By taking a leaf from a chapter on American partisan politics, we understand that presidential campaigns in the United States are like teasers of the administration that will govern once elected by their Electoral College system.
It may be a stretch but yes, their party system in place can set the direction the administration wants the country to take in 4 to 8 years. On our shores, however, campaigns take a different turn although we use the same tools and employ almost the same campaign strategies used by our counterparts in the United States.
While American democratic politics is broken on so many levels according to a 2014 study by two American academics from Princeton and Northwestern University, their party system underpinned by clashing ideology – or whatever is left of its occasional callousness – remains very strong. It’s so strong in fact that one party alone can hold the entire government hostage over a single program deemed inimical to that party’s interests.
So, what is a curse to American political partisanship could be a blessing for us here – the strengthened political parties. The fact is that none of the so-called strong candidates articulate the aspirations of the people better than a political party can.
Parties are personality-blind as they seek their first among equals who will advance their interests and that of the constituents they represent in a fair, transparent, competitive, and sometimes brutal and passionate debate that demands a fair amount of brain power more than a dash of face powder.
In the absence of real, strong and working political parties, however, our campaigns are reduced into battles of promises and inanities. And since it is extremely difficult, if not totally impossible, to demand accountability from parties vis-à-vis promises made by their respective candidates, we can only take a cursory look at how presidential campaigns are carried out to the homestretch.
The grueling campaign under the excruciating summer temperature has already taken a toll on presidential candidates and their supporters whose otherwise benign remarks and vapid exchanges have turned into swearing festival on social media with wishes for some to be raped and killed. This sorry phenomenon cuts across campaigns but some quarters are simply more vicious than the others.
Instead of escalating tension and prolonging online vulgarity, some campaigns focus on the prize and stand out for their sobering approach in wooing voters to their side. At least that's how they appear from the outside.
The less-aggressive-more-positive tact of Senator Poe's campaign seems to benefit her, despite taking all the mud being thrown her way. If recent opinion polls were any guide, it augurs well that her campaign maintains the tact.
Although her campaign wobbles occasionally on some issues, it remains largely on-the-message, courtesy of the experts advising her on finance and climate change, among other areas of concern. Her advisers seem to have made it clear from the start that do-dirty is not their game, hence the positive tone of her campaign. (This reminds me of the campaign similarly and consciously carried out by volunteers of then presidential candidate Gilberto Teodoro in the 2010 presidential elections.)
Despite the positive tone, the campaign of Senator Poe is fair game to criticism such that her platform is neither here nor there. And while her campaign team has reasons for maintaining calculated ambiguity, the absence of a clear political demarcation line that should have differentiated her campaign from either Roxas or Binay had many thinking that Senator Poe is actually a Malacañang stooge, in what seems to be a revival of the infamous "Villarroyo" tag that haunted the campaigns of then Senator Villar and former defense secretary Teodoro.
Notable also is the tenacity of the Mar Roxas campaign in explaining, with great difficulty, why building on, improving, and expanding the gains of the second Aquino administration is the more realistic formula for the next 6 years. This difficulty is borne by perceptions of incompetence that mark appointees of the administration occupying key positions who didn't or couldn't deliver on their mandates.
At various points, the Roxas campaign has been reduced into defending the administration from a series of blunders and bad judgment calls by these appointees and the fallout in the recent shooting in Kidapawan is expected to add another layer to this difficulty.
At the moment, no amount of explanation by the government can sway public opinion against Daang Matuwid (Straight Path) and anyone, candidate or not, it is associated with. Yet the Roxas campaign plods on as the opportunity of making people understand clearly how the government can best respond to their needs is as important a goal of getting himself elected to serve them.
For its part, the campaign of Senator Miriam Santiago hews closely to the logic that launched her candidacy, which is that of a statement more than a firm resolve to win. Santiago’s reliance on virtual campaign will not help improve her 2% preference rating. From a logistical perspective, her little army of non-voting age Facebook warriors do not add much value as they could not bring in a million votes despite her topping countless school-based preference polls.
Our brand of politics pays premium to pounding flesh and demands a lot of what Professor Henry E. Brady calls energetic interactions between the representative and the represented. And so Binay treads where Miriam Santiago dared not go. Her numbers, too, are bad enough she’s probably considering foregoing attendance to her own book launch.
Gone also are the battalions of volunteers who pooled their resources to keep her campaign afloat aside from lending warm bodies to her provincial sorties. There’s also the question on winnability, something that does not seem to bother the rest of the cellar dwellers. Senator Santiago’s winnability may have gone past its shelf life at this moment in our politics where being knowledgeable in governance is an option rather than an imperative.
Winnability aside, the rest of the elements are just not there. I say the rest because the tandem with Ferdinand Marcos Jr is largely thought of as an element for victory. Sadly, the pairing will not cut it, or will ever propel her way to Malacañang. In the eyes of her many supporters, the tandem with Marcos Jr is Miriam's own reductio ad absurdum. For being out there and remain standing, Miriam's campaign may be holding still considering her frail health. But until when?
Meanwhile, Vice President Binay’s campaign is trying to wiggle it out between the crevices and the gaping cracks left open by his rivals, notably the shortcomings of the Aquino administration. Like the proverbial "madiskarte (enterprising)" that he is known for, Binay is quick to add one more "P" to the current 4Ps of the administration’s social protection program, virtually writing his own 5Ps without breaking a sweat.
His campaign platform can best be described as an improved version of "dagdag-bawas (add-subtract)" where adding some and removing some from an existing copy is better than writing it entirely from the ground up.
But if there is one thing remarkable in the Vice President's campaign, it is that ability to poke at emotions of people who really deliver the votes. Like an old-time mountain dweller, Binay’s campaign knows where and how to get food without making the necessary trip to the lowland. After all, he's a Boy Scout, whatever that means.
Finally, Mayor Duterte’s electrified campaign is approaching near-fanatical levels with boundless enthusiasm evident in his supporters, the most active group online and offline we have seen in the 2016 campaigns. His provincial sorties are phenomenal by the sheer number of people who came to listen to him speak about change, the theme upon which his campaign is rested.
But a closer look at his campaign promises – yes, Duterte made lots of them – shows only one item that may not be in his rivals’ platform: the switch to a federal form of government. The rest of the promises are either already done or currently being undertaken by the administration and part of the Roxas continuity platform.
Just like the other camps, the Duterte campaign is not without flaws. His views on climate change and telecoms sector reform are parochial at best; they are also lamentably inoperable in a complex system that requires thinking beyond centralist government planning that Duterte has become accustomed to following decades of ruling Davao City with nary an opposition.
At the second presidential debate in Cebu City, Duterte resurrected his infamous Whartongate to discredit once more the business education of Mr Roxas at Wharton, which already issued a certificate to validate claims that the former DILG secretary, indeed, earned his undergraduate degree in economics from the school.
But because he is a lalaki (male), Duterte can do anything he pleases unlike the bayot (gay) Mar Roxas who can’t because he is weak, according to Duterte. (READ: Duterte dares Roxas on anti-crime promise: Try me)
The supreme irony to the change narrative, after all, is in Duterte’s bull-headedness to stand his ground even if he is wrong. The hope, therefore, that people draw from him or his campaign is a shallow one and founded on the logic of the improbable. Regardless, the people adore him and that is what matters for now. – Rappler.com
Tony D. Igcalinos is an independent program development and management professional. He is engaged in political and education reform advocacies on the side. He is originally from Bukidnon.