Lessons in transition

The People Power events of February 1986, which brought down the Marcos dictatorship, were the first of such political events to be televised on real time by then newly launched 24/7 all news channel CNN. The drama on EDSA, the nuns holding up flowers and rosaries as tanks approached, led the first wave of democratization which swept through countries in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.

It is now a forgotten story. The short memory is a syndrome that seriously affects media. On a visit to CNN in 2000, I noted that the timeline of major events in the lobby of CNN headquarters in Atlanta did not even mark the Philippine dates. And discussions of democratic transitions resulting form the Arab spring hardly refer to the  Philippine experience.

A recent meeting gathered members of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy in Tunis, the site of the Jasmine Revolution which sparked what is now called the Arab Spring. Barbed wire on sidewalk perimeters still protect official and government sites of the city. Taxi drivers complained of the drought in tourism. While violence has marred a number of skirmishes between police and youth activists, the capital city shows all the signs of being “back to business” even as circumstances hold back “business as usual.” For Tunisia, of course, democracy following the departure of Ben Ali will mean profoundly significant change.

The character of regime change in the Philippines differed in significant ways from what we have seen in Tunisia, Egypt, and then Libya—as each is different from one another. Filipinos were decades away from the age of global communication links which have eased all kinds of changes globally. In the eighties, we did not have cellphones. No miniature cameras. No Internet. No social media.

On another level, the Philippine transition was a restoration of the democratic process that had seen the country through seven generally fair and free elections since its independence in 1946. There was a political elite, a community who felt that they knew enough about the demands of democratic governance, and a press community exercised in the practice of press freedom. Perhaps, this self-assurance made things more difficult. Clearly, in a changing world, politics and media required much needed reform and re-orientaiton.

As such, there were few other experiences to learn from or mistakes to watch out for. In general, most everyone, many Filipinos included, felt that having gained freedom, things would fall in place and a new leadership could effect the change that would fulfill the promise of democracy.

Growing democracy had not yet become the science or the business that it is at present.  There was little analysis of democratic development that Filipinos could learn from, of the conditions that make elections meaningful, such as the rule of law, civic education, an active citizenry.

All those who stood against Marcos or shared punishing fates for having opposed him, his wife, and his cronies were welcome to the party. We did not worry about the fitness of our ruling elite for public office.

There was a rush to write a new constitution, followed shortly by the holding of elections so Congress could share power.

The other rush preceded these tasks. The free press was quick to restore itself. A proliferation of media, independent of government and supported with private sector funds claimed to form an indispensable fourth estate, even before government could re-organize its agencies.

There was no effort to clarify  what we expected from this free press, or a shared understanding of the role of the press in a society in transition or in the future. Market driven, newspapers and broadcast news competed for advertising and competition, or operated solely to share in the political power associated with the press.

There was little concern for how all these served journalism’s essential purpose: providing news and information that creates not just readers, viewers and listeners, but citizens of a democratic society. Failing this purpose, a free press can add to the pain of transition.

It would take the political changes in Thailand and Indonesia to call serious attention to the difficulties of transition. The shift from controlled authoritarian system to democracy takes a community through a most fragile period. Internal factionalism, a restless military, policy dilemmas posed by much needed economic development, the establishment or reform of institutions—these are only some of the tests of this passage.

My sharing in Tunis raised a larger question in my mind: Have we succeeded to establish the consensus for democracy? Are we one of those countries that seem to be in endless transition to nowhere, failing at democracy itself or just unable to provide for its citizens a better life?

I actually think we have accomplished transition. We are now in an even more difficult phase of democratization. We need to prove that as a democracy, we can also have good government and economic growth—which we should remember are not natural fruits of democracy.

Perhaps, we can think about these questions, as we look ahead to yet another election.