This essay focuses attention on problems of Left participation in Philippine electoral politics under the transitional regime of Corazon C. Aquino (1986-1992). While affected by the overall decline of and dissension within the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA), and the National Democratic (ND) movement at large during Aquino’s presidential tenure, [5] the broad Philippine Left has not experienced a commensurate downward trend in the field of electoral politics in the same time period. While neither the organizational unity and strength of the dominant Left during the 1987 elections nor the more variegated approaches of the highly fragmented Left-of-Center forces in the 1992 elections have succeeded in dramatically altering the composition of elected representatives to date, they have nevertheless contributed to broaden significantly the spectrum of electoral politics in the post-EDSA Philippines. Thus, when viewed within the context of the dominant Left’s widespread demobilization and deep division, examined elsewhere in this volume, the sustained efforts at electoral intervention by individuals, organizations, and coalitions identified with Left-of-Center politics present a compelling puzzle for investigation.
This essay examines the conditions—both external and internal—that combined to shape the Philippine Left’s intervention in the 1987 congressional elections and the 1992 simultaneous local and national elections. It argues that the varying extent of anti-communist mobilization and degree of electoral entrenchment influenced both these efforts, as did the Philippine Left’s own ideological orientation vis-à-vis, and actual experience of, elections. Based on this analytical framework, the essay also sketches some discernible trends for future Left electoral participation.
SITUATING THE QUESTION OF PHILIPPINE LEFT ELECTORAL INTERVENTION
Reflective of its American colonial legacy, Philippine electoralism in the pre-Marcos era discouraged the emergence both of third parties [6] and of issue-based or ideological party politics. Historically, there was no precedent of a Left party organized nationwide for purposes of fielding and/or supporting candidates before the declaration of martial law in the Philippines. [7] Moreover, with few significant exceptions, the Philippine Left largely refrained from organized electoral intervention before the 1987 national elections. Heavy-handed government intervention against the candidacies and support of the organized Left in the elections to the 1946 Congress [8] and, more importantly, to the 1978 National Assembly [9] only served to validate the boycott position within the Philippine Left in the years between the official lifting of martial law in 1981 and the fall of Marcos in 1986. Thus, the boycott line essentially prevailed during the 1986 snap presidential election. [10]
However, in the immediate aftermath of EDSA, the Communist Party of the Philippines officially declared the decision to boycott the 1986 snap presidential elections a “tactical mistake.” [11] The 1987 national elections then saw the emergence of the Partido ng Bay an (PnB) with its senatorial slate of former-CPP/ex-detainee candidates and its platform of “new politics.” The ensuing electoral contests of 1988 and 1992, moreover, have witnessed an expansion of the electoral political spectrum to include both Left and Left-of-Center alliances and coalitions, some of which have linked up with more traditional political parties.
While noteworthy in and of itself, the Philippine Left’s recent efforts at playing electoral politics have so far fallen short of both the rosy predictions of hopeful “Progressives” [12] and the doomsday prophesies of fearful “trapos.” Aside from a small (and far from monolithic) minority in Congress, electoral intervention at the national level has barely made a dent in the elite and clan-dominated Congress, for example. [13] With the exception of the Senate’s rejection of the US-Bases Treaty in 1991, the broad Philippine Left has been unable to exert decisive influence on legislative issues of critical importance to its constituency, such as human rights, land-reform, and foreign debt. [14]
Rather than focusing on these obvious limitations, this essay instead proceeds with an examination of four factors that shaped in decisive ways the Philippine Left’s efforts at playing electoral politics in the post-Marcos period. While for purposes of analytical clarity a distinction is made here between external versus internal conditions, such categorization clearly simplifies a more complicated and interactive political process. That is, developments in both government counter-insurgency measures and overall political stability have clearly had far-reaching consequences for the evolving debates over strategy and tactics within the Philippine Left. Similarly, the declining fortunes of the armed revolutionary movement have seen corresponding shifts both in government anti-communist policy and practice and in regime political polarization.
In any event, the following external and internal factors can be identified as decisive influences upon the nature and direction of the Philippine Left’s intervention in the local and national elections since 1986. On the one hand, the degree of anti-communist mobilization and the entrenchment of Philippine electoralism comprise two factors external to the Philippine Left that have clearly contributed to shaping its involvement in electoral politics. On the other hand, the Philippine Left’s ideological orientation toward and actual experience from elections constitute two important internal factors that have decisively conditioned its electoral performance.
ANTI-COMMUNIST MOBILIZATION
Despite the organized Left’s political marginalization among the so-called “middle forces” in the aftermath of the 1986 boycott, the NPA’s military strength remained essentially intact and caused influential elements both within the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) [15] and the Reagan administration [16] to call for stepped up counterinsurgency measures within months of the Aquino administration’s assumption of power. In the first year after EDSA, however, the civilian government avoided publicly committing itself to further militarizing [17] the conflict and instead lent support to political initiatives for national reconciliation [18]— the sixty-day national ceasefire in December 1986 and the February 1987 constitutional mandate to eliminate anti-communist vigilante groups.
