A good dose of democracy

We often hear, as a criticism of legislators, that their job is to make laws and not bring projects to their districts. But this ignores the single law every legislator is called upon to attend to, whether he or she wants to or not, every single year: the General Appropriations Act, otherwise known as the budget. And it starts with the representatives because, being the national officials closest to the people, theirs is, properly, what is called the power of the purse.

Except, of course, the parameters are drawn up outside the halls of Congress, in the executive, which submits the proposed national budget; and it is within the confines of that proposal that first, the House, then the Senate and then where the two still fail to agree, in the proceedings of the so-called “third chamber” of Congress—the bicameral conference committee in which representatives of both chambers haggle and compromise until they can enact something for the signature, or veto, of the President, at which point it becomes law.

There’s an old American saying that you should never see how two things are made: sausages and laws. A Filipino might put it differently. There are three things you shouldn’t see made: patis, bagoong, and Republic Acts. That’s because the ingredients for all three are unromantic, earthy, and indeed, biological: politically, voters and their leaders are alike in voting on the basis of three pressing interests: “I, me, and myself.” Ayuda for you is ayuda for me.

So what is Navotas City Rep. Toby Tiangco doing, demanding to see which of his peers wanted what, and when, when it came to budget items in the budget? You might as well demand to conduct an autopsy on a sow by dissecting a longganisa: it is an act of futility. But then you might remember talk in the still-hopeful early days of the midterm campaign, when it was suggested the next speaker would be Tiangco since the Palace was displeased with the incumbent. The poor showing of the President’s slate killed Tiangco’s chances, but now his (or someone else’s higher up) desire to get even with a House that demanded the fattiest sausage on record—never mind it carrying the label, “Marca Marcos.”

A demand the President seemed unwilling or incapable of refusing at the time, and I think we can guess why.

Let me tell you my favorite Abraham Lincoln story. A friend waiting to see him together, with dozens of other people, saw Lincoln emerge from one room and rush to another. Catching his friend’s eye, Lincoln smiled, shrugged, and said, “Too many piglets, too few teats.” He was referring to the central political preoccupation of presidents then and now, the allocation of resources among friends, difficult to tell apart from locusts. At its most basic level, it’s what one of Lincoln’s predecessors, Andrew Jackson, bluntly called “the spoils system,” as in, “to the victor belongs the spoils.”

Since 1978, when the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. instituted the Interim Batasang Pambansa, up to now, our country has had a one-party system. There is a constant majority, the only difference being whether it will be a supermajority or a megamajority. It changes its name and its nominal leadership the moment the results of a presidential election are known, at which point every new president finds him or herself being ruled by extortion: the wilier or more statesmanlike will find ways to moderate or channel the greed, but the instant because a permanent majority is the fundamental reason why little changes—or gets done. The bureaucracy is a permanent, majority expense for agencies; what is left must then support the permanent political majorities in the legislature and in local governments (on the excuse of being “nonpolitical,” barangay officials are another permanent horde, as are the local barons that rule the provincial and city roosts).

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Wi-Fi before water? 

When the President recently told legislators they should be ashamed of themselves, he was speaking not in the moralistic terms of civil society (which doesn’t win elections) but in the more basic, time-honored terms of the political class he belongs to and currently heads.

This is best expressed by another story, about that ole time populist Huey Long, former governor then senator from Louisiana in the 1930s, and what he said during one of his campaigns. At a rally, he bragged about how he punished a parish (Louisiana’s name for districts) where he’d lost. Then he looked at his audience long and hard, until they fell silent with fear. He shook his fist at them and thundered, “Vote for me, or by God, you’ll get good government!”

If only someone would tell the Senate President this classic tale forthwith.