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Introduction
The general framework that has guided many voter education efforts
can be considered to have somewhat of a modernist bias, where education
is often seen as a mechanism of illumination against the false and
erroneous notions contained in customary electoral practices. To
illustrate, this framework often assumes that some sectors of society,
specifically those from the poor and marginalized, are not sufficiently
equipped with the necessary tools that would enable them to genuinely
engage the electoral component of present day democracy. For example,
due to poverty, which limits access to alternative sources of information
and education, not to mention traditional and formal schooling,
they are assumed to be victims of shallow and created images, popularity
and sloganeering. This is then taken to explain the relative success
of entertainers and famous personalities in the electoral arena,
regardless of their lack of experience in politics and public service.
As another product of the current economic situation of the poor
and the marginalized, their political culture is also seen as promoting
the value of immediate gain over principled engagement. Already
assumed to be unfamiliar with the "true" demands of electoral democracy,
vote-buying and other types of voter fraud are similarly seen as
products of an economic predicament that is open to manipulation
by unscrupulous politicians, thus, further aggravating and diminishing
the possibility of their meaningful participation.
Against this backdrop, voter education is tasked with the insertion
and operationalization, in voters, of a paradigm that properly addresses
the genuine demands of electoral democracy. For example, voter education
should seek to undermine the present "irrationality" of voters that
remain solely determined by forces of personality and popularity,
or even the carnival atmosphere provided by candidates by replacing
it with the calculated rationality of voting based on platforms
and public service records. In addition, education should instill
the recognition of the ballot's sanctity, thus supplanting the culture
of exchange that pegs the value of the vote along the parameters
of mutual immediate gain. In other words, voter education, within
the domain of the framework set forth above, clearly defines its
content and its mode of intervention: transformation through transmission.
According to the framework, there is either negative space or there
is distorted content in the consciousness of voters with regard
to the appreciation of elections as a terrain of engagement. This
content or lack of content is then mobilized through their "irrational"
participation in the actual electoral process. The challenge for
voter education is the transmission of the "true" paradigm of electoral
democracy into voters, to be utilized afterwards as the guide for
their more meaningful participation.
As the past few elections probably revealed, it remains necessary
to persist with regard to the progressive transformation of the
voting population's current level of electoral discourse, both technical
and ideological. For example, with regard to the voters' technical
knowledge of election processes, not to mention the plain recognition
of the importance of the exercise, the statistics do not paint a
praiseworthy image. Out of the 43,536,028 registered voters, only
74.3% turned up to vote, almost six percentage points down from
the usual 80% voter turnout for national elections. The newly instituted
mechanism for overseas absentee voting (OAV) also painted a bleak
picture. There are approximately 7 million overseas Filipinos, but
only 358,660 registered to exercise their newly legislated right.
Of the number of registered overseas Filipino voters, only 65% turned
up to vote on election day. The assessment of the Center for Migrant
Advocacy-Philippines indicated a number of reasons that proved influential
to the turnout, but it must be underscored that they also indicated
a serious flaw in the system of information dissemination. Despite
the efforts then, of advocates and concerned Filipino communities
abroad, the lack of information regarding the processes and the
requirements, not to mention the candidates and the positions to
be voted upon, undeniably influenced both the registration and the
voting turnout. The Party-List results also pointed to a similar
situation. Even though the system has already been present for two
elections prior to 2004, that lower left hand side of the ballot
continues to baffle voters. Clearly indicating this is the fact
that only 12,721,952 voters voted for the Party-List system, only
39% of the actual turnout of voters.
As these numbers probably reveal, the transmission to voters of
the necessary technical information regarding election procedures
and processes remain a substantial challenge to voter education
practitioners and electoral reform advocates. This means that the
continuation of present efforts to reach wider audiences and communities
remain imperative.
At the same time though, it may also be necessary to question the
framework that has too often guided these efforts. While it remains
undeniable that there are types of information in election education
that necessarily have to be transmitted in order to ensure the possibility
of minimum and basic participation, voter education is also tasked
to deliver ideological content. In other words, in addition to informing
voters of their basic rights and the actual processes that allow
them to cast their vote, voter education also attempts to transmit
a definite set of principles that should ideally guide voters through
the activity of giving content to the ballot. This intent is essentially
grounded not only on the supposed framework and demands of representative
democracy for which voters vote, but also on an operational conception
of a voter that rest on assumptions that have to be interrogated.
For instance, would it be safe to assume, as the framework does,
that the electoral behavior of the poor and the marginalized, the
usual targets of voter education efforts, is a manifestation of
a distorted electoral paradigm, produced wholly by the lack of information?
More pointedly, can the assumption be made that the poorer sectors
of society will simply vote for the more popular candidates, or
that they will patronize fraudulent means because they cannot comprehend
the arena of elections within its proper paradigm? Since it these
conceptions of the voter that provide the ground that define the
means and the content of voter education's intervention, the interrogation
of the validity of these numerous, interlocking and mutually supporting
assumptions are imperative. Preliminary Points for Interrogating
the Present Conception of the Voter
As an article by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
(PCIJ) points out, the poor and the marginalized, those that make
up the majority of Filipino voters, are often, "blamed for the sorry
state of electoral politics and the low level of electoral discourse".
Seen by other sections of society to be dumb and unthinking, prone
to manipulation and simplistic messages, not to mention vulnerable
to patronage and vote buying, they are often considered the contemporary
Achilles heel of electoral democracy. First, it is undeniable that
there has indeed been continuing depreciation of electoral discourse
and politics. In addition to this, it is also clear that the views
and interests of the poor and the marginalized, because of sheer
their number, have gained electoral advantage. What remains debatable
though, are the connections that have been made between the current
state of electoral discourse and the cumulative vote of the poor.