However, after the NDF (National Democratic Front) left the peace talks in protest against the massacre of thirteen peasant demonstrators by Manila security forces in January 1987, the civilian government began to embrace publicly the military’s preferred solution to the so-called “insurgency” problem. The activation of the National Capital Region District Command for purposes of establishing “an effective territorial defense” [19] in Metro Manila in January 1987 and the following month’s declaration of the “Total War” policy against the insurgents reflected this shift. In her commencement speech at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in March 1987, for example, President Aquino declared that
[t]he answer to the terrorism of the left and the right is not social and economic reform but police and military action. [20]
In addition to “police and military action,” moreover, the Philippine government now also publicly signaled its approval of military-backed anti-communist civilian groups known as “vigilantes,” beginning with President Aquino’s visit to one such group in Davao del Sur in late March. [21] In fact, the Department of Local Government “required all OIC [Officer-in-Charge] Governors in Mindanao to create similar community-based counter-guerrilla organizations by May 31, 1987, lest the OIC Governors lose their position.” [22] Encouraged by this shift in the administration’s position on right-wing civilian militias, such groups proliferated in subsequent months, and by the end of 1987, their number had grown to over two hundred. [23]
The May 1987 elections were thus held within the context of a mounting counterinsurgency drive by the Aquino administration and against the backdrop of a proliferation of so-called “vigilante groups” or anti-communist civilian militias. Employed by both police and military forces, vigilantes regularly performed “police and military activities such as armed patrols, manning of checkpoints, and search and seizure operations” throughout the Philippines. [24] In the course of 1987, and while enjoying wide support from the national top brass and operating with local military assistance,
some of [these vigilante groups] tortured, maimed, mutilated, beheaded, shot and hacked to death people who they claimed support or sympathize with the NPA. Their victims included young children, infants, and the elderly. [25]
In this context of mounting anti-communist mobilization, the new legal left party in 1987—Partido ng Bayan (PnB)—and its Alliance for New Politics (ANP) wer subjected to rampant red-baiting in the mainstream media and widespread harassment by armed groups. Thus, “[a]lmost all traditional parties and many key personalities of the right went public in voicing their apprehension and fear of the PnB.” [26] Moreover, military and paramilitary armed groups reportedly harassed and even killed numerous PnB and ANP supporters—officials, candidates, campaig organizers and volunteers—during the 1987 election campaign. [27] Similarly, the PnB also saw its headquarters raided, supporters arrested and rallies disrupted by government officials. [28] In addition, the initial denial of accreditation as a legal party to the PnB [29] and the eventual removal of many candidates’ ANP affiliation from official COMELEC (Commission on Elections) lists of registered candidates, for example, have been cited as further evidence of possible anti-Left intervention by COMELEC officials at both the national and local levels in the 1987 elections. [30]
The following statement by the PnB Secretary-General on the 1988 local elections summarizes the argument advanced here that, against the backdrop of Aquino’s Total War policy, Left-leaning electoral efforts were bound to run up against not merely the usual election-related violence for which Philippine polls have gained such notoriety but also against more selective repression as a result of widespread anti-communist mobilization:
Efforts by the Left and other progressive forces to contest the local elections not only would involve them in the fierce and bloody fighting among traditional political rivals for their power bases, but also pit them in direct and more intense confrontation ... with the Aquino regime... [31]
By comparison, the May 1992 elections were held without the widespread anti communist hysteria and repression that marked the 1987 electoral exercise. By 199 most vigilante groups had been demobilized or disbanded altogether and the majority of paramilitary forces known as CAFGUs (Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units) operated as private armies at the behest of individual local politicians rather than in the service of a national government crusade against communism, thus making above-ground Left affiliates less privileged targets of repression. That is, Left candidates faced much the same pressures due to electionrelated violence and harassment—which remained salient features of the electoral process in many parts of the Philippines—as did other contestants in 1992. In short the relative decline of government-backed anti-communist mobilization allowed for greater visibility and activism on the part of above-ground progressive forces, thus favoring electoral intervention by individuals and organizations identified with the Philippine Left. [32]
ENTRENCHMENT OF ELECTORALISM
Despite the authoritarian legacies of Marcos’s martial law years and the “revolutionary” origins of the Aquino regime, the swift political comeback of old elites and the resounding popular endorsement of the new constitution seemed to pave the way for the successful entrenchment of electoralism in the post-EDSA Philippines. As in the pre-martial law period, formally democratic institutions and procedures once again presented obvious opportunities for a national agro-industrial oligarchy [33] and local political bosses [34] to rejuvenate and legitimize stable elite rule through regular and popular elections. The massive turnout and endorsement—in sharp contrast to the dominant Left’s official boycott and “no” positions—in the 1986 snap presidential elections and the 1987 constitutional plebiscite, respectively, also appeared to confirm the safe return of electoral politics in the post-Marcos Philippines. [35]
However, extra-electoral forms of political mobilization nurtured by conditions under martial law continued to pose a challenge for the consolidation of Philippine electoralism even as the 1987 senatorial and congressional election campaigns gained momentum. In fact, these elections were held within a context characterized by widespread political uncertainty as to the sturdiness of the “rule of law” especially in the face of persistent military adventurism and revolutionary mobilization. Thus, the ravages of civil war and the continued presence of both a vastly expanded armed forces and Asia’s largest contemporary communist movement contributed to a highly polarized political environment during the time of the 1987 elections. [36]
The most serious challenges to the entrenchment of electoralism in the early post-Marcos years stemmed from extra-electoral mobilization from both the Right and the Left. During its first eighteen months in power, for example, the Aquino administration faced down six separate coup attempts by so-called “rebel” soldiers or Marcos “loyalist” troops. [37] Meanwhile, the New People’s Army remained essentially intact and retained significant control over some 20 percent of all barangays in the Philippines. [38] In addition, while essentially pursuing parliamentary politics by other means, striking workers [39] and demonstrating peasants [40] (especially those identified with the organized Left) nevertheless presented a challenge for the Philippines’ resurrected elite democracy by publicly exposing its narrowly conservative political parameters. Despite widespread popular support for the widow-housewife president, the constitutional foundations of the Aquino regime came under increasing public attack in 1987. For example, the Aquino administration’s efforts to promote a new draft constitution ran up against strong protests from “representative[s] of the radical Left, nationalist, cause-oriented groups, and the extreme Right, particularly the military.” [41] Significantly, the Communist Party of the Philippines called for a “No” vote in the plebiscite on the ratification of the new Constitution, which was also reportedly voted down in several military camps in the country. [42]
In the weeks before the February 1987 constitutional plebiscite, moreover, Manila witnessed the Channel 7 military coup attempt, the Mendiola Massacre of peasant protesters, and a series of popular demonstrations, all of which underlined the political precariousness of the regime at the time. Although the constitution won roughly 75 percent popular approval, the political mobilization of what have been referred to elsewhere as elements of the “disloyal opposition” [43] continued to undermine the consolidation of Philippine electoralism throughout the 1987 congressional campaign and inauguration.
