Group 5 - Elections

Members: Carlos Castillo, Monica Gamboa, Jastine Legaspi, Harold Lim, Jonina Ramos, Dani
Sison, Dion Velasco

Discussion Points
1. Voter Mobilization
a. Established political dynamics and “critical elections”
i. Political dynamics: the prominent role of money in elections created a
structural imperative of fund-raising of politicians, and “political dynasties”
in municipalities, congressional districts, and provinces
ii. During “critical elections,” the mobilization of national citizens campaigns
for “free and fair” elections have helped to energise opposition bids
b. Long-term social and economic changes in the country, and the new institutional
framework for electoral politics in the 1987 Constitution
i. The structural decline of patron-client relations has been linked to
demographic change
ii. Shifts in the political party and voting system have followed changes to
the electoral rules in the post-Marcos period
iii. The expansion and differentiation of the Philippine economy over the past
several decades.

2. Public Opinion
a. “Public Opinion” has gained great circulation in the context of Philippine elections
i. When compared to construction and maintenance of machines, popularity
and poll ratings of candidates garnered greater circulation for political
discourse.
ii. The rise in public opinion has come to influence the process of election
campaigning.
1. This is seen in floating of candidates, party-switching, etc.
b. Public Opinion as political discourse in PH politics began to emerge only in the
context of crisis and mounting opposition of the late authoritarian period.
i. This is best exemplified by the SWS or Social Weather Station, which the
petition to bring Cory Aquino as president.
1. This brought the rise of surveys and statistics to forecast what the
public wanted.
c. Ever since, the practice of “polling” has gained increasing traction, as seen in the
number of surveys conducted all over the Philippines.
i. This is also caused by the plethora of parties and contenders after the
authoritarian period.
d. As the accumulation and anticipation of surveys have achieved both momentum
and continuous reproduction and circulation, the significance of public opinion as
such thus extends well beyond the (instrumental) uses and abuses of surveys to
 encompass (structural) effects of a different order in Philippine politics and
society.
i. There is a strong correlation between those who top the polls in the pre-
election surveys and those who actually file for candidacy.
ii. This may lead to effects such as lack of funding for low-performing would-
be candidates, and the like.
e. To conclude, the bandwagoning effect of polling, in other words, may set into
motion the logic of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as public opinion combines with
money and machinery to determine election results, but the ebb and flow of
public opinion appear genuinely difficult to predict or to manage.

Class Activity:
Option 1: Elections Simulation
1.) An elections among presidents post-Marcos will be held
2.) Polling will be done prior to the class (to show public opinion in relation to polls)
3.) Further campaigning will be done in class (showing pros and cons of each president, a
way of changing public opinion through campaigning)???
4.) Voting to be done electronically (use of laptops??)
5.) Skew the results to show electoral fraud?? (wait for class to object the results, showing
voter mobilization??)

Option 2: Choosing the Presidential candidate

1.) The class will be divided into 4 groups / One volunteer from each group, then the class
will act as the political party.
2.) Each volunteer will be given a key card about a particular candidate (so they represent
that political candidate) and in the card are all of the achievements or positive impact
that the candidate accomplished in their lifetime. They will also get key cards about
another candidate, but the card contains negative impacts or controversies that they are
involved in.
3.) “Campaign Period 1”: Here, the different candidates are to mention all of their
achievements, aka “sell and campaign”
4.) “Initial Voter Pulse 1”: We do a public headcount of who the party wants as their
candidate.
5.) “Campaign Period 2”: In this round, candidates will divulge the “negative” aspects of the
other candidate.
6.) Final Voting Period: Sit-down Paper votation of who the party candidate will be.

Notes:
Pulse gets us an initial count, but then we can also see how power play and
campaigning has the potential to influence the votes (campaign period 2; just highlight
differences between the headcount in voter pulse 1 and final voting period)
Other ideas: Instead of all just being candidates, we can have 3 candidates + 1 political
party that supports one of the candidates (so we can also put endorsement of political parties
and if it can affect voter turnout)