RP History and our Young Electoral Democracy

I had the chance to chat with Voltaire Formilleza this morning about the coming election, politics, democracy, his life as a student of  the College of Law of San Beda, his works and his classmates and about Rene Saguisag as his professor.

Regarding Rene Saguisag, Voltaire would tell me that he insipres the class with his life stories. I learned through Voltaire, that the present location of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas used to a baseball field and that during Saguisag's younger days, the craze was baseball and not basketball. Imagine the baseball players after the game heading to the beach.

The place where Robinson's Galleria stands used to be Ateneo de Manila  and  I was told now that in Robinson's Ermita Padre Faura wing entrance now stands a historical marker which tells the passers-by there used to stand Ateneo de Manila building.

So much for the historical trivias. Let me share Voltaire's required speech in his Legal Philosophy Class:

From Plato to Jovito Salonga: Adding Potency to a Young Electoral Democracy

By: Luis Voltaire D. Formilleza

"I am very fortunate to have been given this opportunity to share my views about the importance of Legal Philosophy and its relevance to a young electoral democracy like the Philippines. Legal Philosophy is a very broad and rich course. To us law students the subject is an additional memory exercise where the professor asks us to recite the highlights of different articles on various topics which includes inter alia: Democracy, the State, justice, law, peace, crimes and punishment. However, a deeper reflection on these topics will reveal wisdom immortalized in the annals of our history; classical not because they are archaic but rather they are simply timeless. Their value and importance is real and relevant in our lives today. Hence given this opportunity I would like to explore the condition of our democracy and some factors that made it become what it is in status quo; the many stakeholders that it affects, and the role of the primordial lessons of Legal Philosophy and how these seeds of acumen can be utilized to strengthen our democracy.


Electoral Democracy connotes the foundation of the popular will of the majority by virtue of which government exercises its authority over the governed. It safeguards the dignity of the individual and his concomitant unalienable rights from the intrusive arms of the government which at times hides under the cloak of the same political will that gave it powers. Post- colonial and post-dictatorial regimes during the turn of the 21st century would show us how this happens. This trend is likewise apparent in the Philippines. The polarization of the citizens to the haves and the have not’s paved the way for political power to be superimposed to the upper strata of the caste. Although the presumption is that citizens are all equal in opportunity for political participation, since one’s right to office is tantamount to one’s right to vote, the conditions of young emerging democracies demand more than the basic statutory electoral qualifications. More often than not, the race to the polls are defined by the capacity of a person to tap his constituency no matter how doubtful his intentions and credentials are, the capability to mobilize political and campaign machineries and the skill to utilize the “patronage bandwagon” to amass supporters that can translate to votes. These undeniable pragmatic pre-conditions to office made it more difficult if not impossible for the plebian yet able candidate to penetrate the political arena.


The effects of this trend are even worse and are too numerous to mention. On the level of the societal behavior an immediate effect is the growing apathy to civic participation and distrust in the political system. Politics is rather seen as an agenda for the elite. And while the common peoples try hard to tolerate if not make politics irrelevant to their lives, the one’s in power breeds a social illness of corruption and nonsensical politicking that feeds bucks on their purses. More frustrating is the fact that those who choose to fight against the rotten system stand to perish. The story of democracy becomes nothing more than a series of fairy tales and during the elections the carnival begins. Some tales end in tragedies like what we witnessed in Maguindanao while others end up as comedies.


An Asian statesman once remarked that democracy is not working in the Philippines. Is this really true given the state of things in our country? My response is a resounding no. I beg to disagree. No political or economic system can be claimed as perfect. We can only say that systems work for us for a period of time until it evolves to become an antithesis to what it used to be. Ours is a young democracy and it is constantly being molded to be one that we can call our own. This is the kind of struggle that we have been perpetually fighting for as a nation, a struggle to a claim to freedom, a claim to an identity. Legal Philosophy is more than a memory exercise or a course requirement. It leaves lessons and guiding principles to the many people who have a stake in preserving and forwarding our democracy. As philosopher kings the subject is challenging us to dare the odds and put the resounding echoes of our learned forefathers into action. For now as part of that challenge our goal is to be inspired to cultivate ourselves and do everything that we can to become sentinels of the rule of law that is aimed at preserving the vision of an electoral democracy that we all dream for ourselves and our children. So that tomorrow we may become the next Plato or Jovito Salonga who can inspire others to sustain what we have started."