On the one hand, renegade military troops continued to plot and to launch coup attempts during this period, as evidenced by the following three incidents recorded between April and August 1987: the April 18 Black Saturday occupation of Fort Bonifacio; the July 2 failed Manila International Airport takeover; and the August 28 coordinated attacks on the Malacanang presidential palace, the Camp Aguinaldo AFP headquarters, the Villamor Air Force base and the Quezon City government TV station. [44] On the other hand, as the ceasefire between government and underground troops broke down in January 1987, the Politburo of the CPP resolved to “regularize” and intensify the armed struggle in a “strategic counter-offensive” [45] and the Party’s public voice, Ang Bayan, began to call for opposition to “the US-Aquino scheme to stabilize the reactionary ruling order.” [46] In addition, NPA “tactical offensives were escalated throughout the archipelago.” [47] According to Ang Bayan, for example,
the NPA took for its main targets the CHDF [the Civilian Home Defense Forces, the government militia], paramilitary right-wing groups, warlord armies, death squads, and armed fanatical sects, as well as units of reactionary armed forces associated with the deposed dictator. [48]
This early escalation of NPA tactical offensives, moreover, was reportedly followed by a coordinated anti-LIC (low intensity conflict) campaign in July-September 1987 [with] more than 600 small and big guerrilla operations . . . launched by the NPA throughout the country. [49]
In the aftermath of the May elections, non-violent collective mobilization from both the Right and the Left also added to the challenge against Philippine electoralism. Leaders of the rightist Grand Alliance for Democracy (GAD), for example, including former Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, held a mass protest outside the AFP and PC (Philippine Constabulary) camps on EDSA soon after the May 11 elections and distributed leaflets urging soldiers to take action against alleged electoral fraud perpetrated by the Aquino administration. Two months later, moreover, a radical “parliament of the streets” confronted the official inauguration of the newly elected elite- and clan-dominated Congress with its own mass ceremony:
At noon, various people’s organizations started to congregate. . . including militants from BAYAN [Bagong Alyansang Makabayanl, KMU [Kilusang Mayo Uno], KMP [Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas], KAIBA. . . . The rallyists peaked at more than 3,000 but they were prevented from approaching Congress by anti-riot police who encircled them. . . . The demonstrators version of Congress—a Congress of the streets—was highlighted by their own State of the Nation address which was delivered by BAYAN secretary-general Lean Alejandro... [50]
Escalating political violence in Metro Manila itself also attested to the instability and vulnerability of the Aquino regime in the months surrounding the May 1987 elections. Contributing to the heightened levels of armed confrontation in Metro Manila—the center of economic and political power in the Philippines—the AFP activated the National Capital Region District Command “to conduct security operations, . . . establish an effective territorial defense, [and] maintain peace and order.” [51] Responding in part to increased counterinsurgency operations by government forces, the NPA’s urban “sparrow units” stepped up their own tactical offensives in the National Capital Region. [52] As a result, according to one source, in 1987,
the most devastating effects of NPA violence—traditionally largely confined to the provinces—came to Manila. As many as one hundred people were executed by NPA urban ‘sparrow units’—assassination squads; almost all of the victims were police or military personnel. [53]
Overall, the mounting extra-electoral mobilization and deepening political polarization that surrounded the May 1987 elections contributed to delimit the nature and scope of the Philippine Left’s participation in these polls. The escalation of both government and underground military (and paramilitary) campaigns in the aftermath of the failed peace negotiations, and the concomitant centrifugal trajectory of the rebel Right and the revolutionary Left away from “critical collaboration” within Centrist parameters, militated against electoral intervention by the Philippine Left. In fact, given the continued obstacles to the entrenchment of electoralism discussed above, the 1987 elections constituted only one among several arenas of contestation for the Philippine Left. As the CPP’s renewed emphasis on military efforts hampered planning and coordination concerning all other areas of work, it has been suggested, “[t]hese organizational problems fed into a long series of propaganda disasters [including] the defeat of Partido ng Bayan candidates in the 1987 congressional elections.” [54] With the consolidation of Philippine electoralism still uncertain, the Left’s 1987 electoral strategists and activists thus never resolved “whether the [Pnb/ANP] campaign should primarily be aimed at winning seats, at using the elections to ‘educate the masses’ or both.” [55]
In 1992, by contrast, elections were firmly established as the route to power and influence in the Philippines. Threats of coups no longer posed a credible challenge to the regime, especially in light of the demilitarization of the Philippine Constabulary and the creation of a Philippine National Police (PNP) removed from control and supervision of the AFP and the Department of National Defense (DND). [56] As a further deterrent to military adventurism,
the government after December 1989 [also] built up its defenses, including forming an anti-coup force and an extensive counterintelligence unit especially to thwart rebel attempts. [57]
Moreover, due to government counterinsurgency efforts as well as internal conflicts, the severely decimated underground Left, and its much-depleted “united front” affiliates, no longer posed an acute challenge for the consolidation of Philippine resurrected electoralism. According to its own estimates, for example, between 1987 and 1990,
Party membership decreased by 15 percent, the total number of barrios under its coverage by 16 percent, the total number of members of the people’s army by 28 percent, and the total membership in the rural mass organizations by 60 percent [and] big number of cadres at the provincial, front and district levels were lost due to arrests, death, or demoralization. [58]
However, this period also allowed for the simultaneous growth and proliferation of smaller above-ground Left-of-Center groups and organizations for which progressive electoral struggle constituted a sine qua non: “Opening ’yan na dapat ine-exploit.” [59] While clearly less enthused by the prospect, the largest legal left mass organization also recognized the imperative of electoral participation in 1992: “We will have to participate.” [60] The entrenchment of electoralism thus contributed to create a new set of incentives for participation in elections by the Philippine Left. Against this backdrop, the following section will briefly outline the Philippine Left’s evolving ideological orientation on the question of electoral struggle.
