Keeping the peace

Filipino elections are notorious for the violence they spawn and the lives they waste. Even given the amount of vote-watching that has become a regular practice and the thousands of vote-defenders who volunteer every election time, no election passes in the country's calendar that does not toll the bell for many unfortunate souls, some even with sins as innocuous as simply wanting to indulge the Filipino vice of needing to be a bystander at every event.

I remember my mother telling me how peaceful elections were before World War II, and how the violence and deaths escalated only when Filipinos began to think they were really rulers in their own land. I think she may have been a victim of her fantasy. We just have to recall such illustrious names as Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Aguinaldo.

We're not even talking about the cheating, from lowly barangay elections to who knows what high-and-mighty level. And don't believe it when candidates insist only the other side cheats.

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Editorial, The Evening Paper
Issue of 3 March 1995

Two months to go before national elections, and already the fires of dissension and fear have been more than adequately stoked. In many places, suspicions that the old practices of Philippine politics still reign supreme get bolstered, not just by dramatic events but even by brief, telling, statements.

The killing of Masbate Rep. Tito Espinosa three nights ago may have kept us glued to our radio and television sets to keep up with the details of the breaking story. How many of us, our adrenalin levels rising, sat down, at anytime that night and after, to move beyond the personal parameters of the story to the broader, more general truths behind it?

Everybody speculated--or declared themselves firmly convinced--that politics was behind the latest incident. Who does not know the running feud that has dogged well-entrenched members of the Espinosa family and their political rivals?

To think of this one family feud as a microcosm of politics, Philippine-style, and to imagine it replicated in every city and province in the country is almost mind-numbing. To those who grew up in politically prescient families, however, it is nevertheless very real.

For no other reason has the expression "guns, goons, and gold" become an accepted cliche when describing the Philippine electoral scene.

One likes to think it does not have to be so. Who would not want to be able to claim success in escaping the conditions that have spawned the wide, if passive, acceptance of that cliché? Who would not prefer a real restoration of respected democratic principles?

But as a nation, the thought seems quite unrealistic. Was it the other day when doubts were cast openly on Comelec Chairman Bernardo Pardo's grasp of the more practical aspects of Philippine politics? It makes us want to say: Hey, give the man a sporting chance!

There is, though, a grain of logic in the doubt. Presiding over the honest conduct of Philippine elections is no victory if it is done at the cost of human lives. The bottom line will always be that of keeping the peace.

-- NBT