RP's VP Estrada not a presidential surety

As the Philippine presidential election enters the final stretch, movie actor and Vice President Joseph Estrada is all set to win, if opinion polls are to be believed. But it is far too soon, our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin reports, for Estrada to take his victory for granted.

HONG KONG (JP): One divisive danger has been averted, but another serious one looms, as the Philippines looks likely to vote for its version of Ronald Reagan, actor-vice president Joseph Estrada, to be the next tenant of Malacanang Presidential Palace.

One hazard of Philippine democracy has not been averted: when voters go to the polls on May 11 they will have to contend with multi-candidate democracy. Eleven official candidates are competing for the presidency, while nine are competing for the vice-presidency. Philippine voters have to make a choice for both posts, rather than for a ticket.

Earlier, and even last-minute, negotiations among a handful of presidential aspirants to join together to back one single candidate predictably failed amidst a plethora of political egos.

Former first lady Imelda Marcos, who remains free on bail while appealing her conviction for corruption, secured worldwide TV-coverage, with her tearful and artfully contrived withdrawal from the presidential race. But the gesture was a fraud, done more with an eye to securing a pardon from the next president.

The next day an equally contrived crowd of "Marcos loyalists" -- Imelda still has enough petty cash from the Marcos billions to rent a crowd whenever she feels the need --- prevented her handing in her withdrawal to the Commission on Elections, thereby rendering her withdrawal inoperative. Possibly she had failed to receive as many pardon offers as she expected, in return for her withdrawal and support.

Imelda plays the game of palabas politics (the politics of ostentatious gestures with no substantive content) as do all the other 10 candidates. The methods of show business are everywhere apparent amidst all the palabas.

Needless to say there have been no policy debates during the campaign. To be fair, given the local addiction to the politics of personality, it is not certain that anyone would have been interested even if such a debate had been arranged.

The danger that has been avoided likewise relates to personality politics.

Given the eleven presidential and nine vice-presidential candidates, it became more than a theoretical possibility that one of them could win the presidency or vice- presidency by merely appealing to, and organizing, the vote of one regional or linguistic bloc.

Incumbent President Fidel Ramos won in 1992 with 23 percent of the vote running against seven other candidates. Undoubtedly what encouraged many candidates to run this time was the thought that if their home provinces stood firmly behind them, the presidency might yet be won with a smaller percentage than that of Ramos.

The divisive implications of such a development are obvious, but the threat has so far failed to materialize for two main reasons.

First, while regional and linguistic identities have their place in the Philippine outlook, a personal way of looking at life and politics still predominates.

Such an outlook has, in fact, been further accentuated by the plethora of candidates for both president and vice president. The addiction for personality politics has even tended to divide regional loyalties.

The best example of this has been presidential candidate and former Cebu Governor Lito Osmena. Clearly Osmena, a relative of the second president of the republic, Sergio Osmena, has set about appealing to the Cebuano vote.

This is not limited to the central Philippine Island of Cebu. There are more Cebuano-speaking Filipinos than any other single linguistic group, spread throughout the 7,000-island archipelago. Cebuano-speakers are even said to outnumber those whose mother tongue is the de facto national language, Tagalog.

At first sight, the famous Osmena political family is in a good position to marshall the Cebuano vote. Senator Sergio Osmena III is running for vice president, while another relative John Osmena is running for the Senate.

But what destroys all chances of Cebuano voting solidarity at the polls is that all three Osmenas are running on different tickets, competing with each other on personal grounds.

The second major reason why regional voting has not emerged as strongly as it might have done lies in the emergence of a truly national candidate in the person of ex-movie actor, ex-mayor, ex- senator and now Vice President Joseph Estrada.

Too much can easily be made of opinion polls in the Philippines, the reliability of which is questionable, amidst a culture wherein telling another person what you think he wants to hear is a deeply ingrained habit.

But in three nationwide polls in the last few weeks, Estrada has emerged each time with 30 percent or more of popular support, leaving the other 10 candidates dividing up two-thirds of the vote. In none of the polls do any of the other candidates come even close.

In the latest, made available on May 1, Estrada has a 19 percent, 32 to 13 advantage over his nearest rival, the candidate favored by President Ramos, House of Representatives Speaker Jose De Venecia.

Ironically, in the same poll, De Venecia's running mate, the glamoros and dynamic Senator Gloria Macapagal has an even larger 26 percent, 44 to 18 lead over Estrada's running-mate the dull but earnest Senator Edgardo Angara. Once again, in this apparent contradiction, the personality factor stands exposed above all other considerations.

But while Estrada may give Angara a lift on his coattails, it is unlikely that Macapagal's popularity will do a great deal to improve De Venecia's position.

Essentially the pattern painted by the opinion polls does not vary. Estrada is far out in the lead, with 30 percent or more, with four candidates nearly 20 points behind him. These are De Venecia, Lito Osmena, former Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and Senator Raul Roco each with around 11 to 13 percent.

Some observers assume that on polling day De Venecia, who suffers from a strong image as a wheeler-dealer "trapo" (traditional politician), will emerge from the pack. The Ramos-De Venecia machine is said to be effective. It has put up candidates for every Congressional seat.

But Estrada is not far behind on both counts and enjoys the well-funded backing of the man who came in third in 1992, former Marcos crony Eduardo Cojuanco (Estrada won the vice-presidency as Cojuanco's running mate).

De Venecia was believed to have made a breakthrough when he was endorsed by the massive "Jesus Is Lord" charismatic sect. Estrada has responded by securing the implicit backing of the even larger El Shaddai fundamentalist Catholic movement.

Amidst the moves and counter-moves nothing really alters the crucial fact that a large segment of the Filipino masses identify with Estrada and are likely to vote for him, come what may -- and even if they are bribed to vote for someone else.

Herein lies a new danger for Philippine democracy. For a variety of reasons, a substantial section of the old Philippine elite looks askance at an Estrada presidency. The only way in which such an outcome can now be avoided, if the opinion polls are to be believed, will be through wholesale ballot-rigging.

In the checkered history of Philippine democracy, recourse to all manner of electoral fraud and chicanery has been a regular feature. The presidential elections of 1949, 1969 and 1986 were especially venal, although one Filipino historian looks back regretfully on "a hundred years of crooked elections".

Rather than accept an Estrada presidency as inevitable, on May 11 further such dubious recourse may be taken. If that happens, sadly it may well follow that, by the time the Philippines celebrates the centenary of the First Republic on June 12, a winner will not yet have been declared from next week's poll.

The 1998 presidential election could yet end up being deeply divisive.