IDEOLOGICAL ORIENTATION
In terms of the ideological orientation and cohesion of the Philippine Left, the 1987 and 1992 elections offer a study in contrasts. Ideology has obviously been an important “internal” factor conditioning the Philippine Left’s electoral involvement in the post-EDSA period. Whereas some developments leading up to the 1987 national elections suggested the increasing significance of legal and electoral forms of struggle, the dominant organized Left continued to emphasize both the primacy of armed struggle and the ‘vanguard’ role of the Party leadership in relation to its above-ground affiliates, with direct consequences for the “new politics” election campaigns. By 1992, however, the deepening ideological differences within the Party itself, as well as the emergence of a plethora of so-called “cause-oriented” groups with links to Left-of-Center organizations, allowed for a more variegated electoral intervention. [61]
Historically, the Maoist orientation of the CPP has been a decisive factor shaping its involvement—or lack thereof—in electoral politics. [62] The following excerpt from founding chairman Sison’s “revolutionary bible” illustrates this strong influence of Mao Zedong Thought on the CPP:
The main force of the Philippine revolution is the peasantry. It is the largest mass force in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. Without its powerful support, the people’s democratic revolution can never succeed. . . . There is no solution to the peasant problem but to wage armed struggle, conduct agrarian revolution and build revolutionary base areas. [63]
Thus, from its inception as a breakaway Maoist faction from the old Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP), the CPP’s “rejection of the cities in favor of the countryside led it, on a theoretical plane, to equate urban struggle with parliamentary or legal struggle, and hence with revisionism.” [64]
In addition, it has been argued, the “revisionist” PKP’s old cadres served as influential “teachers by negative example” [65] for the new generation of middle-class intellectual recruits who formed the core of the CPP. This is reflected in another key document titled “Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party,” [66] which is as much a critique of “PKP leaderships for their alleged ignorance or non-application of Mao Zedong Thought [andl of the previous PKP leaderships, from Crisanto Evangelista down to Jesus Lava, as it is an enunciation of the CPP-ML’s (Communist Party of the Philippines—Marxist-Leninist) theses for revolution.” [67]
Leninist principles of “democratic centralism” scholars have suggested, discouraged debate over—or deviation from—the Maoist party line. [68] In fact, despite the much celebrated policy of “centralized leadership, decentralized operations,” successful local adaptations by regional and sectoral cadres, it has been argued, “rarely worked their way ‘upwards’ as ideas that prompted a re-thinking of the central tenets of Party thought” [69] The binding nature of sanctions by higher Party organs upon subordinate cadres—reflected in practices of suppression and selfpolicing—thus insulated Maoist doctrine from internal “revisionist” challenges.
Finally, the relative isolation from international communist movements, it has been noted, further shielded the CPP from any serious critical challenges to its position that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Thus, as a Maoist splinter party, “Philippine communists have had relatively little access to on-going debates within other, broader Marxist circles in the world.” [70] In fact, several critics have linked the relative isolation of the CPP to its “purist” orientation in favor of a protracted people’s war in the countryside (and at the expense of legal or parliamentary urban struggles). [71]
While internally debated and opposed, [72] the Party leadership’s ideological orientation in 1987 essentially reflected a back-to-basics approach—“building on the movement’s strength in rural armed struggle and union organizing, then waiting for the [urban] ‘middle forces’ to return” [73]—which downplayed the significance of electoral struggle. At the same time, however, the Party reportedly authorized the foundation of the Partido ng Bayan (PnB) as a new progressive legal party, which was subsequently “organized by prominent former party leaders, including founding Chairman Sison and the first NPA Chief Bernabe Buscayno.” [74]
Thus identified with—though not identical to—the underground Left, the PnB’s electoral agenda was allegedly still considered “secondary” to armed struggle. [75] For example, a key PnB figure and ANP senatorial candidate claimed that the “primary campaign goal was to educate the electorate and to broaden the policy debate.” [76] Another prominent PnB personality also admitted “very strong reservations about participating in the 1987 elections.” [77] Many PnB insiders, moreover, “noted that their strategists and activists were less than united on the objectives of their participation.” [78]
Organizationally, PnB also had a difficult time instituting and enforcing the national council’s decisions, particularly among the base organizations that openly supported the party. Many of the party directives, for instance, were not awarded enough attention by local chapters and constituent organizations, which were understandably engaged in other campaigns and commitments. This could be seen as a reflection of how elections are accorded strategic significance in the rank and file of ND organizations. [79]
Compared to the PnB’s “propaganda campaign” in 1987, its new motto, “field to win,” seemed to point in a new direction for the Left in the 1988 local elections. However, reflective in part of the heavy toll suffered by its supporters in 1987—both in terms of electoral defeat and personal injury—the PnB also declared that in the 1988 elections “only chapters that are able to ensure the safety of their candidates are campaigning actively, resulting in few reported PnB casualties this year compared to last year. . .” [80] The party thus reportedly fielded fewer than a hundred PnB candidates for the positions of municipal mayor and councilor, while expressing support for some 3,000 candidates of different party-affiliations and reputed opposition to the government’s counter-insurgency policies. In addition to official guidelines limiting the PnB’s electoral participation to areas where supporters could receive adequate protection, media reports that “Communist guerrillas have confirmed for the first time that they are receiving money from candidates . . . for safe-conduct passes in guerrilla-controlled areas” [81] also underlined the continued significance of armed struggle for the Philippine Left during the 1988 elections.
