Starting Points: Ferdinand Marcos

May 9, 2010

As election nears in Philippines, Aquino scion seems to be heavy favorite

Benigno Aquino III has a 20-point cushion in recent polls. If he does not win, he has said that supporters would take to the streets in another "people power" uprising. (Nicky Loh - Reuters)

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 9, 2010; A08

QUEZON CITY, PHILIPPINES -- Benigno Aquino III, who appears likely to win the Philippine presidency on Monday, is unmarried and has no children. By his own account, he has been unlucky in love.

"All the plans I have had with respect to that field have not materialized," Aquino said in an interview. With an impish smile, he added that his romantic disappointments have a political upside: "You don't have the attendant problems of a first lady like Imelda Marcos."

That jab at the widow of former president Ferdinand Marcos fits neatly into the good-vs.-evil campaign narrative that has catapulted Aquino far ahead of eight other candidates in opinion polls. Voters here often see politics as melodrama starring rich families -- and their all-time favorite is the feud between the Marcos and Aquino clans.

Benigno Aquino Jr., father of the bachelor who would be president, was fatally shot at Manila's international airport when he returned from exile in the United States to challenge Marcos in 1983. Taking up the cause of her martyred husband, Corazon Aquino led a "people power" uprising that overthrew Marcos, exposed the shoe-buying excesses of his wife and captivated much of the world. Corazon Aquino served as president until 1992.

When she died of cancer in August, a mass outpouring of grief fired up the dynastic machinery of Philippine politics. As a result, her only son became the chosen one. He's a low-key personality who shoots pool, enjoys jazz and says he had never seen himself as a national savior.

"I wasn't thinking of running," Aquino, known as Noynoy, said during the interview in his mother's modest house on the edge of Manila, where he has lived most of his life. "I wasn't clamoring to be the person responsible for solving all the problems."

But since his mother's death, the 50-year-old has come to embody a national yearning for decent leadership in this Southeast Asian country, where poverty, violence and corruption have surged in recent years. During his campaign stops, thousands upon thousands of Filipinos jump with joy and rush to touch him.

A legacy candidacy

Aquino is not a dynamic speechmaker, nor is he possessed of an impressive résumé. He ran a company that sold Nike shoes. He worked at his family's 11,000-acre ranch. He helped his mother cope with several coup attempts and was badly wounded during an attack on the presidential palace. (He still has a piece of shrapnel in his neck, and a gunshot wound causes him to walk with a slight limp.) As a lawmaker since 1998, he has had no major legislative achievements.

Aquino readily acknowledges that his candidacy was an invention of voters nostalgic for the moral clarity they associate with his parents.

"It became the entry point," he said. "All of this became possible because of the people."

Although his record is regarded as thin, it is apparently clean. Unlike so many politicians here, he has not been linked to scandal. His honest image -- combined with his mother's legacy of personal probity -- has become the essence of his campaign. "Without corrupt politicians, there are no poor people," says his ubiquitous campaign slogan.

Aquino said that if he were elected, he would aggressively investigate President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, whose nine years in power have been marked by major corruption scandals. Term limits prevent Arroyo from running again for president, although she is seeking a seat in the House of Representatives.

"The message has to be sent that if you commit a crime, there has to be punishment," Aquino said.

With a 20-point cushion in recent polls and an expert consensus that he is likely to win, Aquino says that only electoral fraud can stop him from becoming president. If he does not win Monday, he has told reporters, his supporters would take to the streets in another "people power" uprising.

'A level playing field'

As for what he will do as president, Aquino said tax collection would be a priority. Economists here estimate that tax evasion deprives the government of about a third of its annual operating budget.

"We already have a list of people we will be investigating for tax avoidance," Aquino said, adding that he is prepared to send "people to jail on a fast-track basis."

A potential hiccup in the tax-enforcement scheme is Aquino's blue-blood background. He comes from one of the country's most prominent landowning families. His campaign supporters include families that have dominated the nation's economy for centuries. Economists here say many of these families have gotten away with egregious tax fraud for decades, while pushing the legislature to grant them tax exemptions.

"How beholden am I?" Aquino said, when asked about possible conflicts with moneyed supporters. "Each time I talk to one of the groups, I tell them, 'You will have a level playing field.' Our obligation is to develop the entire economy, not just to develop certain key players."

Doubts about ability

Away from the campaign, there is considerable doubt about Aquino's competence.

"He has the genius of the below-average, looking and sounding like someone who does not know how to govern a country," said Homobono A. Adaza, a lawyer who worked for Aquino's mother before she prosecuted him on charges of involvement in a coup attempt.

"He doesn't have a clue," said Victor A. Abola, an economist at the University of Asia and the Pacific. "We may have a replay of the failures of his mother's government."

Although Corazon Aquino's honesty was never doubted, her leadership was often feckless, bouncing from crisis to crisis, and many remember her tenure for chronic power outages. Her signature issue was land reform, but her relatives resisted -- and some continue to resist -- state efforts to distribute the family estate to 10,000 farmers.

As the election nears, it appears that a plurality of voters has decided to trust Benigno Aquino. "They know his achievements are not inspiring," said Arsenio Balisacan, a professor of economics at the University of the Philippines. "But they are tired of corruption. They are willing to take a gamble."

Special correspondent Carmela Cruz contributed to this report.

