Not sitting out

It is officially election season as the official campaign period leading to the May 12, 2025 local elections kicked off last Friday. Prior to becoming a lawyer, my participation in electoral exercises had been limited to simply exercising my right to vote.

Since becoming a lawyer, I’ve been invited a few times to run for elective office in my hometown. But on every such occasion, I have a standard reply to decline: politics is not for me. I’m a timid or shy person --laidback, or at best, more reflective than assertive.

But I do love political strategizing, and I’m a firm believer in data-driven political campaigns. Thus, in a couple of elections since 2010, after I became a lawyer, I was involved in helping political campaigns, mostly as an election lawyer for our law firm. I actually relished the experience because it gave me a deeper and more nuanced perspective of how politics, at least at the local level, works in our country.

It made me realize that I’m not really cut out for politics myself, though I respect those who are engaged in it. I have seen how hard they work, how skillfully they manage people, and how they harness talent and intellect to push their programs forward.

I am not cut out for politics because I couldn’t let go of my somewhat naïve belief in the need to reform the political dynamics of our country. In my hometown, I have relatives on both sides of the political fence, but that never made me gravitate toward politics --even if, in this country, being a lawyer often seems synonymous with having political aspirations.

From Day One of my education, I was raised in an environment where I learned political science not just from textbooks, but also through critical discussions and local immersions in Philippine socio-political history and present realities. Perhaps because of this grounding, I find myself both dismayed and fascinated by how political power operates in our country.

The dismay comes from observing how entrenched clientelism is in our political culture. As political scientist Julio C. Teehankee explains in his article “Clientelism and party politics in the Philippines,” (2012) our political system is still organized less by ideological platforms or programmatic agendas than by networks of patron–client relationships.

Political parties are weak, fluid, and often mere vehicles for personal ambition or access to state resources. Elections are competitions not over ideas, but over who can deliver the most dole-outs or mobilize the most resources to sustain a machinery powered by favors, public funds, and promises of employment or access.

I have deep respect for those who choose to engage in politics with the sincere desire to serve the people, even as they are compelled to play the same game within a flawed and deeply-entrenched system. Their commitment, despite the compromises, is admirable. Yet this does not take away from the fact that reforms are urgently needed, because the current setup is not sustainable.

As Teehankee notes, the regular cycle of party-switching, the dominance of political dynasties, and the pervasive influence of political patronage funds have hollowed out our democratic institutions. Political power becomes not a mandate to serve, “but a means to massage egos, cultivate entourages of sycophants, and secure loyalty through material incentives.”

Despite that, I have seen the brighter side, too. I have known political leaders whom I consider good, competent, and even visionary --those who try to do what is right within the limits of the system. Let’s help them, and not just sit around watching things happen or waiting for ‘ayuda’ during elections.