Column: State of the opposition 3: Who leads?

There are many roles, and no shortage of talent, but there is also only one real answer. The last of a three-part opinion series, published in Rappler on September 2, 2022.

The news that former vice president Leni Robredo has been named a Hauser Leader at the Harvard Kennedy School for the coming semester thrilled many of her supporters, but it also deepened the lingering doubt among other supporters that Robredo is not returning to politics.

The prestigious fellowship, aside from being a recognition of exemplary leadership qualities that the famous school wants its students to make their own, gives Robredo the opportunity to spend a few months in academic retreat in the United States. But it is time away, not only from the daily nitty-gritty of establishing Angat Buhay NGO, in her words, as the “largest volunteer center” in the country, but also from the grittier daily work of establishing a viable political opposition. 

This is not to begrudge her the latest of many honors; she surely deserves a break from nine years of unremitting political work. (It is very much a break in the Robredo sense: not a rest from labor, but a break through a different kind of work.) And it is only for about three months.

But the fears about her possibly and finally turning her back on active politics are real, shared—and reasonable. At its most basic, politics really is the art of the possible. But that necessarily practical art is conditioned by intangibles, like momentum and personality and mood and fate. 

Column: State of the opposition 2: The fog of normalization

The political opposition needs to battle its way out of something worse than mere frustration or apathy. The second of a three-part opinion series, published in Rappler on August 31, 2022.

There is something final about losing an election. Even though the promise of regular elections consoles many of the defeated, the path to recovery—of pride, or property pawned, or purpose—can be so dark as to loom like a dead end.

Not even the experience of working with a genuine people’s movement can dispel this seeming finality; if anything, it may even sharpen the sense of defeat. Many who supported the Robredo-Pangilinan ticket must have thought the movement-powered campaign had come close to possible victory; it only needed more time. The total number of votes earned, 15 million, was (and is) bracing when seen in the context of the campaign’s start; having organized some of the largest election rallies in Philippine history, and having experienced a real surge in support in the last days of the campaign (an increase of about 5%, equivalent to over 2.5 million votes), allies and volunteers must have felt a deeper sense of disappointment when the total came up short.

That explains the sense of frustration, the depression that sometimes manifests itself as apathy (for instance, through the willful withholding of help from the needy who voted for the wrong candidate), or the self-defeating blame-passing that is roiling the Robredo base of voters. This week, we’ve even seen volunteers who had given their all turn on the former vice president herself, because to their mind she has failed to fight back decisively against those who spread lies about her on social media. A successful revolution may devour its children, but an unsuccessful campaign consumes its parents.

Column: The united opposition of … 1986

Published on August 24, 2021.

Even after the assassination of opposition leader Ninoy Aquino, and especially his funeral procession, [had] shattered the last remaining pretensions of the Marcos regime to genuine popular support, the anti-Marcos opposition wasn’t united. The focus on fighting the dictator’s regime was common to all—but that fight was not understood, or fought, on the same terms.

In May 1984, for instance, less than a year after the Aquino assassination, opposition forces were split on the issue of the first regular elections for the Batasan Pambansa, the parliamentary centerpiece of Marcos’ new constitutional order. Should the opposition field candidates even though the odds were long and the voting process was likely rigged? Cory Aquino campaigned on a pragmatic note: participation without illusion, she said. Some other opposition leaders, including one of the most formidable of them all, the “old man” Lorenzo Tañada, called for a boycott of the legislative elections. Among those who joined his campaign: Ninoy and Cory’s only son, Noynoy.

Other disturbances in the force

I ran out of space in today’s column to discuss other developments I see taking place within the ranks of the political opposition. Here are three more “disturbances.”

Unnecessary. In paying tribute to Aquino’s leadership in the pushback against Chinese expansionism, retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio unnecessarily roiled the waters with his unfortunately one-sided account of what he said was “bitter” divisions between Aquino’s advisers on the matter of the case filed against China—something that former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay demolished with a detailed deposition in all but name. (I was moved to write somewhat tangentially about this controversy because I had the utmost respect for all the principal figures involved, in “While there is peace, there can be no traitors,” 8/26/2014.) Once a candidate for the Senate under the political opposition, Hilbay’s response has sharpened the unease some in the opposition share about the 1Sambayan initiative, which Carpio heads. (Retired SC Justice Francis Jardeleza’s commentary in today’s Inquirer promises a reckoning with “pretenders.”)

