The never ending story

THE ELECTIONS of 2013 were over only seven months ago. But preparations are already under way for  the elections of 2016, when the electorate once more goes to the polls to elect the President of the Republic and other national officials. Speculation is already rife on who the ruling Liberal Party will field for the Presidency in 2016, with the media second-guessing why, for example, President Benigno Aquino III named former senator Panfilo Lacson “Rehabilitation Czar”. Could it be in preparation for Lacson’s eventual designation as the administration candidate in 2016, when he would have rebuilt his constituency enough for him to seriously challenge Vice President Jejomar Binay for the Presidency? On the other hand, how damaging to the Vice President’s political ambitions was the Dasmariñas Village incident which involved his son, Makati Mayor “Jun-Jun” Binay, and his daughter Nancy, the senator?

Politics and its now indispensable handmaid, the media, is the never-ending story in the Philippine setting. As one election is concluded, the politicians are already building alliances and filling their war chests for the next one, while keeping an eye on how best they can project themselves in the media.

Part of the reason for the early focus on an election that’s scheduled two years from this New Year is of course logistical. The Commission on Elections can hardly cope with the preparations and conduct of Philippine elections which usually consist of so many posts that need to be filled every three years. But of even more significance is the Philippine political parties’ character as hardly more than groups of individuals who don’t share a common program of government, much less a shared vision of where to take the country once they’re in power.

Every election in the Philippines is first and last waged at the personal rather than at the organizational or ideological plane. That makes such questions as to the “winnability” of Senator Grace Poe, who not only topped the list of winning senatorial candidates last year, but who is also thought to have the personal and familial appeal so vital in Philippine elections, of special interest.

But a Philippine election is not only about personalities. It is also about money, the number of votes a candidate can get depending, it is widely assumed, on his or her capacity to spend for advertising in various media, particularly television, as well as to crank out the streamers, fliers and sample ballots for distribution during rallies and while campaigning among one’s target constituencies—and, on election day itself, paying election watchers, and feeding the multitudes of campaign workers, sympathizers, and other campaign workers.

How much one can spend in fact makes the difference between being declared a “nuisance” candidate or a “credible” one by the Commission on Elections, a standard which in effect excludes the less moneyed from running for elective posts in this democracy and implicitly recognizes that Philippine elections are all about money.

It’s been decried so often it’s no longer debated. Campaigns, though disguised, do begin via the media years before an election, and that’s because media presence is never so premature that it can’t help advance one’s plans for office. An early, preferably positive presence puts the politician in the public eye and mind, and suggests that he’s popular and a likely candidate to bet on. A media event such as the forging of an alliance even among the unlikeliest groups can also trigger early media attention on politics and politicians, despite the limits the law imposes on when one can campaign. That presence can be, and usually is, sustained via stealth advertising, which by the time the official campaign period comes around, has morphed into open solicitations for votes. The next 24 months prior to the 2016 election are thus likely to see the intensification of the presence of prospective candidates in the media, laying the ground, as it were, for the 2016 contest.

By providing those involved in campaigns with spending money, and the unemployed jobs as campaign workers—or for that matter, by buying votes outright—Philippine elections are occasions for the redistribution of wealth and as temporary boosts to the economy. They also help sustain the Philippine media, and not only through politicial advertising, but also through the pre-arranged, public relations boosts disguised as legitimate reports, commentaries, and interviews with the politician who’s footing the bill some practitioners and entire media organizations have mastered.

In the communities, recognition of the power of the media has been linked to the killing of journalists, the persistence of the blocktimer system, and local politicians’ attempts to control entire media organizations. It’s a pattern evident as well in national politics, where  future aspirants for political office do still own, have enlarged their control over, or are currently in the market for, media organizations.

It’s based on sound calculations. A newspaper or any other media organization is both sword and shield not only during campaign periods but also between elections. As 2016 approaches this role as a crucial determinant of the conduct and results of Philippine elections in the particular circumstances of Philippine politics and media have thrust upon the media will be more and more apparent, culminating in 2016 when media presence will be decisive in deciding who’s in and who’s out.