Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has received more voter support than any other politician in the history of Philippine elections. In 1995, when she ran for the legislature, she received 16 million votes, and in the 1998 race for vice president, she received another 13 million votes. Both records were unprecedented. Clearly, she is a major player. Two years ago, when she had first become president, her ambition was also palpable. She was determined to follow in the footsteps of her father, former president Diosdado Macapagal, not only by being an absolutely incorruptible president, but also by making the economy the pride of the Philippines once again. During Macapagal's presidency (1961-65), the Philippines was a great economic power in Asia, second only to Japan.
But now, just two years later, this diminutive giant of the Philippines has become discouraged. She has announced that she will not run for another term in office, and her primary reason for dropping out of the race is that she has had enough of endless political strife. Since she herself is at the center of much of the strife, she has no choice but to drop out if she wants to get away from the fighting and concentrate without distraction on developing the economy for the last two years of her term in office.
Arroyo's regrets and her decision not to run were very similar in tone to the recent announcement by Al Gore that he will not run again in the next US presidential election. Relative to other political figures, Arroyo and Gore both seem at least somewhat idealistic, but no matter how idealistic they are or how high their positions, in the end they both say they have had enough of politics. Getting out became their only choice.
If even people like themselves who stand at the summit of power are that fed up with political strife, then one can imagine that "fed up" hardly suffices to describe the feelings of the general public toward politics, politicians, and political strife. People absolutely detest these things.
The well-known columnist for The Washington Post E.J. Dionne Junior wrote a best-selling book in the 1990s entitled Why Americans Hate Politics. Although he was writing about the US, the nature of unscrupulous politicians and the ugly face of political strife are the same everywhere.
For example, Dionne repeatedly emphasizes the concept of "false choices" in his book. This phenomenon occurs in the US and in the Philippines and Taiwan as well. Politicians from different political parties are clearly similar in their policy positions, but they intentionally seek to differentiate between themselves and shun common ground. They do this when campaigning, when governing, and also when deliberating policy. The result is what Dionne describes as "one nation, divisible."
In addition, Dionne believes an important reason the public hates politics is that what politicians do is utterly irrelevant to the needs of the public. Political strife is an "insider's game." Politicians wage life or death battles among themselves, but the public, who are outsiders, get nothing but a show. What makes people even more angry is that politicians take their complaints, frustrations and hopes and use them as tools in their battles. On the surface, to put it nicely, these politicians appear to be reflecting public opinion, but at heart they are just waging political battles.
Unfortunately, while Arroyo and Gore can choose to get out of politics, the citizenry can't get away from it. All people can do is pin their hopes on one election after another. But waiting for a political scene that won't inspire loathing is probably like waiting for Godot.
Wang Chien-chuang is president of The Journalist magazine.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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