In short, the dominant Left’s orientation towards elections in the aftermath of the “tactical mistakes” of the 1986 boycott and 1987 “no” campaigns continues to reflect the secondary importance accorded to legal progressive efforts in the electoral arena as opposed to the primacy of armed revolutionary struggle. The following statement in Ang Bayan captures the extent to which considerations of an essentially tactical nature guided the Party’s move toward a “beyond boycott” position on the question of electoral participation in the 1987 and 1988 elections:
The Party should never allow itself to be preoccupied with and divided over any debate on the question of boycott or participation in any voting exercise . . . [but] counter .. . by using revolutionary dual tactics and encouraging the legal progressive parties to expose the limits of the voting exercise and, at the same time, use it to gain advantages for the people. [82]
By 1992, by contrast, the internal debates within the Party and the growth of the extra-Party left reflected far-reaching reassessments and critiques of the Left’s revolutionary program. The 1992 elections saw, for example, “the disjointed . . . ND forces, with PnB calling for ‘active participation,’ BAYAN-MMR [Bagong Alyansang Makabayan—Metro Manila-Rizal] calling for ‘Rebolusyon, hindi eleksyon’ and BAYAN-National asserting ‘walang ilusyon sa eleksyon.’” [83] Thus, contrasting the revived PnB of 1992 with its predecessor in 1987, the new chair emphasized a shift toward “a more long-term view of our role in parliamentary work.” [84] The following statement further underlines the PnB’s changing electoral agenda for the 1992 elections:
The 1987 PnB had Alliance for New Politics, at the national level, but this was actually made up of kindred spirits. Now we are trying to broaden the coalitions. We have talks with traditional parties. We have coalitions with progressive candidates at the local level... [85]
The growth and proliferation of progressive forces more or less autonomous of the dominant underground Left have also contributed to a wide array of Left-ofCenter initiatives aimed at intensifying and expanding electoral struggle since 1987. For example, while the 1987 electoral coalition of broad progressive forces (led by popular democrats [86]), the Movement for New Politics, was superseded by the more orthodox Alliance for New Politics (led by national democrats [87]), the 1992 elections saw the participation of a broad spectrum of Left-of-Center groups and coalitions in both the local and national elections. Thus, despite the staying power of the “guns, goons and gold” of traditional party politics and the absence of a unified electoral coalition/strategy of the broad Left, many among the latter took the position that “the parliamentary arena must be maximized to bring progressive issues, if not leadership, closer to the people.” [88] In the 1992 elections, for example, the Koalisyong Pambansa (National Coalition)—which included the Liberal Party (LP), the Pilipino Democratic Party Lakas ng Bansa (PDPLABAN), and the Kaakbay ng Sambayanan (AKBAYAN) [89]—constituted the most ambitious effort to bring established political parties together with cause-oriented and non-governmental organizations around a national platform of progressive politics.
ELECTORAL EXPERIENCE
Finally, in terms of electoral experience, the Philippine Left had little to no actual experience of involvement in electoral politics in 1987. In the words of the PnB’s chairman: “Hindi pa talaga kami sanay.” [90] Again, with few exceptions, electionboycott campaigns constituted the Left’s most organized efforts at electoral intervention since Independence and mass suffrage. In addition to lacking much useful experience for purposes of fielding and/or supporting candidates, moreover, the Philippine Left’s collective memory of one or two previous attempts at playing electoral politics further shaped its involvement in the 1987 elections. [91]
In 1992, by contrast, the Philippine Left could draw on its own record of electoral experiences which included both participation in the 1987 national and 1988 local elections, as well as the subsequent incumbency of a few municipal and congressional “Progressives.” The so-called “Progressive Bloc” in Congress after 1987, for example, influenced not merely legislation but also government appointments, pork-barrel, and national debates which added to the Left’s experience of Philippine electoralism. [92]the “participation as propaganda” line characteristic of much of the Left’s electoral efforts in 1987 backfired with the dismal performance of PnB and ANP candidates. In addition, the lessons of the 1987 electoral campaign underscored the significance of i) linking up local constituents to the national leadership through an organizational “machine” [93]; ii) translating sectoral support into territorially mobilized votes [94]; iii) and mobilizing resources to last the entire campaign—from candidate posters before to ballot-watch vigils after election day. [95] Finally, the Philippine Left’s experience in the elections before 1992 underlined the importance of electoral reforms to progressive politics.
Mindful of the PnB/ANP’s weak and uncoordinated electoral machinery in 1987, and its consequent failure to translate local support into national votes, the Philippine Left adopted two approaches aimed at overcoming or circumventing this problem in the 1992 elections. First of all, the Left-of-Center Koalisyong Pambansa and the PnB-BAYAN TAP AT network presented two separate efforts at linking local constituencies to national platforms by means of a political machine. The former linked local cause-oriented and non-governmental organizations, united under a socialist-oriented umbrella group, to the political machineries of two national parties. [96] The latter mobilized the mass base of BAY AN and other ND formations in support of a nationwide campaign—“Tañada Para sa Tao” (TAPAT)—to elect Bobby Tanada to the Senate. [97] Second, the broad Philippine Left placed much greater emphasis upon local than national level electoral efforts in 1992.
