Last of a series

THIS column bookends the seven-part series on the sorry state of Philippine politics with the grim prognosis that our inherently defective system may not produce the kind of moral leadership that will break the cycle of depravity in governance that has been plaguing this country for generations, condemning Filipinos to the perpetual clutches of hardening poverty, impunity, injustice, corruption and a weak rule of law.

We wrote articles on the post-1986 administrations, "profiles in corruption" depicting the governance failure of six presidents negating the promise of the EDSA People Power Revolution. Corruption, among other things, defined each president's six-year term, buttressing our conjecture that Filipinos choose the lesser evil among the political leadership arrayed before them. Leaders are perceived as good and moral at the beginning but are eventually consumed by the system. Thus, we are condemned to wallow in our delusions that good can come out of this rot.

Choice of presidents — lesser evil

To stress our points, presidential candidates post-Cory Aquino were elected on the basis of their perceived better credentials. FVR won over Miriam Santiago and Speaker Ramon Mitra because Miriam didn't have the logistics; and Monching was a tradpol, an antithesis to the promise of EDSA, the last mirage of Filipino deliverance, and FVR was its poster child.

Erap, another tradpol, came in 1998, but his opponent Speaker Joe DV didn't have a chance against an actor who reprised his screen roles as "Erap para sa mahihirap" in a field of eight candidates. The adoring masses anointed Erap as the better choice. When Erap was booted out, his vice president, GMA, took the reins of government and won in 2004 against the popular actor FPJ amid the "Hello Garci" election scandals. She was the economics professor versus an unschooled charismatic actor. Again, a lesser evil choice.

The year 2010 saw Cory's son, Noynoy, an incompetent winning the presidency on a massive sympathy backlash upon her demise, trouncing nine other wannabees that included the ousted Erap, Speaker Villar and Gibo Teodoro.

The year 2016 ushered in Duterte, the outsider from the periphery hailed as a maverick that this country needs. An iconoclast breaking the Manila-centric cultural mold and therefore a lesser evil choice in a field of five — Mar Roxas, Grace Poe, Jojo Binay and Miriam Santiago.

In 2022 people opted for the offspring of former strongmen presidents — a son and the daughter heir-apparent in a field of nine — Pacquiao, Robredo, Moreno, Lacson and nuisance candidates Abella, de Guzman, Gonzales, Mangudadatu and Montemayor.

The conclusion arrived at is that these lesser evil choices have not produced for the Philippines the right type of political leadership equivalent to our Asian neighbors respective choices, the "Asian exemplars" — Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore, Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, and Park Chung Hee of South Korea ("In search of a political leadership, moral or otherwise," TMT, Feb. 12, 2025). Evidently, they sprung forth from systems different from ours, thus our search too for alternatives.

Choice of systems — less corrupt

I wrote way back ("Pursuing alternatives to democracy," Sept. 20, 2023) my thesis that, "We were gifted a version of governance that was deemed suited for us. America gave us a liberal unitary-presidential system... not its homegrown federal-presidential (government), making this an experiment...." Over time, this proved to be a failure, and our people were made to suffer as America's guinea pigs. Consequently, Filipino governance has become corrupt, underpinned by hypocritical democratic processes. Some alternatives, open for consideration:

– Federal-parliamentary system fusing the executive and legislative powers more conducive to participatory democracy — a model that encourages direct engagement from citizens in political decision-making processes, often through local assemblies or referenda. A fundamental feature, decentralization, reduces the powers of central authorities, delegating autonomy to local governments that can lead to more responsive and accountable governance.

These types of restructuring require revision of our Constitution. But with a complicit Senate and House under the grip of political dynasties and the oligarchy, all laws inimical to their interest can't be passed. Thus, no political, electoral, political party and campaign finance reforms, economic and anti-corruption laws are possible. The solution obviously is to dismantle and eliminate the current Congress.

– Authoritarianism: Some argue that a strong, centralized authority can lead to more efficient decision-making and less corruption. However, this often comes at the cost of personal freedoms and human rights. Offhand, this may be culturally incongruent to the Filipinos that have been nurtured through centuries of Spanish Catholic and American Christian values. Witness the failure of the Huks and the communist movements and their adjuncts, the NPA and the reactionary Alsa Masa. All failed, not to mention the martial law years. We were led to believe that democracy to flourish and be sustainable needed the spasms of sporadic blood drenching, a romantic fallacy perpetuated by America's history of belligerence. What a waste!

– Autocratic pragmatism: I rephrased what I wrote ("Autocratic pragmatism — one final act," TMT, Oct. 11, 2023). "It simply refers to a leadership style that combines elements of autocracy, where power is concentrated in the hands of one individual or a small group, with pragmatic decision-making, where decisions are based on practicality and effectiveness rather than ideological perspectives." It was perhaps destiny that three Asian leaders appeared at crucial moments in their countries' history — Lee Kwan Yew, Mahathir Mohamad, and Park Chung Hee — strong leaders with different historicity but were eventually successful by many metrics.

They were in power for many years, courtesy of their democratically elected political parties, and therefore were in a position to implement long-term policies stamping permanent imprimaturs; LKY for three decades as Singapore's prime minister; Mahathir, Malaysian prime minister for a combined 24 years, the former a parliamentary government and the latter parliamentary-federal. And Park Chung Hee, South Korea's president for 18 years in a presidential-unitary government — but without the divisive bicameral legislature.

Among others, a combination of these three systems serendipitously led by a type of leadership that we can only hope for in the Philippines. Autocratic pragmatism could be the right model for the country, provided:

We, the people, get the courage to drastically dismantle the current dysfunctional structures, the Senate, House, the political dynasties, and their allies, the oligarchy who control the lifeblood of our economy and politics.

A conundrum

There is this paradox of Philippine democracy — that democratic methods, originally imposed by American colonists and nurtured by our own flawed leadership, can't bring about democracy. It requires undemocratic measures to bring about democracy.

Ferdinand Marcos understood this, and in 1972, he acted, even executing Lim Seng, a Chinese drug lord, to set an example. The same could have been done to corrupt senators, congressmen and local government officials. But he balked. His decades-long reign was determined not by his ideals of a "New Society" and the rule of law but by greed. And the autocratic methods employed did not result in the greater good, unlike our Asian counterparts.

The current incompetent and corrupt administration is clueless. Thus, we are condemned to our democratic failures unless and until we, the people, not our complicit political leadership, with some sane men in uniform, do the final act. And resolve this paradox.