Absurd. For some reason, an opposition influencer like Philip Lustre has come out swinging against Vice President Robredo, calling her spineless and describing her and Liberal Party president Kiko Pangilinan as opportunistic. His reasoning is absurd, not only because the opposition leader he favors, Sonny Trillanes, belongs to another party but also because the very leaders he calls on to bring Robredo and Pangilinan in line, such as Frank Drilon, have in fact also reached out to other potential anti-Duterte allies. It’s called pitching a big tent. But Lustre, whom I know and respect, thinks essentially in black and white, and while that is a strength in resistance, that is a weakness in alliance-building and campaigning. In Twitter and Tear Gas, Zeynep Tufekci found that online movements end up privileging “informal but persistent spokespersons—with large followings on social media,” resulting in a “conflict-ridden, drawn-out struggle” for agenda-setting and leadership. I understand Lustre’s broadside as an example, and an omen.

Old. I relied on Tufekci’s insights when I had the chance to speak at the first lawfare summit convened by the office of Sen. Leila de Lima in February 2020; I focused on her findings regarding capacity-building by social movements. Instead of emphasizing narrative, disruptive, and electoral capacities, however, perhaps I should have directed attention to her related findings on “tactical freeze”—which she defined as “the inability of these movements to adjust tactics, negotiate demands, and push for tangible policy changes” after initial success, a consequence of the essentially leaderless nature of online social movements and the strength-and-weakness of “dealing with issues only as they come up, and by people who show up.” The events of the last 10 days or so seem to me to have proven that, after the rediscovery of Noynoy Aquino’s true legacy, many in the opposition have fallen back on old, familiar methods: engaging yet again in purity politics, diluting the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea issue, rushing headlong into the “distraction” trap.

I do sense that the campaign to draft Leni Robredo is gathering momentum, but these disturbances leave me worried about 2022, and whether we can finally arrest democratic erosion.

Column: The state of the opposition

Published on July 6, 2021.

Some 10 days after the unexpected death of ex-president Noynoy Aquino, and about 10 months before the 2022 national elections, it might be good to ask: What is the state of the opposition?

Colleague Manolo Quezon has responded to my previous analyses of the prospects of the political opposition with a sweeping conclusion: Everyone becomes opposition anyway, the closer the next elections get. If true, this makes “opposition” as an analytical concept porous, ambiguous to the point of irrelevance.

But history shows us that this in fact isn’t true. In 2016, both the Roxas and Poe campaigns promised continuity with the reformist agenda of the second Aquino administration, and even candidate Rodrigo Duterte, who did campaign on a platform of change, used the three Comelec-sponsored presidential debates to also promote a corollary message: that he would have no problems implementing other campaign platforms, including that of administration candidate Roxas, as long as they work. The 1992 and 1998 elections featured more than one viable candidate campaigning for continuity: Ramos, Mitra, even arguably Salonga in 1992; and De Venecia, Lim, Roco in 1998. It’s possible that the two elections which served as a referendum on President Gloria Arroyo may be the rare events with only one continuity candidate each: Arroyo herself in 2004, Teodoro in 2010. (The last reading, however, depends on whether Manny Villar would be classified as a candidate for continuity—remember “Villarroyo”?—or change.)

So even on the simplified basis of continuity or change, “opposition” remains a very real thing. Are there prospective candidates in 2022 who represent change, and thus should be classified as opposition? Of course.

Self-defeating habits of the anti-Duterte opposition

In “The opposition’s narrow, viable path,” I said I’ll write a companion piece “analyzing self-defeating characteristics of today’s opposition.” I hope this incomplete list will prompt a discussion.

1. Dismissing the value of scientific surveys.

“Call it the paradox of the limited influencer. Surveys are accurate and therefore influential on the aggregate precisely because they do not influence voters in the particular.” (May 14, 2019). Also: If supporters want to convince VP Leni Robredo to run, know that she reads, and heeds, the SWS and Pulse Asia surveys. 

2. Attributing the administration’s sweep of the 2019 Senate elections to a “7-hour glitch.”

“The reality of the 2019 shutout is unflattering to the opposition” (January 5, 2021, where I identify five reasons why). 

3. Ignoring the reality that “politics is addition.”

“Before they can do battle, the political forces that oppose any continuation of the Duterte coalition must first learn to pitch a big tent.” (February 23, 2021)

4. Belittling Grace Poe’s constituency of moderates.

Even Duterte knows the real score. His “sustained criticism of Robredo, Lacson and Poe suggests—as I have noticed in recent weeks among other politicians—that 2022 is very much in the air.” (September 17, 2019)

5. Believing relentlessly in the theory of “distraction.”

“The administration is supposedly strategic enough to create distractions, to keep popular opinion confused and tame. IT ISN’T TRUE.” (September 3, 2019)

6. Placing etiquette (otherwise legitimate concerns about “epal” politics) above effectiveness, in a make-or-break election.

