EMERGING SYNERGY OF EFFORTS FOR BETTER ELECTIONS

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‘Candleflames of Hope’:

Emerging Synergy of Efforts for Better Elections

During elections in the context of a working democracy, a nation would “divide the house” to choose leaders who can unite us more closely and more strongly for more effective National Synergy. The democratic direction is towards synergy, not towards further division. After all, real democracy is the synergy of wills of self-actualized human individuals. Premises for this include humans being conscious of their dignity and rights and asserting these individually and collectively through effective mechanisms for such assertion and administered by their chosen servant-leaders. Unless it clearly works this way, suffrage just divides us.

In healthy democracies, individual members of the human communities, as various scopes of constituency, consciously and voluntarily synergize their total humanity – their human bodies, their human minds and their human spirit. Minus any of these three, the reality of living democracy is greatly diminished. There can be no real democracy if the people behave like slaves, not thinking for themselves, not making fully-informed decisions especially on how the synergy would best serve the rights of all based on the will of the majority, with due compassion and care for the specific legitimate interests of all the component groups, especially the special groups that are of the minority by reason of non-choiceful circumstances.

Synergy of will, collated and consolidated from an effective synergy of minds through a healthy process, should translate into a consensus of what the whole community should do at any given time. For the national community this would be the national long-range plan that should serve this entire community and its citizens fully. For smaller component communities, whether territorially- defined or otherwhise, there should be equivalent long-range plans. Actually, the plans of these smaller-scope constituencies should be the ones synergized as the basis of the national plan (contrary to what has become the pattern, the national plan should not be based on the order list handed down by foreign creditor institutions, as it has been usual practice!).

The execution of the plans needs the synergy of actions of human bodies, the creativity of human minds and the enthusiasm of the human spirit. The best plan we can come up with collectively deserves to have a realistically effective plan of collective implementation, where groups and individuals would have clearly defined roles to play. Therefore, an important part of planning the implementation of any collective undertaking is choosing which of the co-equal citizens would play which roles to implement that plan.

Choosing Among Candidates

Choosing specifically which individuals would do the overall orchestrating, which individuals would do the very specific planning, and who would lead in implementing the plans, whether by election or by appointment, is definitely an important component of democracy. This is why after the forging of the nationwide consensus on the most important issues and making concrete plans, elections are very important direct acts of the people in a working democracy.

But if all the citizens are just in this focus, if all that the citizens do is to compare among reputations of persons presenting themselves for the various tasks, if all we do is blame all our woes on one reelectionist candidate or be hysterically afraid of what one of the challengers would do if he wins, democracy cannot be a reality. It has become our habit as voters to compare among candidates on the basis their character reputations or even their minor misdeeds. The people should unite on the what’s before they can responsively and productively unite on the who’s. Or choose our who’s on the basis of the what’s that they credibly espouse.

Elections in parliamentary systems are done that way. The parliament can be dissolved upon a big national issue and a new one is created when the people choose their equivalent of congressional district representatives according to party affiliations which imply clear positions on the issue. That way the people themselves are directly voting on that issue. The problem with our situation here in the Philippines has always been that the major political parties are basically identical, and our candidates are generally mum on real issues, on policy and platform issues. They would rather dance, sing, or do acrobatics, and engage in character-assassination, but generally shy away from taking the issues by the horns.

And then we have had the grand cheating arrangements, with the incumbents holding a gigantic, albeit undue, advantage over the opposition. We all know the specifics of what is being referred to here. We have all these “noted!” in our minds (it just remains to be seen what we are going to do about them.) But undeserving candidates have won not really just by cheating, but by employing psychological manipulation. Very vulnerable to such manipulation are a great number of our voters have had the habit of reelecting proven liars, candidates with recycled broken promises and recycled excuses for dismal performance, just because these candidates convincingly appeared winnable. Many of us tend to favor fighting cocks that are llamado. Many of us have apparently lost all devotion to the value of truth and integrity. Many of us have actually been gamblers not voters, even admitting it with amusement or even with a misplaced sense of pride.

We should not limit our democratic right and duty to choosing which politicians we would predictably be blaming later, specifically at the time of the next election period. But are we not doing precisely that? Can’t we break free from this impotent, even harmful, cycle that we dare to claim as “democracy”? Can’t we make democracy work or at least personally behave during elections in a way the next generations would have reason to hold us in admiration and gratitude instead of holding us in contempt?

Candleflames of Hope

There are little candleflames of hope in our midst. The number of these flames of hope has been growing in these past few weeks, despite the apathy or, worse, heckling, that they have been getting from the bigger number of skeptics and cynics around them. These candleflames are the earnest efforts undertaken by those of us who refuse to passively surrender to the seeming inevitability of complete darkness after sundown. They are stretching time, talent and treasure to the very limits, just to be able to do the tasks they had undertaken to perform and to do these really well despite all the historical, socio-cultural and logistical limitations:

Some groups have decided to run as party-list organizations with the earnest intent of serving well the marginalized sectors of society within the halls of Congress. Many others have started campaigning for specific candidates who are running against formidable financial resources, party machineries and armed might.