Apr 13, 2010

In Asia » Examining the Arroyo Legacy in the Philippines

Image via Wikipedia

By Steven Rood

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has dominated Philippine politics this entire decade, first in January 2001 as a vice president who succeeded President Joseph Estrada on the heels of a “people power” protest (triggered by the suspension of the impeachment trial of President Estrada) – a succession that was confirmed by the Supreme Court. She then went on to serve as president longer than any since Ferdinand Marcos when she won a full six-year term in May 2004. That election was marred by significant controversy that peaked when an audio recording was leaked purporting to reveal Ms. Arroyo on the phone with Commission on Election Commissioner Garcillano talking about padding her vote margin. Her popularity (as measured by periodic citizen surveys) subsequently plumbed to depths never before reached in Philippine politics, and has consistently remained low for five years. We now watch and wait as the nation prepares to elect a new president on May 10, 2010.

Satisfaction ratings of Presidents

At the recent Association for Asian Studies (AAS) 2010 Conference in Philadelphia in late March, the only session (of 282) that was devoted to the Philippines focused on Arroyo’s legacy.

Panel chair and author of several works on the Philippines, David Timberman, outlined four contrasts that he sees in the Arroyo Legacy: 1) The contested legitimacy and unpopularity (as measured in opinion surveys) with the administration’s remarkable staying power and “vitality;” 2) The continued defensiveness of the administration in the face of these attacks versus the success in making policy; 3) The effective wielding of presidential powers with the marginalization of other potential policy-makers; and 4) The lack of significant new investment or jobs in the Philippines and prevailing poverty, despite sustained GDP growth.

As a presenter, I pointed out that overall World Bank Governance Indicators show a decidedly mixed Arroyo legacy: between 2000 and 2008 there was a steady increase in government effectiveness and rule of law (under the consistent leadership of three successive chief justices), while at the same time, a steady decline in political stability, voice and accountability, and control of corruption.

Governance Matters 2000 to 2008

I chose to demonstrate the Philippines’ riddled history by quoting from a timeless 1954 Brookings Institution report about the need to make “resolute efforts to get rid of corruption in office.” But I also talked about Arroyo’s smart 2003 “roll-on roll-off” maritime initiative, which brought down the cost of shipping among the Philippine islands by 30 to 40 percent as a historic policy success.

Since President Arroyo announced in 2001 a switch from former President Estrada’s “all out war” policy to one of “all out peace,” significant, though sporadic, progress has been made between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Most recently, after an outbreak of fighting in late 2008, peace talks began once again in late 2009, International Monitoring Teams are on the ground, and an International Contact Group (of which The Asia Foundation is a member) is assisting in the negotiations. Focus now is on maintaining the peace, preserving the gains of the past years through negotiation, and handing off to the incoming administration, whomever it may be, on July 1. In the meantime, the very real dangers of relying on local strongmen for support both in politics and in counter-insurgency was demonstrated by the November 23 election-related massacre in Maguindanao that left 57 people dead.

Another presenter, Gwendolyn Bevis of Management Systems International, described the results of studies of the budgetary process, which President Arroyo has managed to dominate and manipulate throughout her administration. Aside from particular moves to withhold pork barrel allocations for opposition legislatures and to reduce the amount of influence Congress has on the budget, presidential power was increased by a general trend toward lump sum (rather than itemized) appropriation and the discretionary use by the president of previous years’ savings. A sophisticated budgetary team, with the persistence to examine the entire budget (the Philippine president can veto particular line items), maximized the effect.

Ronald Mendoza, an expatriate Filipino and economist with the United Nations, put the economic record of Arroyo into a historical perspective back to the Marcos period. This analysis helped to underscore the country’s boom and bust growth pattern, leaving very little opportunity for sustained economic and human development. During the most recent 2008-2009 crisis, remittances from Overseas Filipino Workers once again offered invaluable support. Mendoza observed that overseas workers have offered a continued de facto bailout of the country, which would have faced debt sustainability problems in the absence of these resource flows.

Similar to earlier administrations, the Arroyo regime failed to address key social and economic challenges relating to persistent poverty and inequality. Indeed, the recent growth spurt prior to 2008-2009 occurred while indicators of poverty and hunger increased. The recent boom period, while impressive on paper, created benefits that even Arroyo supporters admit were not broadly shared by most Filipinos.

Further, a lack of commitment to agricultural development is a major factor behind the Philippines’ transformation from a self-sufficient rice producer into the world’s top importer of rice. This also reflects the broader underdevelopment of the rural sector, in turn contributing to a pattern of growth that has left behind millions of Filipinos and failed to make major inroads in poverty reduction. Over half of families engaged in farming are below the Philippine poverty line, a figure which has remained largely unchanged since the mid-1980s.

The Arroyo legacy could be characterized by some improvements on the policy front, though they are inadequate and leave many governance challenges and social inequities largely unaddressed. As shown by the World Bank indicators, chronic problems such as corruption have worsened, a key reason behind the Philippines’ anemic progress in economic and human development. In addition, even the recent boom period beginning in 2001 and ending in 2008-2009 represents a missed opportunity to facilitate sustained change. This leaves many challenges for President Arroyo’s successor to take up on July 1 when the next Philippine president is inaugurated.

Note: In the 5th paragraph of this piece, Arroyo’s smart 2003 “roll-on-roll-off” maritime initiative was inadvertently called Aquino’s smart 2003 “roll-on roll-off” maritime initiative. The story has been corrected.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative for the Philippines and Pacific Island Nations. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org.