The PnB/ANP campaigns also highlighted another salient issue for the Philippine Left’s electoral intervention in 1992—the problem of translating sectoral support into actual votes within given territorial boundaries (municipalities, congressional districts etc.). In view of the PnB/ANP’s failure to mobilize a labor, peasant, or urban poor vote in 1987, for example, Philippine progressive electoral initiatives in 1992 included organized efforts at building electoral coalitions out of existing non-governmental and people’s organizations. One example was the formation in Bataan province of the local electoral coalition (Kabalikatan) from an already established developmental NGO (Balikatan) linked to the Movement of Popular Democracy. [98] Another example was the launching in Davao City of KAPATIRAN (Kilusan ng Alternatibong Pulitika para sa Inang Bayan) as an effort to channel broad-based national democratic forces into an electoral coalition “for campaigning for progressive candidates.” [99]
The Philippine Left’s electoral intervention prior to 1992 also underlined the importance of mobilizing salient resources for each stage of the election campaign. By combining their own volunteer recruitment and training efforts with the resources available to local candidates of established political parties, for example, progressive electoral coalitions proved more successful at fielding and keeping poll watchers throughout the vote count and canvassing procedures in certain parts of the country in 1992. [100] In addition, Philippine progressive forces showed greater appreciation for the political significance of registering voters, checking the official voters’ lists, and providing sample ballots, for example, in the 1992 elections.
While publicly proclaiming its emphasis on voter education and political propaganda in 1987, the PnB/ANP campaign actually devoted scanty attention and resources to developing or disseminating a progressive agenda for electoral reform in this election. By contrast, the 1992 elections saw the broad Left-of-Center undertake a plethora of initiatives—ranging from immediate measures such as candidate/platform evaluation seminars to long-term demands for proportional representation—aimed at reforming the legal provisions, administrative procedures and political culture underpinning Philippine electoral democracy. For example, several more or less successful progressive efforts at promoting organized voters education and ballot watching accompanied the 1992 elections: the PnB and BAYAN supported Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms (IPER) [101] and KAPATIRAN [102] Projects 1992 and 2001, [103] and COMPEL (Citizens for Meaningful and Peaceful Elections). [104] In addition, an International Observer Mission was invited to watch and report on the 1992 electoral exercise. [105] Another area of electoral reform which saw the intervention of progressive forces concerned the COMELEC’s exemption of the paramilitary CAFGUs from the gun ban. After petitions from the PnB and public pressures from other progressive elements, the COMELEC eventually reversed its decision less than a week before election day.
These efforts constituted novel additions to the more traditional clean-election campaigns that have emerged at critical junctures in the past (NAMFREL in 1953, CNEA in 1969, and NAMFREL in 1986) with the backing of opposition supporters, business elites, and church organizations, and that appear to have become a permanent fixture in Philippine electoral contests after the highly publicized Bantay ng Bayan crusade in 1986 (NAMFREL in 1987 and 1988, PPCRV-MCQC in 1992). [106] As a result, the 1992 election campaign might very well have been the most issueoriented to date with progressive forces contributing to focus public debate on questions of substantive electoral reform and programmatic party politics. However, reflective of the disunity among individuals, groups, and organizations identified with Left-of-Center politics, the proliferation of such efforts also reveal a lack of coordination that hampered progressive intervention in the 1992 elections.
THE 1987 NATIONAL ELECTIONS
In terms of the four factors discussed above, the elections for congressional representatives in 1987 and for municipal and gubernatorial positions in 1988 proceeded under circumstances highly unfavorable to successful participation by the then relatively strong and united Philippine Left. First of all, in the context of mounting anti-communist mobilization, supporters of the legal left party were targets of right-wing propaganda and military-backed repression. Second, against the backdrop of persistent challenges to the new constitutional regime from both the military Right and the armed Left, the 1987 and 1988 parliamentary exercises presented themselves less as critical mechanisms for wielding power than as opportunities for political education and organizational consolidation of the mass base for the dominant Philippine Left. Third, in light of the Communist Party’s strong influence upon the nature and direction of the PnB and ANP’s electoral intervention, and the Party’s ideological stance on the primacy of armed struggle, the Left, on the whole, made little organized effort to translate its mass base and resources into a serious political machine. Fourth, and finally, after a succession of election-boycott campaigns, the Left’s extremely limited electoral experience served as poor preparation for participation in polls enveloped in the politics of “guns, goons, and gold.”
