Game theory on 2010 elections

SHOULD we just stick to watching basketball and boxing instead of going to the polls this May? After all, according to former health undersecretary Mario Taguiwalo, the electoral process in the Philippines is “a game with immature players and weak referees.”

Taguiwalo, who opened the recent Roundtable Discussion with the Media on Civil Society Engagement in the 2010 Campaign and Elections organized by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), identified political campaigns as main players and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) as the referee. The president of the National Institute for Policy Studies, a think-tank identified with the Liberal Party (LP), he talked candidly at the January 15 forum, and described all political campaigns in the country – including the LP’s — as immature and the Comelec as plagued with problems. (See related 2005 PCIJ story: “The Comelec’s fall from grace“)

Thus, he said, “it is up to the conscience of those concerned to hold back, not to cheat too much, not to kill too much, because penalties are not exacted accordingly.”

Taguiwalo discussed briefly the problems that have plagued the Comelec, pointing out that building a strong electoral system needs consistency across more than one term. It doesn’t help, he said, that the commission is not the first choice of the top graduates of law schools, who would much prefer to join big corporate law firms after graduation.

He said the flaws of the actors involved in the elections made the polls “unreliable to yield optimum social outcome from elections.” Another hindrance is the political climate itself; with a larger electorate, the competing interests during elections become more diverse, and the stakes become greater, and are then pursued with even more intensity.

He stressed, however, that all these only mean that media and civil society organizations have to work together to make elections an effective exercise.

According to Taguiwalo, the functions of civil society during the election period include: being process champions (e.g. civic duty, clean elections, transparency); issue champions (urban poor, agriculture, peace); campaign partners (alignment with political campaigns based on affinity on issues); and channels for individuals to participate in the process in spite of the immaturity of the main players. The role of media, meanwhile, involve scrutinizing the process and ensuring the integrity of the results, connecting the issues concerning people with the electoral process, and scrutinizing the campaigns, while also serving as vehicles for paid political information, he said.

Civil society organizations need to be heard while media aim to inform, Taguiwalo noted. The key for an effective interface between civil society groups and the media, he said, will be for each to work together to identify and focus on defining issues. He observed as well that the media and civil society need to work together so that the murder of media professionals becomes taboo in society.

Ending his talk with a condemnation of the killings in Maguindanao. (see the related PCIJ stories), Taguiwalo said that threats to journalists, including the killings, have become a way to “manage” what he called the freest media in the world. “If media are the senses of society, the eyes, the ears, the mouths,” he said, “then the killings are equivalent to blinding us, taking away our hearing, making us dumb.”