“The opposition should be airing advertisements today, seeding memes and narratives on social media today, working with partners to put up billboards today, forming volunteer groups today. None of this is illegal; and when the stakes are so high, all of these can be justified as a moral response.” (May 11, 2021)

Also see: Myths, misconceptions about 2019 vote.

Column: Who is opposition?

Potent issues can be raised against President Duterte’s misgovernment, in the long run-up to the 2022 elections. Are the politicians who raise them, or work behind the scenes in raising them, part of the opposition? Who IS opposition? Simple questions, necessitating complicated (but possibly big-tent-pitching) answers. This week’s column, out on all Inquirer platforms except (inexplicably) on Inquirer.net. Published on February 23, 2021.

I continue to think that while President Duterte remains truly popular, this popularity, as measured by surveys, is a thin kind of popularity. I do not mean that it is not real, or that it doesn’t have sticking power. It obviously is real, and it obviously has lasted for years. By thin, I mean that the President has not been able to change longstanding attitudes about crucial issues among voting-age Filipinos—even if those issues stand as obstacles to his political agenda and threaten to define his historical legacy.

The clearest example is his brazen pivot to China. Despite years of Palace praise for the Chinese superpower and undisguised warnings about Beijing belligerence, despite many unprompted testimonials to alleged Chinese business largesse, public worry about China remains high. It’s the same case with extrajudicial killings, which (separate from support for the President’s so-called war on drugs) continues to prompt fear among Filipinos. It’s also the same case with “RevGov,” which continues to fail to make a substantial dent on decades-long attitudes favoring democracy. It’s very much the case with the government-provoked shutdown of the ABS-CBN network; most Filipinos continue to support both the network and its return to regular business. It’s even the case with the Duterte administration’s attacks on press freedom, which has failed to undermine majority support for the media. (I would even add the manifest government incompetence in securing COVID-19 vaccines.)

Taking up any of these issues, running against Malacañang on them, would allow candidates to gain real traction. Would politicians running on these issues be considered opposition? A simple question, but our answers may actually say as much about us as about the politicians in question.

Column: Martyr Leila, convenor Leni

In today’s column, I pay tribute to Sen. Leila de Lima, who marks four years in unjust detention next week; I also call on Vice President Leni Robredo to convene, at the soonest possible time, all political forces who want to “take our country back” from the Duterte/Marcos regime. Published in all Inquirer platforms on February 16, 2021.

Last week, for the first time since the pandemic collapsed like a straightjacket on an unprepared country, Sen. Leila de Lima attended her ongoing trial for alleged conspiracy to commit drug trading. It was the first time she was seen in public in almost a year, and I must admit that seeing the images of the opposition senator that filled social media on Feb. 9—wearing a mask and a face shield, extending her right arm for the remote thermometer, waving at her physically distanced supporters—moved me deeply.

In a personal way, it reminded me of the Nelson Mandela moment many in my generation remember best. When the great South African dissident was released in 1990 after 27 years in prison, I was struck by how imposing, how regal, he looked. Like many others, I guess, I expected him to look like a broken man, diminished by injustice, but instead he radiated strength. When he emerged, dapper in his suit and dignified in his bearing, he looked like he had mastered fate itself.

It has been a year or so since I last visited Senator De Lima in her detention quarters in Camp Crame; having seen her graciously receive her visitors, speak forthrightly after Mass, display a lively sense of humor, keep up to date with the latest news affecting her beloved country, and write her notes and letters in bright blue ink, I knew that the rank injustice she has suffered had not broken her. Many of those who visit her to comfort her in her time of need leave feeling comforted instead, by her air of serenity, and at the same time strengthened by the unmistakable steel in her soul.

Column: How to take our country back

The first column of the new year is a follow-up to the last column of the last year. I had been meaning to join the discussion on what the political opposition can do, specifically, to stop the accelerating decay of democracy in the Philippines, not only in the run-up to the 2022 elections but today and well after the next presidential vote. I have found myself, however, needing to answer important prior questions. In “Take our country back,” I argued that the constituency for a “politics of return” is greater that we might too readily assume. In today’s column, “How to take our country back,” I argue that “political purists” cannot lead, or indeed cannot help create, this larger constituency. I criticize two dangerous delusions some in the opposition hold (or are held by).

Unfortunately, Inquirer.net declined to run my column again—the first time this year, and the 15th time overall, since last year. But it was published today (January 5, 2021) in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, reproduced on INQ Plus (as a faithful reader tells me, on PressReader too), and carried in our popular Inquirer Mobile app. (Of course, I also post my columns here, and on my Facebook page.)