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Elections in the Philippines 1986437

R. J. MAY

In February 1986, in an optimistic attempt to reassert the legitimacy of his increasingly-fragile regime, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos held a ‘snap’ presidential election. Like previous elections under Marcos’o presidency (Carboneli- Catilo et al., 1985) the 1986 presidential election was marred by massive electoral irregularities, harassment of voters and manipulation of results; during the final count several of the official Commission on Elections computer operators walked off the job, protesting that the figures on their tally sheets did not correspond to those being 5ashed up on the tallyroom screen.

So blatant was the electoral fraud that the principal opposition candidate, Corazon Aquino, refused to accept the results declared by the Marcos-loyal national assembly, and backed by the church and a segment of the armed forces she initiated a campaign of popular protest which culminated in the People’s Power Revolution of February.

Aithough the regime change was basically the result of a popular uprising, the essentially self- proclaimed President Aquino saw as her first task that of legitimating the new leadership and restor- ing the democratic institutions which had evolved during half a century of American rule and some twenty-odd years of independence before martial law. The ‘martial law constitution’ pushed through by Marcos in 197 3 was revoked and a Constitutional Commission appointed to draft a new constitution. The legislative assembly (Batasang Pambansa) established under the 1973 co~~tution was dissolved and elections for a new pariiament were promised. And a substantial majority of the governors, mayors and other local officials elected under Marcos patronage were removed from office and replaced by officers-in- charge, pending new local elections.

A draft constitution was presented to President Aquino in October, and a plebiscite for its endorsement scheduled for February 1987. One of the provisions of the draft constitution was to confirm the positions of President Aquino and her vice-president, Salvador Laurel, until 1992. The constitutional plebiscite provided the first real test of popular support for Aquino since the February Revolution. It was also an occasion to look at the state of political alignments in the post-Marcos order.

Before the imposition of martial law in 1972,

the Philippines had had a fairly stable two-party system, albeit one in which parties were dis- tinguished more by personalities and patronage Iinkages than by ideologies, and in which party allegiances were very fluid (Lande, 196% Gross- holtz, 1964). With martial law, and a ban on political party activity, the two dominant parties -the Nacionalista Party (NP) and the Liberal Party (LP)--suffered a decline. In their place Marcos (who had been elected as a NP candidate in 1966) created a new power base for himself in the F&sang Bagong Lipunan (KBL, New Society ~lov~ment). In the heavily-manipulated assembly, presidential and local elections which took place between 1978 and 1984 Marcos’s opponents -who came to cover a broad spectrum from right-of-centre to the revolutionary left- divided between boycott, and participation through a series of shifting political coalitions (May, 1987; May and Nemenzo, 1985).

The divisions among the opposition had been re5ected in the 1986 presidential elections. The decision to support the presidential nomination of Aquino-not herself a member of any political party, but associated with the Pilipino Demo- cratic Party-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) group of which her late husband had been a prominent member-over her vice-presidential running mate Laurel, the leader of the more conservative United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO) coalition, was achieved only hours before nominations closed and after Aquino had agreed to run on a UNIDO ticket. The more radical opposition groups again opted for a boycott of the election. Predictably. the tensions persisted after February 1986, both within the ruling coalition and beyond it (Alay 1986, 1987).

Coincidentally with the handing down of the draft constitution, a new political group, Lakas ng Bansa (Nation’s Strength, confusingly also known as LABAN), was launched among the president’s colleagues in the government to campaign for a ‘yes’ vote in the plebiscite and to organize for the parliamentary elections to follow. Shortly after, yet another coalition, the Coalition for the Constitution’s ApprovaI (CCA), emerged also to campaign for acceptance of the constitution. CCA comprised a number of the more progressive elements supporting the president, centred on PDP-Laban. The UNIDO

80 Tile 1986 PreszdentBI EIect:on in the Phiiippznes

coalition. through Vice-President Laurel, expressed reservations about the constitution but supported its ratification as a necessary step towards political stabilization.

Right wing opposition to the constitution coalesced shortly before the vote in a Coalition for Democratic Action (CODA). This coalition included the KBL, whose membership had been depleted after the demise of Marcos; factions of the Nacionalista and Liberal parties; and several smaller parties. The person who became key spokesman for the right wing opposition was Juan Ponce Enrile, former defense minister under Marcos, whose defection to the opposition with armed forces deputy chief Ramos had been critical to the success of the February Revolution: Enrile became defense minister in the Aquino government but after persistent criticism of the President was dropped from the Cabinet in November 1986.

Opposition to the draft constitution also came from the radical left, who denounced it as ‘a piece of bourgeois superstructure’. But while the Communist Party of the Philippines and the radical left National Democratic Front (NDF) urged a ‘no’ vote, many NDF members voted ' yes'. The newly-created communist Partido ng Bayan (PnB), on the other hand, opted somewhat cryptically for a ‘critical yes’ campaign.

The constitutional plebiscite thus did little to clarify political cleavages. However, an over- whelming vote of acceptance of the constitution indicated substantial support for the Aquino camp and gave encouragement to the LABAN and PDP-Laban supporters who were already gearing up for the forthcoming parliamentary elections. From about February 1987 attempts were made to cobble together a coalition of non- left parties to oppose the Aquino group. What emerged was a Grand Alliance for Democracy (GAD) comprising some remnants of the KBL, a revitalized NP, the Partido Nacionalista ng Pilipinas (PNP) formed by Marcos-loyalist Bias Ople in April 1986, the formerly anti-Marcos IMindanao Alliance, and some smaller groups. There also emerged in the early months of 1987 a left wing Alliance for New Politics, an electorally-oriented coalition led by the PnB and BAYAN, a broad coalition of radically-inclined cause-oriented groups.

