Pollwatching, Elections and Civil Society in Southeast Asia (Leeds Studies in Democratization) by William A. Callahan

Author:William A. Callahan [Callahan, William A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Campaigns & Elections, Political Science, Political Process
ISBN: 9781840144741
Google: 0X-YDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 1613111
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing
Published: 1999-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

6 Parallels: From Civic Organisation to Mass Movements

NAMFREL and the Democratic Movement

There are many interesting parallels that can be drawn between PollWatch and civic groups in the Philippines in their workings in civil society. The most obvious parallel is the role that each played in democratic mass movements. In addition to the specific mandates of PollWatch, NAMFREL, PPCRV and Votecare, such groups can also spread out informally in times of crisis to mass movements and civil disobedience. These interrelated activities show how civil society works both through institutions and through spontaneous action. It was the experience the people gained from working in NAMFREL that facilitated the conversion of the Snap Election to a Snap Revolution in 1986. The history of the Edsa Revolution is well-known, so I will examine how NAMFREL was involved in both elite and mass spaces.

At the elite level NAMFREL leaders Joe Conception and Christian Monsod worked closely with Cardinal Jaime Sin to mobilize forces for the mass rallies that eventually brought down Marcos in February 1986.1 For example, the main crisis came when Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos called for a military mutiny against Marcos and his corrupt elections. Since they could not defend themselves at Fort Aquinaldo, they asked Cardinal Sin for help in calling the people to form a human shield around the base. Sin did this in a message read over the Church-affiliated radio network Radio Veritas, and this “first message…was drafted by Joe Concepcion and Chris Monsod on the Cardinal’s instructions” (Byington, 1988: 199).

Thus NAMFREL was instrumental in turning the election campaign into a mass movement by helping Cardinal Sin turn Ramos’ and Enrile’s revolt from an “internal army affair into a national movement”.2 In this way it joined with other progressive forces in a broader civil society which had been using the 1986 election with a “praxis approach” to “voice out their discontent”. But “[w]ith the utter failure of the electoral process, the political struggle was now transferred to the terrain of mass pressure politics”.3 As history has shown, people came out in force in Manila and other places to practise civil disobedience in civil society against the Marcos dictatorship.4

It was not NAMFREL as a institutional body that took part in the 1986 Revolution. Actually, many NAMFREL volunteers were still busy finishing Operation Quick Count which only issued its final tabulation on the day that Marcos fled the Philippines (Byington, 1988: 201). But NAMFREL had enhanced the legitimacy of the election and publicized the Marcos government’s corrupt practices. The many people who had been politicized and trained by NAMFREL used these skills and experience in the mass movement.

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