A recent policy study made by the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) in cooperation with TI Philippines shows a poor performance by the Ombudsman, whose chief is appointed by the President, and Sandiganbayan under the Arroyo administration. The July-December 2006 study found that between 2001 to May 2006, 725 graft complaints were filed with the Office of the Ombudsman against 168 city and municipal mayors but of these 161 (or 22.2 percent) of the cases were dismissed by the Office of Special Prosecutor (OSP). Only five mayors were eventually found guilty by the Sandiganbayan or the anti-graft court. There are a total of 1,618 town mayors in the country.1
The purge is part of the administration’s political strategy that began with the charter change (Cha-cha) move which gained momentum after the defeat of the second impeachment complaint against Mrs. Arroyo last year. Cha-cha was widely believed to be a ploy that would allow its authors led by the sitting President to perpetuate themselves in power through the proposed unicameral parliamentary system. Its defeat last December forced the administration and its ruling coalition to shift course toward election preparation and this is being jumpstarted through the purge of opposition local chief executives.
Another myth that seems to persist is that elections are essentially a battle of personalities where victory is also clinched by the use of the proverbial “guns, goons and gold.” In the coming election, there will of course be invocations of banalities and false promises that the voters themselves will not expect to see in real terms. Traditional politicians fear that if the elections were allowed to become a stage for competing political agenda and issues, such transformation will only unravel their political bankruptcy not to mention the inanities streaming from the mouths of the demagogues among them.
Indeed, this elitist culture of manipulating the elections as a popularity contest, images and sound bites complete with a repertoire of entertainment creates another myth: That the people are gullible to lies and disinformation. An example is the smear campaign that administration officials have been waging against the progressive party-list groups. National Security Adviser
Norberto Gonzalez has been talking to reporters threatening the disqualification of Bayan Muna (BM) and allied party-list groups for the reason that they are “communist front” organizations. He has also called for the revival of RA 1700 or the anti-subversion law, hoping that it can be used likewise against the progressive parties. This has been part of Gonzalez’s dirty tricks campaign to criminalize and demonize these groups – reason enough, rights watchdogs and militant groups say, that he can be made to account for the political assassination of 122BM members and several others from the other party-list groups.
2007 Elections
