The Votes of the Masa

01 June 2010

The latest tally of the senatorial elections shows that Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla has garnered the all-time highest number of votes for senator. Also elected senator are fellow movie stars Sen. Jinggoy Estrada and Lito Lapid. Other screen personalities, including Revilla’s wife, Lani Mercado, also won in local elections. I’ve heard friends lament that by not voting for competent professionals among the senatorial and local candidates Filipinos don’t use their heads in their choice of leaders. That explains, they say, the state of the nation. We are going to the dogs because of that.

That kind of comment actually smacks of middle class arrogance that is based, strangely, on political naïveté. Educated middle class people tend to think that ordinary folks, the masa, are beneath them in understanding things. They also believe that all people ought to think and behave the way they do. But they don’t have any idea what politics is all about especially to the poor. Educated middle class people can live without politicians. They might even say that society would be better off without politicians. They could be right, but that does not make the masa wrong in judging the right candidates for them. For, after all, a woman with a doctorate in economics turned out to be the traditional politician without peer. And thanks to the masa votes in the last elections, Arroyo may not be able to maneuver herself to power again.

The truth is, people vote for candidates who are after their own image – for us educated middle class: those with degrees from universities and with flourishing professional careers; for business people: those who have shown success in the field of business; for the poor: those who identify with them in their struggles against all the oppressive powers of the world, real or imaginary. Among the poor, their real day-to-day struggles are projected on the silver screen where they see Joseph Estrada, Fernando Poe and Ramon Revilla fighting their fights against great odds. As always, their heroes win and their victory gives them hope that someday, some way, they too will prevail. And they have hope, too, that in their public life the screen heroes would be true to their commitment to the cause of the poor and powerless.

Perhaps, the people’s hopes are misplaced. For, most of these movies actually hide the real facts and distort the realities behind the people’s poverty and oppression. Although the stories depict the actual abuse and oppression of people by the powers of society, they fail to disclose the social and historical forces underlying social inequalities that victimize them. And, in the end the stories fail because the hero fades away in the sunset while the people have to wait for yet another tyrant to rise.

Elections will continue to fail the people for as long as the masa don’t find real means of fulfilling their aspirations. Because they don’t see real struggles for their emancipation, they will take the movies as substitute and movie actors as their liberators. This is really a judgment on the state of popular movements for change in Philippine society. If radical change remains a subject of debate among radical intellectuals or of prayers in churches but fails to inspire the masa, it won’t happen. If political groups committed to change remain isolated and cut-off from the day-to-day life of the people, they will continue to fail. One way or another, the project to change things in the life of the masa must be able to connect with their daily life and struggles and succeed in welding them into a great, formidable and unstoppable social force. When that happens elections would become a true weapon of the people to fight poverty and to build a just, peaceful and prosperous society.