Asia-Pacific, Development & Aid, Headlines, Human Rights, Population

PHILIPPINES: On Eve of Poll, Voters Long for a Clean President

Tess Bacalla

MANILA, May 8 2010 (IPS) - The cheers from the final campaign rallies of nine presidential candidates have faded away, and it is just hours before Filipinos go to the polls on Monday. But voters like Roberto Mendoza doubt that the next president can tackle problems like corruption that have long hounded this South-east Asian country.

In fact, he says that fighting corruption must be the top priority of the new president, because it has plagued the nine-year tenure of outgoing President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and is the root cause of the country’s poverty.

He has yet to decide on whom to vote for president. But surveys on the eve of the May 10 vote say that the frontrunner is Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino Jr, son of democracy icon and former President Corazon Aquino who rose to power in the 1986 ‘People Power’ revolution that ousted the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Aquino’s campaign slogan has been ‘I’m not a thief’ and his moral ascendancy tied to his mother and father and namesake, staunch critic of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was assassinated in 1983.

But Mendoza doubts Aquino can do much to counter such an entrenched problem. “If he’s like Cory, what can he do?” he asked, referring to criticism that the late president, despite her squeaky clean personal reputation, failed to stem corruption.

But one thing he knows for sure: “It is time Arroyo’s corruption-laden government came to an end,” said the 53-year-old Mendoza, who earns his meagre income by driving a popular mode of public transport. “We’re sick and tired of her.”

He was referring to allegations that hounded Arroyo’s presidency, ranging from huge government contracts allegedly facilitated by her relatives, alleged bribes to legislators to kill an impeachment move toward her and a 2005 recording that supposedly had her asking an election official to make sure she led in the presidential election held the previous year.

In Transparency International’s 2009 Corruption Index, the Philippines ranked 139th out of 180 countries, lagging behind most of its neighbours in South- east Asia. An estimated 44 percent of the population lives on 2 U.S. dollars a day or less.

Citing surveys by top polling firms, analysts say that an unblemished record is what voters’ top criterion in choosing a president is. It is thus little wonder that Aquino has consistently topped the surveys – issues of corruption have never hounded the senator and rivals have only been able to zero in on his lacklustre legislative performance.

Mendoza’s pessimism belies the glitz, carnival-like spectacles and unrelenting political mudslinging that have marked the three-month campaign period, which officially ended Friday.

On May 10, more than 50 million Filipino voters will choose not only their president for the next six years, but also a list of candidates that makes the ballot unusually long. Each voter will be selecting a vice president, 12 senators, one congressional representative, party-list representative, provincial governor and mayor, among others.

In total, some 90,000 candidates of all political stripes are vying for nearly 18,000 national and local positions in this country of 92 million people, the world’s 12th most populous nation.

Apart from Aquino, the other presidential candidates are politician and real- estate tycoon Manuel Villar, former defence secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Christian evangelist Eddie Villanueva, former president Joseph Estrada who was convicted of corruption, incumbent senators Richard Gordon and Maria Ana Consuelo ‘Jamby’ Madrigal, activist Nicanor Perlas, and city councilor John Carlos de los Reyes.

Like Mendoza, cigarette vendor Crisanta (not her real name) is not distracted by the ‘noise’ of the election that has seen posters with the candidates’ gleaming faces and slogans promising voters the moon and the stars strewn all over the country.

The 58-year-old has witnessed many elections before and does not think Monday’s poll holds out much hope for poor voters like her.

She worries that whoever gets elected will be just like the current and past corrupt leaders. “Gloria is a thief,” the college dropout said with undisguised rage toward the incumbent president.

Corruption has to be on top of the next president’s agenda, she agrees, speaking with a tone of authority that belies a frail body that has been battered by poverty.

The search for a candidate with a clean record on corruption is what drove 45-year-old Rebecca Bodino to become a volunteer for one of the political parties in her native Quezon city.

Unmindful of having to stand for at least an hour before a makeshift platform to listen to the candidates for the post of local councilors, Necita Delano, 54, smiles, her eyes gleaming as she listens intently to one of them.

Around her, throngs of people show no boredom or impatience as candidates take turns wooing the voters well into the night. There are no entertainers on stage – just the speeches, plus giveaways of shirts and candies.

As the vote nears, however, concerns also rose about the conduct of the poll and how the first computerised counting of ballots will go.

“In the past, Philippine elections have frequently been marred by allegations of widespread cheating and other electoral malpractice,” wrote Tim Meisburger, regional director of The Asia Foundation’s Elections and Political Processes.

It has taken the Philippines decades to introduce an automated election because of fears by political parties and voters that a computerised system could be more easily rigged than the manual, blackboard and paper-based tally that the country has been using.

As officials prepare for the massive logistics of a vote across a country of more than 7,100 islands, voters like Mendoza are still busy trying to decide on their choice for president. “I still don’t know who to vote for,” he said, “but vote I will because it is my duty.”