The premise is questionable because it is also debatable if there
is validity in the present multi-layered characterization that seeks
to define the nature of the vote of the poor and the marginalized
as irrational and misguided.
As the studies of the Institute for Philippine Culture (IPC) and
the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform (IPER) reveal,
the character of the vote that emerges from the poor and the marginalized
have a rationality of its own. Through the various Focused Group
Discussions (FGDs) conducted by IPC in different urban and rural
poor communities, they discovered that most voters do have a rational
criterion for leadership that they utilize for selecting candidates
during elections. It was made clear, for example, that voters from
the poor and the marginalized favor leaders that appear god-fearing,
helpful, loyal, and responsible. On the other hand, they are wary
of leaders that appear to be capable of corruption, lying, greed,
irresponsibility, and selfishness. These sets of values are then
realized in an operational criterion for candidate selection that
values, in its proper order, the educational attainment, the experience,
the platform and the decency of the different candidates. The 2003
IPER study on voter influences and preferences, an update of their
1995 study, also presents an operational criterion extracted from
common voters and other electoral stakeholders. According to this
research, voters value the candidate's public servant image the
most, and in descending order, the strength of the candidate's political
machinery, the candidate's popularity and the endorsement of a traditional
network or organization.
What do these preliminary points reveal? First and foremost, they
reveal the existence of a set of values that guide common voters
through the process of filling up the ballot. Though the order of
importance and the level of their influence may be debatable, what
remains unquestionable is the existence of an operative rationality
that voters from the poor and the marginalized attempt to concretize
through the ballot. Their guiding ideas can in fact be seen in some
of their concrete demands during the election period. For example,
voters from the poor and the marginalized value the initiative of
candidates who are willing to meet with them face to face. Though
this demand can be simply be seen as a manner of measuring whether
candidates have the ability to empathize with their situation, it
can also be seen as an alternative means through which the poor
accesses information. Through the demand that candidates themselves
meet with the voters in their communities - na bumaba sa lugar
ang kandidato - voters attempt to analyze the negative and
positive traits of a candidate through the candidate's interpersonal
demeanor. For example, does the candidate show respect to the people
with whom he or she talks? Does the candidate look into their eyes?
These interpersonal traits are taken to be revelatory of other behavioral
traits that may be of concern, such as the capacity to lie, greediness
and self-centeredness. Without a doubt then, voters from the poor
and the marginalized have a rational criterion of their own, not
to mention their own organic means of verification.
This rational, albeit organic set of values though, is far from
being the only determinant of voter preference and attitudes during
elections in economically deprived communities. Competing with this
organic set of values are the different social structures, institutions
and customary norms that often have conflicting concerns. Local
partisan ward leaders, for instance, compete for consolidation of
a bulk of votes that can be delivered to their local patrons and
their respective national partners. Likewise, different sectoral
leaders also compete for the loyalty of their members, similarly
aiming to deliver their constituencies to local and national campaigns
with whom they have struck a deal with. The family-centeredness
of Filipinos is, in fact, also an arena of intervention and a partisan
concern for election tacticians, since they recognize in it the
possibility of vote determination, consolidation, and protection.
The strength of religious organizations, especially those with much
desired command votes, remain a strong influence, not to mention
other religious organizations with less than partisan concerns.
The media, with its expansive and penetrating reach, is also an
obvious factor, especially for urban areas and nationally elected
positions. Lastly, the possibility of immediate financial gain sometimes
offered by candidates in exchange for different types of fraudulent
acts is also a factor in the decision-making process of voters from
the poor and the marginalized.
In the end, it is the interplay between these different influences
that determine the behavior of voters during the election period.
Far from the conception of a dumb and unthinking voter determined
exclusively by poverty and its baggage, what the current analysis
reveals is a voter that is produced by very specific and historically
legitimated types of intervention. The voter is clearly not determined
by simple the lack of an appropriate paradigm for election engagement
because their organic values of leadership, through which they analyze
candidates, attest to its presence. Along with their organic criterion
though, they are fashioned by the proliferation and competition
between the different pointed interventions and the different paradigms
that aim to create and produce a voter that is of a specific type.
To illustrate, the basic aim of local ward leaders, whether territorial
or sectoral, is the delivery and protection of votes in favor of
their patron. This goal though, is pursued at multiple levels. While
the vote is indeed protected by ensuring the capacity to vote and
the establishment of a system which ensures that the actual vote
cast is indeed favorable, election operators also attempt to produce
a temporary environment that is favorable to their partisan concerns.
This may mean a process of limiting and filtering the information
that reaches their constituencies (operation tapal, operation baklas,
etc.). It may mean utilizing social institutions as means of ensuring
partisanship (family, elders, respected community individuals, etc.).
It may also mean limiting the access of electoral opponents to specific
communities (hamleting). The process may even involve veiled threats.
In the end, the overall process is guided by a specific type of
rationality aimed at producing, not only partisan voters, but also
partisan election stakeholders. Religious leaders and organizations
also institute processes that aim to determine a type of voter and
election stakeholder that serves the needs of their paradigm. As
conduits of partisan interests and as modes of safeguarding their
own institutional needs, the media is also involved in the construction
of specific types of election consciousness. Clearly, for most election
stakeholders and operators, the question is not limited to ensuring
that voters are sufficiently provided with types of information
that will ensure partisanship. The aim in fact, is to organize communities
and control the politically charged climate that surrounds the voter.
Such an aim not only attempts to determine the choice that the voter
will make. The parameters of choice, at multiple levels and through
multiple means are also determined by the interventions. This effectively
transfers the question of voter identity and behavior from the terrain
of providing information to the terrain of producing subjectivities
specifically designed for partisan electoral engagement. |
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