveyed his anti-corruption stance as the antidote to poverty. That captured the support of voters in the 2010 elections.

The sitting president, however, was confronted with calamities that magnified his detachment and poor EQ. From the Luneta incident, to the destructive Zamboanga siege, to the Bohol earthquake and super-typhoon Yolanda, Aquino seemed unresponsive to the desperate plight of victims.

To this day, people still live in transitory shelters in Zamboanga City. The rehabilitation of Bohol and the Yolanda-hit areas is terribly delayed. Then Mamasapano happened.

On top of these, recent policy debates over improving public sector pay, cutting tax rates and increasing pensions reinforced the perception of a callous and incompetent political leadership. For all its brimming self-righteousness, the Aquino administration aggravated rather than diminished poverty, widened rather than reduced unemployment. It betrayed all its promises.

The Binay campaign correctly sensed public dismay over the insensitivity of the Aquino administration. The Vice President denounced this administration as “manhid at palpak” (callous and inept). His campaign packaged him as man from the ranks of the poor sympathetic to the marginalized.

The Grace Poe campaign likewise zeroed in on the same theme, using her initials to offer a “Galing at Puso” agenda of government. It was agenda that promises a competent but compassionate leadership.

Both campaigns are, not surprisingly, scoring well in the surveys. They are scoring particularly well against the Mar Roxas campaign that insists on selling a wooden, technocratic and upper-class candidate constantly professing adherence to the unpopular policies of Aquino, most recently the refusal to raise pension levels.

The Roxas campaign – like the Villar campaign before, the de Venecia campaign much earlier and the Mitra campaign in 1992 – is far removed from the overriding narrative of the moment.

Malasakit

Two senatorial candidates – Isko Moreno and Martin Romualdez – have tightly embraced the themes of empathy and compassion. They have made good progress with their numbers.

Moreno reminds voters he started life living off the city’s trash. The message is that he intimately understands the hopes and fears of the most vulnerable.

Leyte congressman Martin Romualdez, for his part, closely identifies with the many, neglected victims of calamity – both natural and man-made. He anchors his campaign on the word “malasakit” (compassion).

The word might also be translated into “empathy,” the way the word was used in the social philosophy of Jean Jaques Rousseau. All men, the 18th century philosopher said, have innate empathy for others. That is the virtue on which civil society must be built.

“Malasakit,” by the way, is the leading theme in Pope Francis’ teachings. The Catholic leader calls on the faithful to look after the most vulnerable among them, to care for the poor and inspire those on the margins of hope.

Romualdez represented his Leyte congressional district for three terms. He is now seeking a seat in the Senate in the UNA slate, scarred by the experience of his constituency with Typhoon Yolanda and the slowness of national government response to the calamity.

Tens of thousands of people in the Yolanda zone, Romualdez says, survived only because of “malasakit.” They were pulled up from the tragedy by the efforts of their own communities, by the generosity of those who were likewise victimized by the disaster.

The people in the Yolanda zone were vulnerable because they were poor. They were poor because our economic growth was never truly inclusive. Beyond merely rebuilding the damage wrought by the storm, the national leadership must see to it that inclusive economic development must be able to build more resilient communities.

“Saang lupalop ka man nakatira sa bansa – Luzon, Visayas o Mindanao – dapat ramdam ng bawa’t Pilipino ang pag-unlad ng bansa,” says Romualdez. Should he be elected to the Senate, Romualdez continues, he will help craft economic reform policies that will ensure the benefits of economic growth are dispersed widely.

There is an important thought there. Far more than all the natural disasters combined, the pattern of our economic evolution created many more victims in the form of excluded communities and miserable individuals.