Thus, relative to the Philippine Left’s overall armed strength and mass support at the time, very few PnB/ANP candidates won election in 1987 and 1988. In 1987, for example, none of the “Magnificent Seven” candidates running under the ANP’s banner succeeded in capturing a senate seat. [107] Moreover, despite reports of preelection surveys that estimated at fifty the number of districts with ANP or ANPsupported candidates in the lead, or “in a good second place, with a chance to win,” and with sixteen identified as “almost sure” winners, fewer than “twenty congressional winners [were] supported by the ANP.” [108] Of thirty-six fielded, only two PnB congressional candidates—whose districts fell within NPA strongholds— won election in 1987. Finally, only eighteen out of 144 PnB candidates were elected to municipal governments in 1988. [109]
Suggestive of the significance of armed Left support for progressive electoral intervention in 1987, PnB candidates Garduce and Andolana captured Western Samar’s sole and North Cotabato’s first congressional districts, respectively. However, despite public pledges that “NPA guerrillas ‘will adopt measures to protect voters and civilians’ from being harassed and intimidated” in so-called “red zones” elsewhere in the country, no other electoral gains for the Left occurred in such areas. [110] In this regard, Andolana’s victory in North Cotabato contrasts with PnB candidate Ireneo Escandor’s failed bid to represent the second congressional district of Sorsogon (another province considered an NPA stronghold at the time) and, according to one study, highlights the role of pre-existing grassroots networks in mobilizing and protecting progressive votes in the 1987 elections. [111]
THE 1992 SYNCHRONIZED LOCAL AND NATIONAL ELECTIONS
In contrast with the early post-Marcos electoral exercises, the 1992 synchronized local and national elections saw different external and internal conditions influencing the electoral interventions by a more fragmented and diminished Philippine Left. First of all, with anti-communist mobilization on the wane, supporters of the broad legal Left rarely faced the systematic and discriminatory treatment accorded the PnB in 1987. Second, given the entrenchment of Philippine electoralism and the elimination of serious armed threats to the stability of the regime, elections now unquestionably constituted the key mechanism for exerting influence and power, a reality even the harshest critics of “bourgeois democracy” could not afford to ignore entirely without risking virtual political marginalization. Third, reflective of the growing ideological dissension within the Party as well as the emergence of alternative Left and Left-of-Center groups and coalitions, the 1992 elections saw a variety of more or less effective efforts at electoral participation, ranging from ideological education to pragmatic politicking. Fourth, and finally, with the lessons of 1987 and the example of the Progressive Bloc in Congress, the Philippine Left’s expanded electoral experience provided relatively greater insights into both the costs and rewards involved in “working the system.”
The left, in effect, worked the clientelist system. National leaders, as well as leaders of provincial affiliates such as labor unions, made short-term alliances with candidates at national and local levels and so operated like vote brokers. [112]
Thus, compared to the dominant Left’s overall decline and dissension at the time, the intervention of broader Left-of-Center forces in the 1992 elections indicated the continued significance of progressive politics in the electoral arena. A reactivated PnB, for example, fielded or supported candidates in seven major cities and twentythree provinces in eleven out of the thirteen regions. While only two out of eleven senatorial and four out of twenty-nine congressional candidates endorsed by the PnB at the national level won election, individual PnB chapters who entered into local electoral alliances with other political parties reportedly supported twenty-eight winning bets to the House, eleven of whom “are considered ND/ND allies and the rest are open and can be approached on an issue-to-issue basis.” [113] Counting not merely congressional candidacies, but also other PnB fielded and/or supported winning bets at the local level (reportedly including, among others, “forty-four councilors in five provinces and four cities,” “seventeen vice-mayors in seven provinces and two cities,” “forty-one mayors in ten provinces,” “forty board members in fifteen provinces,” as well as a few vice-governors and governors [114]), the PnB’s own assessment of the 1992 elections identified 622 successful candidacies, or “3.6 percent of the total number of candidates who won,” [115] as having received the party’s active support. While perhaps overly generous and certainly difficult to evaluate without further research into specific local election campaigns, this internal report nevertheless underscores the extent to which the Philippine Left’s post-EDSA trajectory points toward expanding rather than contracting electoral intervention.
Indicative of the increasing significance of so-called “development NGOs” to Left-of-Center political forces and agendas in the Philippines, some notably successful efforts at progressive intervention in the 1992 elections focused on building electoral coalitions around pre-existing local community groups and associations with ties to regional or national development-oriented nongovernmental organizations. For example, political candidates identified with NGOlinked groups reportedly performed “credibly” in Angeles City, Cebu City, Pasig, Quezon City (districts two and four) and Davao City, and won seats in “two municipalities in Bataan, San Luis, Aurora; Roxas, Oriental Mindoro; Irosin, Sorsogon; and North Cotabato.” [116] While manifesting salient variations from case to case, these progressive electoral advances typically resulted from a combination of, on the one hand, sustained efforts to promote economic development (by NGOs) and political organizing (by so-called “people’s organizations” [POs] or more mainstream “cause-oriented groups” [COGs]) among local communities and, on the other hand, pre-election initiatives to form strategic alliances with individuals and groups identified with mainstream municipal/ provincial politics.
The local elections in Bataan province, for example, highlighted the significance and role of NGOs and POs for progressive electoral intervention. [117] Prior to the 1992 election campaign, for instance, the PO-NGO community in the Bataan municipality of Orani—which elected a mayor, a vice-mayor and four councilors identified with a local progressive electoral coalition—allegedly counted 12 percent of the total voting population among its members. [118] Targeted as a priority area by both the PRRM, a major NGO committed to sustainable development, and the IPD, a Manila-based organization engaged in electoral research and training, Bataan province (particularly the first congressional district) thus saw the emergence of Kabalikatan, a local coalition which fielded its own progressive, and supported other allied, political candidates in the 1992 elections. As a result, three municipalities in the first congressional district of Bataan province elected a combined total of three mayors, two vice-mayors and nine councilors identified with Kabalikatan. [119]
The relative success of Jovito Salonga’s presidential bid in the province of Camarines Sur (where he, in sharp contrast to placing fifth in the national tally, captured the lead) has also been linked to the intervention by progressive electoral coalitions of NGO-PO-COGs and established political parties in the 1992 elections. [120] That is, the so-called “NagaPopDems,” a few Liberal Party stalwarts, and the PnB contributed to Salonga’s campaign by, for example, organizing voters education seminars, brokering the province’s Salonga-Pimentel Movement, supplying sample ballots, and training poll watchers. While electoral coalitions forged around local communities already organized into sectoral, political, and/or cause-oriented groups have contributed to some progressive gains in the 1992 elections, many such efforts also floundered. For example, former PnB chair Romeo Capulong failed in his bid for the first congressional district of Nueva Ecija, despite support from both local NGOs and the province-wide coalition BALANE, which in turn linked up to the national party of Danding Cojuangco. [121] In part, such failures resulted from the difficulties involved in transforming sectoral and issue-based organizations into electoral machines. As noted on the Nueva Ecija elections:
NGOs and people’s organizations campaigned in the early part of the electoral period towards information dissemination among voters including grassroots voters’ education activities. Unfortunately, as election day neared, active individuals in the same NGOs and POs . . . ceased these activities to campaign for their own candidates in various posts.” [122]
The outcome of the 1992 elections, while hardly a decisive victory for the broad Left, nevertheless signaled a deepening of its 1987 electoral involvement, especially in light of its widespread decline and disarray. As noted above, one candidate strongly identified with the Left, Bobby Tanada, won reelection to the Senate; a number of Left-of-Center candidates won election as congressmen, governors, mayors, and councilors. Moreover, in contrast with the 1987 election, the Left showed greater flexibility and pragmatism in its electoral tactics and strategies, endorsing candidates running under established national political parties and entering into various alliances with local politicians and party formations, as well as building a national progressive coalition with LP-PDP-LABAN.
