Election doldrums

In a country where people have called themselves “election-crazy,” we seem to have lost it. There is little visible excitement, and I do not think it has to do only with Comelec’s limits on political ads.

Earlier in this electoral season, I noted that media had not yet found the key to fixing public attention on the ongoing campaign and the elections we are holding on May 13. True, mid-term elections have never generated the same response given to presidential campaigns. But Filipinos are not responding to the choices this season. And I do not think the media are to blame.

In fact, I find media efforts quite heroic, actually, carving out space for candidate profiles, giving interviews to both deserving and undeserving, but with every small column inch in print and every nano-second of broadcast time demonstrating only the lack of choice to fill up all of twelve senatorial slots.

I guess national media cannot be blamed too much for lack of coverage of congressional and other local government choices outside of Metro Manila. Here is where local news teams should take the lead.

The most visibly concentrated effort among citizens this season is a negative drive against voting for anyone who is identified with a political dynasty. Yes, people are against dynasties for good reason. And perhaps, with the proliferation of dynastic elements in the slates, few with dynastic connections are firing up the imagination for the role they might just play in bringing about positive change in our political culture.

The dynastic issue is complex and deserves much discussion, which I will not get into in this piece. It should be one of those subjects that should occupy Filipinos after the elections are over and in preparation still for the next.

But here we are in 2013, nine election cycles after 1986 and faced with the same burden of responsibility for our vote. There is a sense of failure about this collective exercise itself. Our elections have not allowed us to break the mold of the political culture, to purge and punish those who have used it solely for their personal gain and to draw from the ranks new blood which can renew the sense of democratic purpose.

It is of no small comfort to know that this state of affairs holds for many developing democracies around the world, for societies who have taken to elections only to find its mechanisms of representation proving too blunt to cut through the ties of clan and kinship interests so new links can be forged to connect politics to genuine public interest.

Every now and then, an election will turn up someone new but he or she becomes subject still to the force of patronage politics, constraining even the most intent of leaders from actually turning against his peers or others already installed as political elite.

The media and how the news works have had a role to play in keeping us in this state. Journalism has always been about giving the public knowledge and information they need so individuals can become citizens with responsibilities.

But the conventions that define news have long ago strayed away from citizenship formation. Building up society’s capacity to think, to debate and to argue through civic discourse involves an educational process that should have been enlarged with the growth of media. Instead, the proliferation of media has caused the media industry to shy away from such hard work as it is always easier just to entertain.

As I noted in the beginning of this piece, there are efforts to connect the public to the current campaign. Some of these are outstanding. But the challenge to the press in this age of media calls for more basic re-construction of the idea of news and citizen learning, a radical task but one that is urgently needed especially in societies that have failed to provide for good basic education to the masses.

This means not treating the media enterprise simply as a business. It means not giving the public what it wants but what it needs to become involved as citizens in the work of governance.

It could begin at this point with an audit of program time and newspaper space given to news and public affairs, determining the ratio established between entertainment and news. Unfortunately, the creation of separate news channels creates audience segments and has not encouraged the integration of citizen learning in TV programming. The same can be said of the sections in newspapers—where more and more sections are given to lifestyle and other fluff and puffery topics.

There is no denying that there are more serious practitioners who are trying to change the media equation—not just those providing information about wrongdoing or investigating the background of service of those seeking electoral seats; but also those who have invested to create new formats that will enlarge the role of the voters so they can talk back to the politicians.

For this election, however, these will amount to very little in terms of selecting leaders who will try to change the patterns of traditional politics. This season, the vote is in need of worthy candidates. Sadly, the ones who have been declared as candidates are the only ones we can vote for, the only ones we’ve got.

I can’t fill out my senatorial slate with twelve candidates. And I am not forcing myself to do so. The ones I have are the ones I think can make some difference. For now they will have to do.