One group, called “No-Cheats!–Halalang Marangal” seek, collate and publicize precinct-level results (that individual voters can cross-check) even if many of the results have been easily manipulated at provincial, regional and national official canvassing processes. Another group has initiated an instant-info service project to assist individual voters with very specific inquiries on the voting process. The “Gabay-Halalan” project, now on its second run (it was initiated for the 2004 election as a good citizen’s good move), has again drawn in the support of PLDT for toll-free calls to its call center where any on practically any inquiry about the elections (e.g. candidates' profiles and platforms, their stand on issues, where and how to vote, etc.)

And we have had, for sometime now, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and also NAMFREL, doing their own voter-education and independent- count operations. For voter education, two organizations of Pamayanang SanibLakas ng Pilipinas have joined the effort. The mainly-academe- based Lambat-Liwanag Network for Empowering Paradigms (specifically its Task Force for the Civics and Democratic Governance Paradigm) has come out with a “Voter’s Scorecard” with an introductory article stressing the importance of every voter’s long-term self-development as persons and as citizens by taking pains to choose well the candidates s/he would vote for, using a weighted computation scheme that would surely be “better than using dice.” For its part, SanibLakas ng Inang Kalikasan (SALIKA) has started campaigning for the environmental agenda to be included in the voters’ considerations in choosing whom to vote for.

Divergent as all these efforts clearly are, they are all worthy of our support. And although perhaps unintended on the part of some, there is a real synergy among them. Our long-buried heirloom, called “bayanihan” is at work here! Many Filipinos may view these as “quixotic” in the face of the well-financed, elite-oriented and unprincipled electoral campaigns and cheating schemes that have characterized elections in this country especially these past few years. But as long as these Candleflames of Hope keep on burning, and multiplying, there is still hope. The Synergy of Light will slowly but surely grow brighter and overcome the darkness of cynicism, defeatism and opportunism. We still have the right to look our children in the eye and whisper to their hearts, “we are doing our best for you, Anak. We love you and we are doing what we can to pass on to your generation a better Philippines!”

-----Ed Aurelio C. Reyes, Lead Founder & Executive Director, SanibLakas Foundation, April 23, 2007

“NoCheats-Halalang Marangal” website: http://halal. interdoc. org, Contact the “Gabay-Halalan” group through lifeacad@yahoo. com or call Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan 426-6101 and ask for "Marj." To contact Lambat-Liwanag, or SALIKA, and/or to post a reply to this statement, please send an e-mail to: saniblakas.foundati on@yahoo. com

[A printable copy of this statement is attached. The Voter's Tool developed by Lambat-Liwanag, with an intro stressing the need for the voters' self-development, is also attached Recipients of this message through email list groups that di not accommodate attachments may email back to request for these to be sent directly to their email addresses.]

About Gabay-halalan, here's an email posting we received:

You dream of a better country...
You dream of an enlightened electorate.. .

...But can you ACT on your dreams?

YES! Be a tele-educator in the gabay-halalan call center that will provide UNBIASED, ACCESSIBLE and FREE election information and education to Filipinos nationwide!

Volunteer at least 3 hours of your time (9am-12nn, 12nn-3pm, 3pm-6pm, 6pm-9pm), any day between May 1 to 15, 2007, to take calls on practically any inquiry about the elections (e.g. candidates' profiles and platforms, their stand on issues, where/how to vote, etc.). The call center will be set-up in Ateneo de Manila University in partnership with Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan and PLDT.

QUALIFICATIONS:
* Fluent in Tagalog (and preferably another Filipino language)
* Computer literate
* Flexible and patient
* Has "word of honor" (shows up on time for his/her shift; delivers his/her commitment)
* Not aligned with or helping a candidate or party

HOW TO VOLUNTEER:
1. Identify 3 preferred shifts
2. Call Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan 426-6101 and look for Marj; or reply to this email
3. Marj will take down your contact info and will confirm your shift

* We also accept lunch contributions for at least 30 volunteers (sponsor any day May 1 to 15) Orientation of volunteer tele-educators: April 30, 2007, Ateneo de Manila.

RATIONALE of this CALL CENTER:
Those who need information the most don't have the material resources, knowledge, skills, and even time to access them in the internet or read them in printed materials. Moreover, most of the information they are fed with are biased for certain candidates or are not relevant to their decision-making. There is a need to get election information and education ON-DEMAND, for FREE, anywhere in the COUNTRY!!! We did this in 2004, we are doing it again. A better country calls for a better way of doing things! This is our contribution.

Umiibig sa Pilipinas,
Iya