Election distress
Comelec Chair George Garcia, the former campaign manager of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., has gone on television to explain the features of the Korean-brand of vote-counting machines. However, I did not quite understand from his explanation if we are buying or leasing them. The Smartmatic brand machines which we used in past elections were purchased outright, and we had to deal with problems due to storage in warehouses of the delicate IT equipment which we do not have the capability to maintain. I wonder how much of our taxpayer money had to be spent on maintenance of these voting machines stored for years in warehouses (including the cost of electricity and air conditioning, and security plus repairs). I hope this time we have learned our lessons and just lease them so the Korean suppliers are responsible for maintenance.
Mr. Garcia proudly disclosed that this time, the counting machine would print a “receipt” detailing the candidates voted for, to give to each voter. If these receipts are not destroyed within the precinct before the voter leaves, this will guarantee candidates who buy votes the certainty that they are getting their money’s worth!
As the mid-term election nears, I worry more and more about the composition of our Senate. With no less than three Dutertes running*, and another Tulfo rumored to be interested, it is becoming a truly family business. Today, 25% of the Senate is composed of senators who are relatives, namely two Villars (mother and son), two Cayetanos (siblings), and two sons of Erap. If our voters are still inclined to vote for family names they already know, then we will possibly have three more Dutertes (father and two sons), and one more Tulfo sibling. That makes up almost half of the next Senate! These will represent our over 100 million Filipinos in the making of national policy.
As long as our educators continue to focus on depositing more and more information in students’ brains, rather than sharpening their critical thinking skills, we will continue to have voters who do not look at the qualifications of candidates who want to be our leaders. It will take a radical change in our “teaching” methods. Instead of the “banking” (deposit and withdraw knowledge) approach, we will have to focus on “learning” methodologies, in which the emphasis is on sharpening skills: the students’ ability to think independently. This also calls for lessening the burdens on our teachers so that they can prepare properly for their real work.
I have taught in high school, college, and graduate school. In high school, I prepared each day to give quizzes in order to have numbers as the basis for giving grades. In order to make it easy to check tests and record grades, I had to make most of the questions answerable in multiple choice or True and False. This does not help sharpen critical thinking in the learners. I really believe the grading system at the graduate school where I taught which gives only three options (Pass, Fail, Distinction) encourages more discussion among the learners and learning facilitators (“teachers”). This can help sharpen critical thinking, especially since our poor students have to communicate in Tagalog (the National Language), English (still a foreign language in most communities), plus their own mother tongue. No wonder we rate so poorly in international learning competitions.
Lately, Alice Guo, the suspended mayor of Bamban, Tarlac, has been confirmed to be a foreigner and therefore not qualified to be in her position. According to an ongoing Senate investigation, Guo was born in China from Chinese parents, and somehow obtained a Filipino birth certificate, a Filipino passport, and Comelec endorsement as a candidate and as elected Mayor.
It is very alarming that in some of the POGO quarters in Bamban, Chinese military uniforms were discovered! If I remember correctly, Sun Tzu, in his Art of War, states that the great general is the one who can take over a territory without resorting to warfare. I also recall somewhere Sun Tzu justifying the use of falsehoods as part of a winning “war” strategy. I hope our security officials have read Sun Tzu to better understand what China is doing, and know better how to deal with it.
Meanwhile, I continue to think that we really should consider changes in our election laws. Perhaps we should not have direct elections for national offices. Local government executives (elected mayors and governors) can vote for the President, and locally elected representatives to legislatures can select a Prime Minister from among their peers. The power sharing can be determined in a new Constitution. The Prime Minister leads the legislative/policy making body; and the President leads the execution of such policies all the way to the community levels. This way, we have better chances of ensuring that national leaders are chosen by peers who know better what kind of people should be their (and our) leaders. Perhaps political party memberships will then make more sense.
Ah, but so much for wishful thinking. The current Senate members, especially those who have been in jail, or belong there, would never agree to the idea of abolishing their cushy jobs. They are able to brag publicly about their privates, and still be addressed as “Honorables.”
*This according to Vice-President Sara Duterte, though her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, has denied this according to the Philippine Star yesterday. “Duterte said people should not believe everything his daughter says, as sometimes she has the tendency to make jokes,” said the front-page story. — Ed.
Teresa S. Abesamis is a former professor at the Asian Institute of Management and fellow of the Development Academy of the Philippines.