In this June issue of the FOP newsletter, now called FOP News Analysis and Features, yours truly is taking on the role of editor, as Aya Fabros begins her Asian Public Intellectuals (API) Fellowship.  Aya will be on leave for a year starting July to do research on the political agency—perceptions and practice—of global workers in Malaysia and Japan.

A brief note about our June issue:  we say farewell to the legacy of GMA and her government, but not without, as Aya says in her opinion piece, confronting, threshing out and addressing this legacy, lest we again conveniently and collectively forget what the nine-year regime is about—regression.  We have to remember in order to make this regime accountable; this is the way to begin looking forward to what’s ahead under the Aquino administration.  Amid the euphoria brought about by the victory of a popular president—perceived to be the total opposite of the exiting head of state—and in an automated election that speeded up the vote counting in ways we haven’t imagined before, we believe there is need for a moment to settle, take a deep breath, look at the electoral process and its results more closely and critically (without belittling the voters’ euphoric feelings), and see what we’ve really got in terms of the newly-elected government, including and especially in the legislature and local governments.  We’ve seen how Congress can act as deterrent to reforms, much more so to far-reaching change, when those occupying the seats of power in that branch of government represent self-serving political and economic interests.  Who will be in this “new” government?  What or whose interests will they represent and work for?  What can we expect from Noynoy Aquino’s presidency?—are just a few of the questions that our news analysis pieces attempt to address, while our feature articles provide observer’s point of view of the goings-on during election day.

We encourage you to use our articles as reference in your school discussions, organizational publications, blogs, and for our friends in media, to reprint/re-post in your newspapers and internet-based news platforms.  Just remember to acknowledge Focus on Global South Philippines.

The parade is all set. The floats are primed, each one signifying feats of an outgoing president intent on basting up some last-minute legacy. The spectacle is ready to swagger before mob and madness. Remember me well, says the spectacle to the crowd, bidding farewell to a thinning public methodically marshaled onto the sidelines. Pompous pageantry, an allusion to significance and substance, marks the final moments of a regime that defined the last nine years of our life as a nation.

On June 9 Senator Benigno Aquino III of the Liberal Party (or Noynoy Aquino), the son of former President Cory Aquino, was proclaimed President by the Philippine Congress. Paradoxically, with the restoration of the Aquinos to the presidency, the elections have also resulted in the restoration of the Marcoses to national politics with the former dictator’s son Bongbong Marcos winning as senator, Imelda Marcos winning a seat in Congress and her daughter Imee Marcos taking the governorship in their political bailiwick, the province of Ilocos Norte.

If Jesus truly invented dynasties as pointed out by Ramon Durano Sr., of the formidable Durano clan in Cebu and former member of the Lower House representing Danao City, then Jesus must be very happy with the way the May 2010 elections turned out.  If the results were any indicator, the Filipinos would not be seeing the decline of political clans or dynasties in the Philippines anytime soon.  In fact, the last elections saw the victory or the re-election of political families in both national and local positions in their respective bailiwicks.

President Arroyo has often been described as master of the art of patronage politics; that she sustained her hold on power for nine years due to her ability to cultivate, use and exploit local politics as her power base, thus the army of local officials, including congressional representatives, loyal to her.  But her cabinet members and former military men known to be loyal to her seemed to have missed out on this very important lesson.

Five years after it was set-up to address the gaps of representational democracy in the country, has the party-list system broken the monopoly of big traditional politics and decreased the tendency for personality politics?

Even before the polling day, doubts about the first nation-wide automated elections were strong and people’s confidence in a clean and peaceful election was low. The malfunction of several Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines during the mock election held by Commission on Elections (Comelec) just a few days before polling day didn’t ease worries about a possible failure of elections. But even under these circumstances, there was a general sense by the public that the voter turnout would be high, since after nine years of rule by a government tainted with corruption, scandals, rent-seeking, plunder, cheatings, and overall lack of legitimacy, the Filipino people were crying for change. And change they hoped to have on the May 10 elections.

As the dust of the first nationwide automated elections in Southeast Asia settles, several questions continue to brew above the heads of the Filipino public. One of them is: have the 2010 elections been peaceful and democratic? If one toes the line of most, it may seem as if the events of May 10 have somehow been less deadly and less insidious than other polls before it.