Campaign Contributions, Pre-programming Key to Aquino Victory – Sison

By D. L. MONDELO
Correspondent, Bulatlat.com
22 May 2010

1. What can you say about the conduct of the 2010 elections?

JMS: The conduct of the 2010 elections shows the rottenness of the US-dominated ruling system of big compradors and landlords. It was a process dominated by the coalitions, parties and candidates of the reactionary ruling classes. Beforehand, it excluded the leaders of the working people who were repressed or who were without campaign funds. It was merely a personality-based contest of the political agents of the same exploiting classes.

They did not offer any strong differences in terms of program. They mouthed slogans against poverty and corruption and the need for change. But they said nothing about overcoming the three monsters of foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism which exploit, impoverish and oppress the people. They gave no serious attention to the worsening crisis of the domestic ruling system and the world capitalist system.

The bilateral alliance of Makabayan and the Nacionalista Party (NP) put forward a common program for land reform, food self-reliance and rural development, expansion of domestic manufacturing and job opportunities, respect for human rights, peace negotiations, ecological protection, review of the Visiting Forces Agreement and independent foreign policy. But the NP downplayed the program.

The biggest winners in the elections were those who attacked the hated Arroyo regime and who benefited most from the biggest collection of campaign money from the big foreign and local businessmen. At the beginning of the campaign, the Liberal Party pretended to rely on piso-piso contributions but it eventually collected and used the biggest amount of campaign money from the big businessmen, thus surpassing the Nacionalista Party in spending.

The unbelievably large leads of Noynoy Aquino over Estrada and Villar have aroused the inquiries into whether the election results were pre-programmed. There are reports that the foreign controllers of the automated system and the Kamag-anak Inc. were able to pre-program the results of the presidential and vice presidential elections. Complaints against poll irregularities are widespread and cast doubts on the veracity of the vote count

2. Can you explain further the victory of Noynoy Aquino?

JMS: Let us take in chronological order the factors that allowed Noynoy Aquino to get ahead of his principal rivals, especially Villar who appeared to be the No. 1 presidential candidate before Cory Aquino died and before Noynoy decided to run for the presidency.

Noynoy Aquino had a clever and agile set of propagandists who had a clear strategic line. To obscure his involvement in the Hacienda Luisita massacre and his palaboy record as a non-achiever in the Lower House and Senate , he was touted as the upright heir of his parents and as a moral crusader against corruption and he attacked the corruption of the Arroyo regime in order to ride on the widespread and bitter anti-Arroyo sentiment of the people.

Villar did not attack Arroyo in a strong way and became vulnerable to the Villaroyo line or the charge of being the secret candidate of Arroyo. In the early part of April, the results of two major survey polls done by firms owned and controlled by Aquino relatives and friends were accordingly used to bring down Villar in the mass media. The precipitous decline of Villar was further aggravated subsequently by the attacks from Estrada and Enrile about the 2007 initial public offering of the shares of stocks of the Villar real estate company.

Of all the reactionary parties, the Liberal Party raised the biggest amount of campaign money to surpass the volume of pro-Villar informercials in both TV and radio and other forms of propaganda. The Villar money was eventually no match to the contributions from Razon, Pangilinan, Ayala and other bigshots of the Makati Business Club and from the foreign big businessmen. The Arroyo couple did not deliver to the Lakas presidential candidate the money that they had collected for the campaign.

There are indications that Noynoy Aquino was able to take incredibly big leads over Estrada and Villar because of pre-programming of the vote count. This is the biggest possible form of cheating and the most difficult to prove in contrast to the anomalous shading of the ovals before and during the elections in specific localities. The automated electoral system does not prevent the cheating tactics of the past but in fact allows cheating in a bigger and faster way.

3. What did the electoral campaign and results reveal about the Makabayan and the progressive party list groups?

JMS: Makabayan and the progressive party list groups proved themselves outstanding in putting forward the national and democratic demands of the people. They also got far more votes than any of the pseudo-progressive grouplets. Makabayan got nearly ten per cent of the actual nationwide voters for each of its two senatorial candidates, Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza. And all together the progressive party list groups also got nearly ten per cent. I believe that Makabayan and the progressive party list groups had more than 10 percent of the electorate, if not for the vote shaving by the pre-programmers.

Most of the votes for Villar are equivalent to the basic electoral base of Makabayan and the progressive party list groups. Definitely, Villar benefited more from the NP-Makabayan alliance than Makabayan did. But by his refusal to denounce the Arroyo regime as strongly as did Aquino and Estrada, Villar prejudiced not only himself but also his Makabayan teammates. It prevented the Makabayan senatorial candidates from benefiting from the anti-Arroyo sentiment and increasing their votes beyond their basic electoral base.

However, the progressive party list groups remain a significant bloc with a high potential as a swing force within the reactionary congress. Makabayan could have been a more effective force had it been able to build itself as a party from top to bottom, with organs, units and candidates at every level long before the elections. Before the elections, Makabayan had limited capacity for negotiating with major parties. It was limited to pushing only two senatorial candidates and some candidates here and there at lower levels when it made an alliance with the NP.