On Pinoys Caring About the U.S. Presidential Elections

Akomismo, a blog maintained by a Parañaque-based teacher at Pisay, was prominently featured today in a Washington Post story on the interest of bloggers worldwide in the 2008 U.S. Presidential elections.

Martin Perez lives in Parañaque, a suburb of Manila, an ocean and a few time zones from the United States. But when he gets up at 5 a.m. to get ready for work, the high school teacher goes online to read the latest news in the U.S. presidential race, study poll numbers, watch YouTube videos -- and blog about the McCain-Obama showdown..."It's official. This US Election matters to me more than it should," Perez wrote shortly after the first presidential debate.

(Note. The Post story carries the byline of Jose Antonio Vargas, who was born in Antipolo and who earlier this year, shared in a Pulitzer Prize for his newspaper's coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre.)

No doubt that the interest level among Filipinos in this year's White House derby is higher than normal. One indisputable factor is the historic nature of Mr. Obama's candidacy (or as indelicately headlined by the Philippine Daily Inquirer after the Iowa caucuses, "Black President in White House?") Another reason, as pointed out in the Post article, is the immediate availability of raw news and data direct from the States about those elections, primarily through the internet, but also through cable news outlets. I remember the days when I'd have to travel to the now-defunct Thomas Jefferson Cultural Center along Buendia to read three-week old copies of The New York Times in order to satiate my American news fix. A point well remembering as the looming global financial armageddon renders internet access unaffordable.

Understandably for most Pinoys, the interest level in the U.S. elections is pretty skin-deep. Much that has been written about the polls from the Philippines (myself included) dwells on the human interest stories or the gaffes. Fewer have delved into the implications of a McCain or Obama presidency for the Philippines. Would a more protectionist American economic policy halt the growth of outsourcing of labor to the Philippines? Would the possible diminution of scope of the so-called "War on Terror" under an Obama presidency compel the end of joint US-Filipino military activity in Mindanao? Would the potential further disengagement of the Philippines from the American geopolitical calculus drive our country to closer ties with China, or would the Philippines' presumptive membership in Mr. McCain's "League of Democracies" foster a new age in Filipino-American relations?

One might question the usefulness in writing about those topics, since Filipino citizens won't really have an electoral say on those issues (not officially anyway, and what's the deal with Macedonia?). There is another aspect though about the US elections that ultimately could be of greater use for the Filipino electorate. I became interested in American politics out of reading materials purchased out of a modest student's allowance from BookSale which introduced me to the notion that politics can be based on ideological principles. Political warfare can be premised on the defense or advocacy of philosophical ideas that transcend their human vessels. Mainstream Philippine political campaigns are largely ideology-free, and the battle for votes waged through the Last Song Syndrome inevitability of campaign jingles. Even those candidacies lauded by the civil society types draw appeal from personal virtues (i.e., non-traditional politics) than from substantive content.

(I myself despise saintliness as the defining political virtue of a politician. Personal rectitude is supposed to be the bare minimum requirement for public office, see oath of office, and an electoral career propped up by GMRC alone is a loser for me. I'm simply more interested in the concrete policies to be enacted by candidates for office, points that are usually elusive or vague during political campaigns.)

Could this local interest in the American elections positively change our own political discourse? Maybe. Take universal health care as an example. That issue dominated the Democratic primaries, and remains integral during the general election campaign. The differences between the Democrats and the Republicans are stark, with Obama more or less favoring guaranteed health insurance for all Americans while McCain proposing a much more modest plan giving tax credits for families that purchase health insurance. In the Philippines, all citizens are compulsorily covered by health insurance, through the National Health Insurance Act passed during the Ramos administration. Yet as any Filipino who has been hospitalized can attest, the benefits provided by that law are woefully inadequate, especially in case of catastrophic health crises, leaving it up to the kindness of Kapwa Ko Mahal Ko and Rosa Rosal to fill in the gaps. Meanwhile, the raison d'etre of retirement savings of Filipino employees is mainly to pay off the health costs arising from the final illness.

Despite the sheer ubiquity of health care in our lives no matter our income level, there has never been any serious debate about health care policy in our elections -- certainly it has never been utilized as an issue to move voters. It is questionable whether our political candidates would be motivated to pick up on health care, especially if they operate on the standing premise that personalities, and not issues, win over Filipino voters. But perhaps if those who follow the U.S. elections become aware that health care is a political issue open to debate, and consequently realize that our own health care system is lacking, then just maybe it may form part of the political dialogue in the looming 2010 presidential elections.

One last thing. It must be refreshing (and depressing) for Pinoys following the U.S. elections to see the absence of any violent deaths resulting from their presidential campaign season. Filipino elections are unusually violent, especially on the local level, and there is no indication that bloody paradigm would shift soon. Though it is worth noting that campaigns in the U.S. were not always bloodshed-free.