The new legislature created under the 1986 constitution comprises a 24.person Senate, elected on a national franchise, and a House of Representatives comprising not more than 250 members, of whom 20 per cent are to be selected or elected ‘through a party-list system of registered national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations’ [Art. VI, sec. 5(l) (2)] and the rest elected from legislative districts. Elections for

the 24 Senate and 200 lower house legislative district seats were held in hlay 1987. They attracted. respectively, 84 and 1.899 candidates representing some 50.odd parties as well as a few independents. As in the 1984 and 1986 elections. the conduct of the poll was monitored not only by the official Commission on Elections but also by the independent National Citizens hlovement for Free Elections (Namfrel). Some irregularities were reported and voting was post- poned in two provinces where emergency zones were declared. However, the overall turnout was high (about 90 per cent of registered voters) and the election was generally agreed to have been fair and, by Philippines sta,rdards. orderly, with only twenty-five election-related deaths.

The Senate contest, which seemed to attract most popular attention, was comparatively straightforward: LABAN put forward a slate of 24 candidates (including 4 members of UNIDO), as did GAD; KBL separately nominated 17, and PnB 7. leaving 12 others. In the event, LABAN secured 22 seats and GAD 2. with Enrile scraping in to the disputed twenty-fourth place after the Senate had commenced meeting. (The other successful GAD candidate was a well- known film actor.)

The lower house contest is more difficult to interpret. Not onlv was there a plethora of parties and coalitions (with some coalitions registered with the Commission on Elections as parties), but many candidates claimed affiliation with more than one party: the successful candidate in Southern Leyte, for example. bore the labels of L;\BAS, PDP-Laban. UNIDO. the Salonga wing of the LP, Panaghiusa (a regional party) and Bandila (a centrist coalition of cause-oriented groups). Because many candidates saw profit in being identified with President Aquino, there was sometimes intense and bitter competition over who got the official endorsement. This was par- ticularly so because President Xquino herself has remained aloof from party politics and her main support base, LABAN, has developed only a rudimentary electoral organization. To cite just one esampie: in Bicol, a prominent LABAN sup- porter was so incensed at PDP-Laban for encroaching on what he believed was UNIDO ‘territorial domain’ that he created a new party, Lakas ng Bikolandia. As against this. a number of candidates who stood as independents had long- standing associations with particular parties, especially KBL.

With these qualifications, Table 1 summarizes results by region and political affiliation. (Ten seats are subject to dispute and have not been filled.)

The result appears to be an overwhelming victory for President Aquino and her supporters,

R.J. MAY 81

TABLE 1. House of Representatives party affiliation. by region

Region LABANI

PDP-Laban PflBI GAD/KBIf Independent ANP NP and others Total

National capital 1S - 4 20 I 7 -

: 4 16

II 5 - 5 1 11 III 16 1 1 1 19 IV 19 - 4 1 24 V 8 - 1 14 VI 14 - - ; 17 VII 13 - 15 VIII 7 1

: r 11

IX 8 - 1 1 10 X 10 - 11 XI 9 - : < 15 XII 5 1 1 - 7

Total 136 3 28 23 190

across the nation (with the exception of Regions I and II, the strongholds of Marcos and Enrile). Alliances and allegiances remain fluid, however, and once Congress begins to tackle some of the controversial issues before it-land reform, measures to achieve economic recovery, the communist insurgency, regional autonomy in the Muslim south and the northern Cordilleras, to mention a few-these cleavages may change. (Since this paper was first drafted one major shift has been the resignation of vice-president Laurel from the foreign affairs portfolio and his movement across to the opposition.) Moreover left-wing critics of the government point to the persistence of powerful family interests in the new Congress and argue that the change of regime has done nothing to resolve the funda- mental inequalities in Philippine society; for them, revolution remains the only solution. Beyond this, local elections (for some 1,900 governors, mayors and other local officials) are scheduled for early 1988, and will further test the extent of President Aquino’s support and ultimately her ability to control what happens in the countryside.

In the aftermath of the February Revolution some commentators (notably Carl Land& in a seminar at the Australian National University in

February 1986) predicted the reemergence of a two-party system. At this stage, however, it seems far more likely that for some time ‘above- ground’ politics in the Philippines will be charac- terized by the continued interaction of shifting coalitions of personality-dominated political parties and cause-oriented groups.

Notes and References

M. A. Carbonell-Catilo, J. H. de Lion and E. E. Nicolas, Manipulated Elections, (Manila, 1985).

J. Grossholtz, Politics in the Philippines, (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964).

C. H. Land& Leaders, Factions and Parties: the Structure of Philippine Politics, (New Haven: Yale University. Southeast Asian Studies Monograph No. 6, 1965).

R. J. May, ‘The Philippines after euphoria’, Australian Outlook, 40:2, 1986, pp. 85-9.

R. J. May, ‘Political “normalization” in the Philippines and the future of political parties’, paper presented to AiiZAAS Conference, Townsville, 1987.

R. J. May and Francisco Nemenzo (editors), The Philippines Ajter Marcos, (Beckenham: Croom Helm, 1985).