A High School Term Paper:

Political Values 

of the Filipino Voter,

circa 1969

This was submitted by 17-year-old Eduardo Aurelio C. Reyes in October 1969, to Ateneo de Manila High School Prof. Severino Estrera as a senior high school term paper in the subject of Socio-Economics, The original writing style of the then-budding political observer and future activist was preserved in this very-slightly-edited representation. Note that the paper was submitted one month before the 1969 Presidential Election being contested by reelectionist Ferdinand Marcos of the Nacionalista Party and Sergio Osmeña Jr. of the Liberal Party. Marcos was running with reelectionist Vice President Fernando Lopez, and Osmeña’s teammate was Sen. Genaro F. Magsaysay. Articles included in this book,  mostly written shortly before or shortly after such a "big day." Note well that not much has changed about the patterns, even as the well-known personalities before have faded into oblivion and have been replaced by an entirely new set of faces. (The high school graduation photo of Reyes embedded in this page was taken several months after the submission of this term paper.

THE RIGHT to vote is a basic constitutional right. The exercise of this right may have been abused all these years, but the right itself remains inviolable. Corruption and all sorts of evil may have accompanied its exercise, but it remains sacrosanct.

The right to vote is not only right but also a duty because its existence inasmuch as it is a right can only be proven by an external act and that is the act of voting. It is a also a duty because democracy, being an external form of government can be externalized only through external acts, one of which is the act of casting the ballot.

To refuse to vote, therefore, is virtually to make an invisible government out of democracy, which in essence will be very undemocratic. It inevitably leads to anarchy.

When one casts his ballot on election day, he must do so according to the dictates of his conscience. That means he must vote for the candidates he sincerely considers the best for the general welfare of the people. When one votes for a candidate not because he considers the latter to be the best for the post in the service of the people, he is not doing what he is duty-bound to be doing. Unfortunately, many voters don’t give this right and duty justice at all.

Gambler Attitudes Toward Suffrage

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THE FOLLOWING is an actual experience of mine. This happened while I was having my haircut in my favorite barbershop along Kamuning road. While the barber was tediously working on my head, another barber asked him a direct question which I couldn’t help overhearing.

"Kanino ka ba ngayon, Pare?" (which candidate are you for this year?) The answer to that question echoed throughout the shop: "Kanino pa? E di sa mananalo!"

He made it very clear that he was going to vote for the presidential candidate he mentioned simply because the latter would surely win, according to rumors. This tendency of trying to identify with winners or of doing everything the way everybody else does it (regardless of one’s personal convictions) are clearly manifested by the barber’s facial expression at the moment.

This thing about identifying with winners has so developed that he who correctly predicts, and blindly identifies with, the winners the most number of times is considered a "political expert" by the people around him. So, every time he endorses a candidate (by saying "mananalo ito"), his disciples blindly vote for the said candidate. In the effort to assert his being a "political expert," one may even resort to betting on the outcome of the polls. Small bets on the side are okay, but once the value of such bets soar tremendously high, either something will go wrong or something has already gone wrong. Let us for instance take the case of reelectionist Vice President Fernando Lopez…

Vice President Lopez, irked by reports that his running mate President Marcos would be beaten by opposition candidate Sergio Osmeña Jr. in Lopez’s own province (Iloilo), offered a P100,000 bet that it would be the other way around. A group of Ilonggos led by lawyer R. Gonzales accepted the challenge and announced availability for another P100,000-bet. This latter bet was promptly accepted, and this party is waiting for more bets.

These hundred-thousand-peso bets I’ve mentioned represent only a small persentage of all the bettings going on as of this writing. To prove the evil consequences of high poll betting, let us consider this hypothetical situation:

A certain Mr. A works in a certain office with Messrs. B, C & D. The latter three guys agree to accept a ten-thousand-peso bet challenge because they are sure of Candidate X’s victory. However, after putting their money together, they are one thousand pesos short of what they need to accept the challenge. So, they begin talking to Mr. A. Without touching the aspect of integrity and credibility, they convince Mr. A that candidate is a sure winner, and ask him to pitch in one thousand pesos from his pocket, assuring him that his money is sure to be doubled, Even if Mr. A tries to keep out of the affair, the traditional Filipino "pakikisama" value would surely trap him into it. After all, he knows very well that Messrs. B, C & D can make things very unpleasant for him if they want to. So, Mr. A has no choice or practical alternative but put his hard-earned grand into the bet.

Now that his money is involved, he is involved too. He can now be expected to campaign for Candidate X and do everything in his power to make the latter win the polls. This obviously includes that he would vote for Candidate X. But up to this point, there is no mention yet whether or not he sincerely likes that candidate for the office. What if he doesn’t? In that case we can consider his active campaigning and his voting for Candidate X as purely in the interest of the one thousand pesos he invests earlier.

