For the past few months, election-related items have been slowly filling up newspaper front pages and television headlines. It is something not surprising, really—with the 2016 presidential and national elections just a few months away, politicians are starting to court public opinion in order to land themselves a good spot in the next administration.
Election preparations are also underway, if not heavily hounded by the exact same issues from the 2013 elections. According to an article published in Rappler, the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) expects three million new voters on top of the 54 M currently registered voters in the country.
However, the voter turnout, while impressive compared to some Western democracies, is somewhat disappointing. COMELEC statistics indicate that during the 2013 elections, only 40 M, or 77.19%, out of the registered 52 M had actually voted during the elections.
This is the backdrop where the newly minted Ateneo Task Force 2016 (ATF 2016) finds itself. On April 4, the Sanggunian released a resolution with the purpose of outlining the goals and responsibilities of ATF 2016. This document, keeping with the tradition set by the past two task forces, establishes the ATF 2016 as the Ateneo’s official student group responsible for all activities in line with the 2016 national elections.
Turning the tide
The ATF 2016 plans to bring the concept of elections down to the university level and consolidate all elections-related efforts with other existing student groups and organizations within the Ateneo. ATF 2016 Head Mawe Duque explains this stakeholder-partnership management as an attempt to “not only reach out to a bigger audience but also to see what competencies we [the ATF] can share to improve our efforts.” Duque emphasizes that there are various other groups also mobilizing for the national elections, and ATF is trying to “synergize more with these groups to deliver our objectives in terms of sharing of resources, advocacies, or competencies.”
The main objective of ATF 2016 revolves around the belief that Filipino citizens, especially Ateneans, are not politically active and thus need to be rallied to ensure their participation.
Meanwhile, 2nd Year School of Science and Engineering (SOSE) Central Board Representative Railey Montalan worries that Ateneans suffer from non-politicization, or their lack of any political interest whatsoever. “ATF isn’t just preparing the Ateneans for the national elections,” he says. “Through this project that we’re doing, we’re trying to make the student body talaga really more integrated into our government.”
Simultaneously, ATF 2016 Co-Head Lanz Espacio stresses the importance of the “Millennial Vote.” According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, around 28 M Filipinos are aged 15-30—more than 50% of the total amount of registered voters. Espacio reiterates then that “the youth, if every young person chooses to exercise their right to vote, can decide the future of the country by electing the next set of leaders.”
However, the ATF 2016’s initiatives to improve voter turnout for the national elections do not overshadow the fact that elections on campus are suffering from the same issue. The Sanggunian has been suffering consecutive failures of elections due to the inability to meet the required student quota. This complication mirrors the national issue of fluctuating voter turnout, and brings to light the question of the Atenean psyche when it comes to political issues.
A political will
Through the years, the Atenean political psyche has been subject to the social and political conditions present. Vice President for Social Development Jaime Hofileña affirms this, saying that particularly during the Martial Law, the political context was palpable. Ateneans were aware of the social injustice the Filipinos were subjected to during the regime, and participated as well in political movements to reform that.
This, Hofileña says, owes to the excesses executed by the regime resulting to a call for well-meaning citizens to do something about it. “It was a life-or-death situation,” he says. “You [had] to go against Marcos.”
In a sense, the political climate during that time motivated Ateneans to take part, and while others may not have been active, the urgency of the situation made it so that they could not remain ignorant of the prevailing national issues.
In the years after the EDSA Revolution, the activism that was so present during the Martial Law shifted down to what Hofileña describes was a desire to do reforms, but not in a very militant way. He says that this is because it isn’t as risky now to protest against the government as it was back then, and that the people can change the leaders they do not like in a more democratic and less violent manner.
Despite this, however, there seems to be less appetite to use the political freedoms that were not available in 1973. This was evident in the 2010 elections, which took place with the backdrop of numerous corruption scandals. Office for Social Concern and Involvement (OSCI) Student Affairs Professional Harald Tomintz points out that 2010 was a “moment for change,” as the country was electing a successor—President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III—to a president that had been there “since forever”—Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Despite the hype of the corruption issues, the call to arms, so to say, was not as strong as it was during the Martial Law, and the Ateneans’ political involvement was not as widespread. Tomintz draws on his own experiences during that period, when student leaders from the Sanggunian initiated the satellite voter’s registration. “[The] notion was there that they wanted to involve the Ateneans in the process,” he says.
In retrospect, Tomintz thinks the efforts were “okay,” as indicated by the students being able to give detailed explanations of why they were supporting a certain candidate. He feels, however, that even with all the outlets available to the Ateneans by which they could be politically involved, there is still a lack of participation on their part.
National Service Training Program (NSTP) Team Leader Antoinette Santos shares the same sentiments. In 2010, the NSTP OSCI required the students under the program—exempting those who were not yet eligible—to register for the national elections. They presented it as not a requirement of the program, but an obligation as citizens of the country. A number of students did register, but only a few actually voted.
In that aspect, Tomintz thinks that the institution and the organizations that the Ateneo has can only give so much. “Registering them to vote is one thing,” he says, “but giving them the will so they would go to the elections themselves and [share] their opinions is another story.”
Lingering detachment
Hofileña feels that the Ateneo community’s general attitude towards the 2016 national elections shows “a bit of detachment.” He bases this observation on the Ateneans’ participation—or lack thereof—in internal politics.
“We all know the travails of the Sanggunian in the past years,” Hofileña says. He adds that if there is any metric by which Atenean motivation for political involvement can be measured, it is by the effort of the students to organize themselves into a political body that will govern their interests.
Some students, especially in the more recent elections, have chosen not to vote out of disbelief in democratic systems, because they have seen them fail in the university level. It is not hard to imagine this disbelief—a cynicism towards the idea of a government ever ruling in their interests—translating itself into the national setting as well.
NSTP Formator Clefvan Pornela feels that indifference may be due to the culture in the Ateneo, with the students usually coming from higher economic classes. Since the students are “sheltered” in the university, they may not be aware of the structural problems that exist in other sectors of the country. This lack of awareness and immersion affects their ability to relate to national issues and willingness to participate in nationwide discourse. He adds that there is a need to push the Ateneans to be more aware of the national situation.
In this regard, Pornela thinks that the ATF 2016 is taking the right steps towards that direction. He says that having ATF 2016 as one body to mobilize the students is good, in the sense that their role as a task force is specific so their efforts are clearer and more directed.
While these efforts may not exactly instil in students the will to be politically involved, at the very least these will serve as opportunities for them to be educated in national issues.
Hofileña, however, says that it is too early to tell how effective the ATF 2016 will be in mobilizing the students for the national elections, given that the phases have yet to be implemented. The question of whether its operations will have enough of an influence on the students’ desire to vote, and if it will trigger changes in the Atenean political psyche, can be answered only come election day.
Sustainable impact
Hopes are high for the effectiveness of the task force. For his part, Duque hopes that everyone “[will] be more critical and politically involved in politics as a sustainable and long-term machinery for developments in the country” at the end of the elections.
Espacio shares that he would also like to see the ATF 2016’s efforts be more sustainable in terms of long-term impact. By this, he means more politically involved Ateneans engaging in discourse on national issues and the greater goal of nation-building.
The ultimate goal, then, is not just to get people to talk, but to get people to not tire of talking. The ATF seems to have recognized that issues such as corruption and economic development should not just exist in the public consciousness only during election season.
To even get to that, however, people need to be interested in talking in the first place. Whether the ATF 2016’s operations can persuade a large number of students to commit to more than just haphazard conversations—whether they will be able to have this sort of sustainable impact—remains to be seen.
