Unsettled and Unsettling Issues

The first semester of 2007 saw the playing out of a tired scenario: politicians traipsing up and down the breadth of the country courting the voting populace.

The circus had returned: was election season once again.

There was hardly anything to distinguish the latest electoral exercise from past elections. All the old and worn tricks were pulled out of the campaign hat: promises were intoned, money was liberally shelled out, goons were unleashed, blood was spilled, and spilled generously.

If there was anything remarkable about the recent polls, it was the ferocity by which the party-list seats were contested.

The first article for this semester’s In Focus (“The 2007 polls: A vote against unsettled and unsettling issues” by Loretta Ann P. Rosales) assesses the recent national elections in light of human rights issues that should have been at the core of the campaign discourse. As the writer asserts, the results of the May 2007 polls (especially that of the senatorial race) loudly express the people’s revulsion towards the current administration. Yet in a number of instances, the people’s will was also thwarted: some of the election victories were fraud-tainted. The author rues the dwindling number of progressive party-list representatives in the Lower House, but she also warns about “days of disquiet and nights of rage.”

A national election offers opportunities by which the citizenry can stake their claims on human rights. At the very least, it offers a venue in which pressing issues can be discussed. Sadly, however, Philippine-style elections have not evolved to that level. Health concerns, for example, were hardly mentioned by the candidates. Not one of those who ran for elective positions placed health rights as a top priority. Because health issues never got to the forefront, reelectionist lawmakers avoided being put to task for their failure to pass the Cheaper Medicines Bill during the 13 th Congress. These and other plagues of the health sector are discussed in “Health headaches seek state cure”.

If health issues did not make it to the candidates’ agenda, neither did the issue of food. How would hunger and malnutrition figure as an election issue when the president herself would not admit to the stark truth that Filipinos are food-poor? In answer to the question: “Just how hungry are the Filipinos?”, the writer looks at the latest hunger statistics that put to a lie, in no uncertain terms, the economic growth trumpeted by the president. Causes are looked at and current food programs are assessed. The prognosis: hunger mitigation programs that do not recognize the root causes of the problem will go nowhere.

Prof. Flora C. Arellano contributed the article on education, “The social dilemmas in Philippine education: Roadmap and challenges”. She looked at the disturbing trends in the education sector, among which is the poor quality of graduates. One should not be surprised why Philippine education is in such a sorry state: government allocation is never sufficient, because paying off its foreign debt eats up the bulk of the annual budget. The author catalogs some possible solutions to the education woes, all of which entail firm resolve on the part of the State. After all, it is the State’s obligation to ensure that quality education is provided to its growing citizenry.

The right to housing, another issue snubbed but exploited during the May elections, is dissected in “Still searching for a roof: The right to housing situation”. The government was implementing the most massive eviction in the country’s history, yet candidates remained resolutely silent on the issue. It would have been a ripe opportunity for the people to push shelter and human settlements at the top of the election agenda.

If the election enterprise loomed large on the socio-political landscape during the first semester of 2007, it did so against the backdrop of massive human rights violations. Political killings increased, forced evictions continued, hunger stalked the majority, and health services and quality education remained privileges rather than rights. It remains to be seen whether the latest poll exercise, one that cost billions of pesos and hundreds of lives, will help in the fulfillment of the people’s basic human rights. ­—JM Villero

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