LOOKING AHEAD TO FUTURE ELECTIONS
Looking ahead to upcoming elections, the following developments can be discerned in terms of the four factors that have so far decisively shaped the Philippine Left’s electoral participation in the post-EDSA period. First of all, the legalization of the Communist Party and the renewal of the AFP-NPA peace process under the new Ramos administration signal a more hospitable political environment for so-called “progressive” forces in elections to come. [123] Second, the successful neutralization of threats of coups and revolution as well as the peaceful transition of power from Aquino to her anointed general underscore the extent to which elections define future arenas of struggle for the Philippine Left. Third, the casualties of the Party’s internal debates and the government’s counterinsurgency efforts, in combination with the “NGO-ization” of the Philippine Left, have set the stage for more pragmatic and flexible electoral intervention by a wide array of forces ranging from the Left to the so-called “progressive mainstream.” Fourth, and finally, in addition to first-hand experiences at the polls since 1986, recent developments within the Philippine Left and progressive mainstream—ranging from voters’ education seminars, ballot-watch manuals, election studies, coalition-building efforts, and lobbying activities—underline a stronger appreciation for—as well as commitment to—the requisites of competitive electoral politics.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, whereas the “reaffirmationist” faction of the Communist Party might succeed in closing down the internal debate and ousting its “heretics,” and thus possibly consigning itself to indefinite political marginalization, the broader Philippine Left is now increasingly recognizing the primacy of legal and parliamentary struggle. [124] While noteworthy in and of itself, however, the Left’s emergence on the electoral scene hardly resolves the political dilemma of cooptation versus contestation. The following quote from a recent so-called “popular democratic” publication captures this dilemma:
[T]he broad Left must position itself firmly within the national current—the better to expose the limits of elite democracy, if not to gain entry into mainstream political life. [125]
In other words, rather than posing a counterhegemonic challenge to Philippine elite democracy, the Left’s participation in elections may end up simply conferring legitimacy upon the existing political order. Moreover, rather than redefining the parameters of Philippine electoralism, the Left itself may end up (re)defined by the limitations of procedural democracy.
In general, the logic of electoralism, it has been noted, is inherently demobilizing, based as it is on a periodic one-person, one-vote symbolic enactment of political citizenship. Procedural democracy thus privileges elections as the most legitimate form of political participation, while delegitimizing—or coopting—extra-electoral forms of popular collective action. In the Philippine case, moreover, the American colonial legacy of machine politics and the absence of proportional representation decisively structure both the means and ends of electoral participation by the Left.
In terms of the means, several reports of local election initiatives by the broad Left in 1992, for example, cited the key role of so-called “electoral technology”—or, in the words of one community organizer, the “dirty-tricks department”—for a successful campaign. [126] In terms of the ends, moreover, another organizer working on an election-campaign for progressive politics in Bataan noted that while before 1992 he thought
that winning an election or ‘seizing the state’ was the most difficult effort of any organizing effort. . .[n]ow he argues that this is chicken feed compared to the task of governing. . . because they are commitment-bound to govern in a new way [which] involves new roles for government officials, PO leaders, and NGO development workers. [127]
Similarly, progressives who won election to municipal office or to Congress, for example, have since encountered difficulties in realizing their “progressive” constituencies’ goals without running up against the interests of the local landowners who provided critical backing for their election bids.
On this note, and by way of concluding, the following quote culled from a post1992 election document by the PnB-aff ilia ted Institute for Political and Electoral Reform aptly captures, on the one hand, the Philippine Left’s interest in acquiring relevant skills and accessing legal institutions, and, on the other hand, its wariness of submitting to the shortcomings and the dangers of Philippine electoralism.
Lobby work is something we have to live with or work on. If we want to know the system, then let us plunge into this system of governance and make it as a field of action or an arena of struggle. But let us not also forget how to swim or else we will get drowned. [128]
The author gratefully acknowledges her debts to several people who generously extended themselves and interrupted their busy schedules to share their insights into and experiences of progressive electoral intervention in recent Philippine elections. While the errors and opinions expressed below belong to the author, she would thus like to thank the following people for their best efforts: Fransisco Cinco, Lisa Dacanay, Eric Gutierrez, Liddy Nakpil-Alejandro, Toinette Raquiza, and Clark Soriano. In addition, she would like to thank two anonymous readers as well as Jojo Abinales, Doming Caouette, John Sidel, and Kathleen Weekley for helpful comments on previous drafts of this essay.
Eva-Lotta E. Hedman
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