Debating the debate
March 9th, 2004
Nobody wants a debate he thinks he can’t win. This explains why Fernando Poe Jr. would rather forego the debate the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) have organized. But it also explains why President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has said that she won’t be in the debate either unless Poe shows up.
Poe’s party mates in the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP) have advanced all sorts of reasons why their standard-bearer doesn’t have to join the debate, which is scheduled to go on TV this March. None of those reasons are sublime. But they do include the ridiculous as well as the unintentionally candid.
Poe’s spokesman Vicente Sotto III said the actor preferred to hold dialogues with “all sectors,” rather than debate with his rivals. Poe, he said, believes that a debate would be “divisive,” and that, in any case, ang paghihirap ng bayan ay hindi pinagdedebatehan, a statement ambiguous enough to allow two translations. (It either means “The suffering of the people should not be a topic for debate,” or “The suffering of the people is not debatable,” meaning it is an established fact against which there is no arguing.)
On the other hand, Juan Ponce Enrile challenged Poe’s rivals for the presidency to direct a movie, as Poe has done dozens of times. Governing the Philippines, said Enrile, is just like directing a movie because you need to “know what you intend to do, and must visualize everything to the end.”
Which pretty much sums up everything in life. But Enrile should know how much like a movie governance in this country of political charlatans can be. In 1972 he scripted and acted in the fraudulent ambush on himself which was the immediate justification for his then boss Ferdinand Marcos’ placing the entire country under martial law. At EDSA in 1986 he played a different role, that time as a born-again Uzi-wielding democrat.
With reason may some contest the Enrile analogy. Real life isn’t a movie, which may be based on real events, yes, but is in the end only an artifice of light and shadow. And if anyone thinks running a country is just like directing a movie in which he or she has only to shout “camera” to get all 78 million Filipinos to do what he or she wants, he or she has another think coming. Marcos tried that by declaring martial law, and look where it got him.
Meanwhile, if Poe indeed thinks that a debate will be “divisive,” someone should inform him that every election is by definition divisive, whether it takes place in Latvia or the United States. Except that in the Philippines, an election mostly divides people into partisans of this or that candidate, period.
The fervent hope should not be that elections unite people—they won’t, and the unity should come afterwards—but that they make divisions meaningful in terms of what the candidates and their parties stand for. That way people can make, not just choices, but informed choices
The latter is in fact the premise of the debate: the need for the May elections to have some meaning beyond who the voters remember the most, either because he’s an actor (Poe), or because they see her name plastered on every billboard in the archipelago (Macapagal-Arroyo).
Poe is equally wrong about the “not debatable” or “not a topic for debate” part. The people’s suffering is a topic for debate, specifically in terms of how it should be addressed—meaning what programs one intends to put in place.
It can even be said that the dimensions of that suffering, the extent and depth of it, should be the first thing that should be debated and established, if only to provide policy-makers—or policy-makers presumptive—a guide to the kind of policies they should adopt.
All these aside, however, what’s interesting in Poe’s party mates’ “reasons” is their uniform assumption that Poe will lose any debate with his rivals. KNP senatorial candidate Boots Anson-Roa, for example, said Poe “doesn’t talk much, but that doesn’t mean he has nothing to say.”
Enrile himself said outright that Poe is “not skilled in debating,” while another KNP senatorial candidate, Alfredo Lim, premised his reaction by granting that Poe’s rivals (Macapagal-Arroyo, Raul Roco, Eduardo “Brother Eddie” Villanueva, and Panfilo Lacson) “may be good debaters” but that they “have done nothing” for the country.
The mischievous could of course say the same thing about Poe—that he has done nothing for the country—and perhaps with even more validity. And he isn’t even any kind of debater, either.
So much for Poe and his party mates’ convoluted excuses. On the other hand, for all of Mrs. Arroyo’s oral skills, the fact is that in any debate she’s likely to make mincemeat only of Poe, which is why she was so looking forward to having him on the same stage.
But neither Roco, Lacson nor Villanueva are in the same category of push-overs as Poe. It’s not only because they have the debating skills and the experience from years of public speaking. In arguing the case against another Arroyo term they have also been far, far more articulate than Poe, who did not graduate from New York’s Actor’s Studio, but who seems to have mastered the art of incoherence far more than Marlon “mumbles” Brando.
All three have not only published their platforms—they actually talk about them whenever the opportunity presents itself. This is totally unlike Poe, who did publish a platform, but can’t seem to discuss, much less defend it, orally.
Mrs. Arroyo thus made it a condition for her participation very early on that all six (let’s not forget the sixth “candidate,” Eddie Gil) presidential aspirants must agree to the debate. It’s a foregone conclusion that she would shine at Poe’s expense—thus her declaration that a debate without Poe would not be worth it. Without Poe to engage the attention of the other candidates, it is also likely that Roco et.al. would gang up on Mrs. Arroyo.
If a debate without Poe would be a losing proposition for Mrs. Arroyo, Mrs. Arroyo’s presence is the critical condition for Roco, Lacson and Villanueva’s getting anything out of it. As far as they’re concerned Poe can stay away, but not Mrs. Arroyo. Without her they would end up attacking only each other, and in the process relegate the issue of Mrs. Arroyo’s performance since 2001 to the sidelines.
Of course Raul Roco would like nothing better than to have Mrs. Arroyo on the same stage, where he can muster his formidable argumentative skills to put Mrs. Arroyo entirely on the defensive.
So would Lacson, who would come armed with his “Jose Pidal” expose, and Villanueva with his story of Mrs. Arroyo’s “betrayal” of EDSA 1 and 2, and other details he has so far not divulged. That is why Lacson has said that he won’t be part of any debate without Mrs. Arroyo, and why Roco has said as much.
But this is to look at the debate—which now seems doomed not to happen—in erms of what each of the candidates could gain or lose from it, and not from the perspective of what the public can learn from it.
A debate with her rivals other than Poe may not be worth it to Mrs. Arroyo, but could be invaluable in cutting through the Arroyo government’s claims about its so-called achievements including those mysterious three million jobs it claims to have created, as much as it can enlighten the electorate on who has the better platform—or who, in reality, has none.
Whatever his party mates say, Poe’s absence would by itself speak volumes both about his reasoning capacities—a President has to speak for this country after all, and should be able to hold his own not only with opposition politicians but also with his own allies—as well as his understanding of the democratic imperatives of debate and discussion. His absence, given the neck-and-neck contest between Mrs. Arroyo and Poe, would benefit Mrs. Arroyo most of all.
It is also entirely possible that Mrs. Arroyo would prove the better person than either Roco, Lacson or Villanueva. But if Mrs. Arroyo is sincere about her frequent call to make the May exercise meaningful through a high-level campaign that would enable the electorate to make an informed choice, this should be the last of her considerations. This debate must be held with or without Poe. As things now stand, only Mrs. Arroyo can make it happen.
(Today/abs-cbnNEWS.com, February 28, 2004)