This is a story of a voter who sells his conscience (he campaigns hypocrytically) and his sacred vote – both for a thousand pesos. If the candidate concerned is the presidential candidate, Mr. A also forfeits his moral right to complain aloud among friends about how the government would be run by Candidate X turned President X from 1969 to 1973. On the other hand, in case Candidate X loses, he would have sold both his vote and his conscience for nothing, and even paid a thousand bucks for the chance to do it.

One factor that leads to the exclusion of the aspect of personal integrity when one chooses his presidential candidate for the 1969 elections is that as far as many are concerned, there is not much choice. One was convicted for the murder of his father’s political foe, and the other was convicted for treason. Both were eventually acquitted for insufficiency of legal evidence and absence of witnesses.

As Al Capone was never found guilty by any American court of any of the multitudinous mur- ders he ordered while he ran Chicago, insufficiency of legal evidence and absence of witnesses are merely grounds for acquittal and not really positive proofs of innocence.

One charges the other of being a murderer, among other things, while the other calls him a "collaborator." If they are both telling the truth, it would follow that they are both guilty. But if both are lying, then it would follow that they should be presumed innocent. However, the electorate would not like the idea of choosing between two liars, either! Since neither of two are far from the shadow of doubt, the voters are resigned to choose between two evils, at best hoping to get the lesser one.

Some voters are trying to wash their hands off the matter and have decided to boycott the elections. There are reports that quite a big number of voters will not vote in 1969 because they fear intimidation or simply don’t care at all one way or the other. In this connection, the Advertising Council of the Philippines ran a series of full-page ads in the Manila Times asking qualified voters this one question: "Why aren’t YOU voting in November?" And the answers ran this way:

"Because I haven’t registered."

"What – and me get hurt?"

"One vote won’t matter one way or the other"

"They won’t count it anyway. What with all the cheating?"

"Do I have a choice?"

The mañana habit supplemented by the fear of fixing and red tape keeps the qualified voter from going through registration procedures. We can’t blame registration procedures. We can’t blame those who fear for their lives. We read about politically-motivated murders headlined in newspapers almost everyday. It’s going to be hard to convince them that they don’t have to die for their candidates and all they have to do is to vote for them.

People only think there will be rampant vote-buying, ballot tampering, and God-knows-what-else at the polls because these are the things they talk about. How can they be convinced that clean elections have happened quietly in many parts of the country and can happen again this time?

Then again we come to the question of choice. Whenever anyone says he has no choice, clearly referring to the presidential race, he cannot be blamed because both timbers, in his opinion, are not far from shadow of doubt as far as integrity is concerned. But whether one votes or not one of these will be elected, anyway. And why think of the presidential race? We have to remember that in this year’s polls eight senatorial candidates will be elected into the Philippine Senate. It is then up to the electorate to determine which ones should make it to the "magic eight" slate. So, no one may say that the people have no choice in these elections since they are also going to vote not only for presidential and vice-presidential timbers but also for eight senators, not to mention the district congressmen.

The extended family relations also play a big role in the 1969 elections. As Manila Times columnist Alfredo Roces points out:

"Elections in this country are a fundamentalized family-oriented matter. It is personalized dynamics with politicians rallying barangay kismen and communicating in terms of patronage. The politician expresses a personal willingness to extend his following to any supporter or to acknowledge indebtedness to any influential patron. In such personalized traffic, emotions and personalized ties reach fever pitch. It is to anticipated that because of the kinship orientation, relatives and folowers become emotional passions rise to the point of violence even in such minor matters as barbershop debates and poster-hanging arguments.

"This violence, however, is not usually personally directed by the political leaders themselves. With private armies and delusions of world conquest. Although it must also be said that some areas of the country are controlled in this manner by some local terrorists!"

When I mentioned the "political expert" (at the beginning of this article) and his way of "endorsing," I didn’t touch on what could be deep inside him. He may have absolutely omitted the aspect of personal integrity perhaps because he thinks there is no integrity to speak of when it comes to politicians.

But consciously or subconsciously he may be craving for more than what he now finds in the candidates. Perhaps, he is like the intelligent voters who are coming out in open asking to ask for positive action. They want no more of the campaign siraan (mudslinging), they want no more of words, they are craving for action.

