IN 2000, at the height of the movement to impeach then-President Erap Estrada, I alienated friends by constantly referring to Erap as "ang presidente ninyo."
I thought I was being truthful, after all, I did not vote for him. And by the time he had been charged with plunder, I felt all the more that there was no reason to claim a relationship of any kind with a corrupt and disgraced leader.
But my statement annoyed others who felt I was being arrogant and glib. To them it wasn't an issue that I did not identify with Erap as president --they neither voted nor felt for him as well. But that with that phrase, I had "othered," and in so doing politically distanced, myself from people with whom I fundamentally shared the same desire for change.
These thoughts occurred to me again post campaign and voting 2016. This elections turned out to be among the most engaging in the country's history. But it also was one that split Filipinos along many lines. The internet afforded opportunities for connected Filipinos to tap online resources and participate in the campaign. However, along with information came disinformation, and debate got overwhelmed by vitriol and hate language.
With a president elected by a plurality and not a majority (albeit among the highest plurality vote for a president after 1986), and with a vice president from an opposing party winning also by plurality and only by a slim margin, mandates may not be contested but governance in the succeeding days could become very partisan. It is expected that candidates, winning and losing alike, would graciously extend the olive branch and call for unity after the polls.
I think that in this post-elections period, supporters of different camps should do the same regardless of the standing and stance of their candidate.
Supporters of opposing camps have every reason to overcome rifts and come together. Those whose candidate won would want their now elected official to succeed, and the platform they opted to support to come about; while the interest of those whose candidate did not make it is to look into ways of getting their concerns addressed by the new administration. These two agenda can only be achieved when the political climate as well as governance and public administrative processes encourage and enable the broadest segments of society to participate and cooperate. Passive attitudes of significant portions of the population can be as restricting as active opposition to leaders who have pledged to bring about change.
Thus, the view "my candidate is better than yours" needs to give way to "this is a leader we can all work with" and "we prevailed over you so we're better" must transform into "we can improve our society further; beyond our election choices, we're in this together."
These messages can be disseminated and amplified by the same platforms that were used for the campaign, in particular mass media, social networks, visual displays, and day-to-day interactions.
There are also formal means by which other groups can be drawn in to make governance more inclusive.
The next iteration of the Philippine Development Plan or PDP is expected to have at its core the platform of the next chief executive. But its crafting, if done in a participatory manner, can also provide space and opportunity for different groups to air their concerns and recommendations.
A national plan that by design speaks to the interests of the majority stands a better chance of being supported and monitored, and thus implemented, than one to which many cannot relate.
A national administration in our country only has six years to make good on the grand vision that captured the imagination of citizens. It thus has to hit the ground running and cannot waste time differentiating between those who supported elected officials and those who did not.
A candidate successfully transforms into a leader when he/she is able to perform from the core belief that "I am the leader of even those who did not vote for me, and thus I must serve them regardless."
In the same manner, no matter where we stood in the elections, we citizens have to hold these leaders -- all our leaders -- accountable. Our vote is not a blank check for a candidate to do as he/she will; neither are we constrained from engaging those who won that we did not support. Our chances at exacting accountability are enhanced when we opt to see beyond the latest election choices of our fellow citizens, and instead connect to the more fundamental interests that bind us: the desire for a more bountiful, more equitable, more peaceful, safer and kinder country, and more representative, responsive, progressive, and accountable institutions, particularly government. When they are being sworn in, your candidate is no longer your candidate, and I also lose that defining relationship with mine.
At that point, we can say to each other, in reference to those who have been sworn in: "they are my leaders too, and together we can give them hell if they do not perform as they promised they would."
We may have been infuriated by, and to be sure have also infuriated, fellow Filipinos during the campaign. But when it comes to pursuing change, I refuse to give up on fellow Filipinos, particularly marginalized peoples and sectors, and will still throw in my lot with them.
The tragedy of elections is not that they can provide opportunities for unscrupulous politicians to mislead people, but that elections can foster further "othering" and create more divides among people who have better chances of surviving and thriving by being united.
Politicians promising change to distinguish themselves from others and then continuing on the same crises-ridden track is a repeated and tired narrative. The only real safeguard are citizens who, while prone to getting muddled time and again, do get better over time at exercising political choices and actions, until we are able to thoroughly transform the narrative.
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