The senatorial mirror

All along I’d thought that what Rizal had written was, “tal pueblo, tal gobierno,” which translates to, “as the people are, so is the government.” What he actually wrote in “El Filibusterismo” was, “A gobierno immoral corresponde un pueblo desmoralizado; a administracion sin conciencia, ciudadanos rapaces y serviles en el poblado, bandidos y ladrones en las montañas. Tal amo, tal esclavo. Tal gobierno, tal pais!” This was translated by Harold Augenbraum as follows, “An immoral government is matched by a demoralized people; an administration without conscience, by greedy and servile townsmen and outlaws and robbers in the mountains. The slave is the image of his masters; the country, of its government.”

It’s interesting that what has come down to us is a paraphrasing that assigns culpability for current conditions to the public when Rizal, writing at a time when Filipinos had little to no power over how government did its business, assigned blame to the government for creating conditions that reduced the public to victims. In the same novel (and by the same translator) Rizal had asked, “Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?” To which he replied by writing, “There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves.” To Rizal’s point and counterpoint must necessarily be added, the public’s own conclusion, crafted over time—”as the people are, so is their government,” since with independence comes the assumption of responsibility for government by the people formerly denied any say in it.

This reflection was inspired by seeing the way people reacted to the latest surveys showing Sen. Robinhood Padilla as the topnotcher in a Senate election had it been held just the other day. There was a kind of collective nervous breakdown over the topnotcher status of Padilla, which, of course, reveals more about the kinds of people Meta’s algorithms think you should be reading (because you’ll probably like them) than about any kind of objective indication of public opinion—as much as it can be measured according to some sort of scientific method—since public opinion’s already been recorded by the surveys.

Article continues after this advertisement

I have my own theories about what the survey revealed and off the bat, it’s that Padilla has been quite skillful in speaking to his constituents in a way that encourages them to return him to office–and that his constituency’s large. His constituency operates according to its own logic which, if you bother looking into it, isn’t all that different from the logic most people operate under. This is the reason why who he is and what he says has wide appeal. Two examples will have to suffice. His widely-reported comments to the lawyers of the prosecution that they shouldn’t just focus on prosecuting, but rather, on ensuring that justice is done; and second, his response to President Marcos’ State of the Nation Address, where he very calmly and even respectfully, pointed out that his constituents have been waiting for a power plant and roads, and that those things happen to still be missing even after the administration’s laundry list of accomplishments.

But here’s the main thing overlooked with all the wailing over the survey results. Actually, Pulse Asia found Padilla (91 percent awareness, 48.4 percent voting for) and Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto (88 percent awareness, 47.9 percent voting for) essentially tied in the June 28, July 3 and July 6 survey, with no fundamental differences with the WR Numero June 9-16 survey, though Octa’s July 4-11 had a 10-point difference. Each has nearly, but not quite, half of the country putting them on the top of their list, which suggests two broad constituencies for whom one of the two is their star attraction. These are conceptual battle lines, so to speak.

The third revelation is that the most viable, measured by being in the top 12 or even 14 or 15—the most viable candidates, bluntly speaking—are basically composed of two categories of potential candidates: those who have already been successfully elected to the Senate and those who have come close. What this suggests is that the necessary conditions required to achieve the kind of national recognition that makes you top of mind and thus, top of the sample ballot to ordinary voters existed from the last decade of the 20th century to the first two decades of the 21st; and by extension, no longer exist, which denies most other aspiring candidates a chance to obtain the national awareness necessary to be taken seriously.

Take those who have gained quite a bit of media coverage during the impeachment. They have risen in the surveys but haven’t made gigantic leaps forward. Even if you assume this is partly the handiwork of the defense—to bore everyone to death and thus prevent a rise in public emotion—you have to wonder if, even if all the points are made—and they are quite potentially explosive indeed—it will have the same effect on the public, which no longer watches as a national community but instead grabs snippets here and there in their preferred ghettoes of like-minded media consumers and producers.

Article continues after this advertisement

—————-

Email: mlquezon3@gmail.com; Twitter: @mlq3