Who knows, he might even surprise himself by agreeing with what Philippines Free Press writer Horacio M. Paredes says in an open letter to the two presidential timbers, reelectionist President Ferdinand E. Marcos and challenger Sergio Osmeña Jr.:

"We ask for little, really. We ask only a president or president-again begin to solve the problems of our society. We almost don’t care if the president makes some money on the side – such is the quality of our despair – but we do insist that presidents begin to solve the many problems that confront the nation. We are tired of speeches and exposés and bomba. We want the leaders to begin solving the basic problems. We are tired of images projected – beautiful people wallowing in good food and riches and comfort against the backdrop of people wearing yesterday’s clothes, walking barefoot in mud and eating last week’s rice.

"We are tired of this democracy – or oligarchy, for such it is – that you, our self-appointed leaders have made us bear. We want no more catchy palliatives in slogans and phrases. We want no advertising campaigns. We don’t want a society where those who have less in life have less in the law and even less in death. We don’t want a society where the criminal sons of self-styled elite are untouchable, where Malacañang serves as a royal palace while the people dream of food and jobs in their hovels. We want no debates on Vietnam or scandals in foreign offices or the distinction of having the largest delegation to the UN, or pro- or anti- US, USSR or China. The people want their due now and this is that their perennial problems be solved!"

Couldn't Care Less Either Way

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ALL THESE lead us to one question: What factors have affected and led to the formation of the existing values of the Filipino voter? Consider the communication gap between the government and the common man.

There is a big communication gap between the two, since much of information that reaches the common people is either distorted or altogether invented for propaganda purposes. This comes to a point where the people receive conflicting reports that can neither be proved nor verified to their satisfaction.

So what happens? They come to a point where they no longer believe anything declared through the mass media except things that are personally verifiable. When the government promises to build a road through their barrio, they would not go on to listen to the benefits this road would give them and their families, until they actually see with their own eyes the road already completed.

What then could be the attitude of the voter toward bombas (explosive tirades)? Since almost 100% of the things said in the charges against each candidate is not personally verifiable and since one can no longer rely on what other people say, the individual voter’s scope is limited down to what directly concerns his own nuclear family, how the latter would go on living from day to day. He goes to the market and looks at the price of rice, not really caring whether that rice to sustain the family was grown here or imported from the US, China or Hell. All that is important is its edibility and price per ganta – if he can still afford to keep the family from starving.

The obvious absence of a national goal or direction further makes the ordinary voters think only of their own nuclear families. This is why, when the voters, in their millions, choose their candidates, confusion prevails. The big credibility gap keeps them from being guided – or misguided as is usually the case – by the campaign speeches of the candidates. They would therefore tend to listen to bombas only for entertainment and seriously consider only the directly perceptible things such as the price of rice.

Extreme Conformism: 'Vote for Winnability'

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MANY VOTERS choose their candidates wholly on the basis of vote-getting ability and not on that of integrity, credibility or leadership. In such a case, the voters – strictly speaking – are not voting at all! They are merely submitting their entries to a "Guess-the-Winners" contest. And one does not fulfill his duty by joining such contests and even winning bets. This devaluation of elections to the level of the sabong where they choose their manok is understandable but never justified.

Some voters get stuck with a candidate just to secure some monetary or reputational investment. Some qualified voters are thinking of forfeiting their sacred right and ignoring their sacred duty – they are planning to boycott the elections. Some just hear the sweet-tongued promises and the fork-tongued tirades but do not actually care to listen. They are busy thinking… Lahat ng presyo, tumataas! Presyo ng asukal, ng bigas, pati ng sinulid!

They consider only the personally verifiable information because it is for them the safest thing to do. Yes, it is the every qualified citizen’s right and duty to vote, but this is a lot easier and more simply asserted than done in the forthcoming 1969 elections, where a voter’s every move is affected – indeed, tossed this way and that – by the complex political values of the Filipino voter, circa 1969.

Fr. Ben Villote, "Don’t Boycott the Elections," The Philippines Free Press, Vol. LXII, No. 41, Oct. 11, 1969, p. 22.

‘Face of the Nation," The Weekly Nation, Vol. V, No. 7, Oct. 6, 1969, p. 53.

"Which is Worse?"(editorial), The Philippines Free Press, Vol. LXII, No. 38, Sept. 20, 1969, p. 1, 8.

Benjamin Pinto, "Vote and Don’t Miss the Vote," The Philippines Free Press, Vol. LXII, No. 41, Oct. 11, 1969, p. 24.

Advertising Council of the Philippines, "Why Aren’t You Voting in November?", The Manila Times, Vol. XXIV, No. 173, Aug. 18, 1969, p. 7A.

Alfredo Roces, "Light and Shadow column: Personal Politics," The Manila Times, Vol. XXIV, No. 187, Sept. 1, 1969, p. 4A.

Horacio Paredes, "To Pres. Marcos and Sen. Osmeña," The Philippines Free Press, Vol. LXII, No. 41, 60, 62.

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