THE 1986 'SNAP' PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

(This is for the millennials, who hardly know the Marcos dictatorship and the pivotal presidential elections in our history.)

On February 7, 1986, or exactly 31 years ago, the Philippines held the first ever “snap” presidential elections in its political history. Dictator Ferdinand Marcos called it his biggest blunder because the elections became a major antecedent, or virtual catalyst, that led to the fateful 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution that toppled his dictatorship.

The presidential elections was called “snap” because it was not in accordance with provisions of the 1973 Constitution, the fundamental law that propped up the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. It was called at the "snap" of the dictator's fingers, so to speak. "Just like that," as we use to say it in street language.

Its constitutionality was questioned before the Supreme Court sometime in December, 1985, but the High Court, after a single day of oral arguments, gave the green light by invoking the political question doctrine. Hence, it did not have any constitutional impediment.

Antecedents

Marcos called the snap presidential elections as his response to widespread criticisms that he was governing without any mandate from the Filipino people. Marcos was exercising dictatorial powers without the Filipino people’s consent, which was best expressed in elections. He was an unelected dictator, no different from the dictators of some banana republics in Latin America.

It was in 1981 when Marcos last called for presidential elections. The world community looked at it as sham because his minions rigged it with him as the eventual winner. It did not have credibility after the political opposition boycotted it.

The national economy was also in shambles. Prime Minister Cesar Virata had declared the unilateral moratorium on the repayment of the country’s foreign debts shortly after the August 21, 1983 murder of top opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr., father of the erstwhile president. The moratorium closed the global financial faucet to the national economy.

The country could not import; the economy was in a standstill. The national economy posted negative growth rates for three consecutive years. Key business executives in the financial district of Makati lost their jobs and some sold copies of encyclopedia to eke out a living. There was massive unemployment. There was then a prevailing mood of hopelessness, helplessness, and powerless triggered by the economic recession.

Meanwhile, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was expanding by leaps and bounds; the economic decline triggered the shift of support to the communist rebels. Its military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA), was emboldened to launch series of ambushes and daring attacks on state troopers. Its political arm, the National Democratic Front (NDF) was quite successful in coalescing with middle elements, which included Church leaders from the majority and minority Churches.

Marcos was widely perceived to have lost control of the country. He was blamed for the three major ills that plagued the country during those days: over-centralized graft, where he earned fat under-the-table commissions from foreign-funded big-ticket state projects; crony capitalism, where his stable of friends and cronies cornered fat government contracts and created agricultural monopolies; and wanton violations of human rights, where tens of thousands of student activists, Church workers, and sectoral leaders were arrested and detained without charges, tortured, and executed, even as a number of them involuntarily disappeared without a trace until today.

Announcement

On November 3, 1985, Marcos stunned the nation and even the international community, when he announced in the U.S. television program, “This Week with David Brinkley,” that he was calling presidential elections in sixty days. Brinkley was on leave during that day but conservative newspaper columnist George Will and ABC’s White House correspondent Sam Donaldson deftly substituted for him.

I watched the television interview, which was aired live by the state television station, now the PTV 4, and wrote a spot news about his announcement for the Japanese public. I was then working for Jiji Press, a Japanese news agency, of which I was a Manila-based correspondent.

George Will raised the widely held criticism that Marcos was governing without any mandate, as his mandate was already lost. He did not know Marcos was waiting for the cue and he immediately jumped to it by announcing that he wanted to call elections in “eight months, or three months, or less.”

Donaldson joined the fray and asked for any preconditions to hold elections, to which Marcos replied that it did not have any preconditions. Anyone in the political opposition could run, he said, adverting to Cory Aquino and Salvador Laurel, two ranking opposition leaders during those days.

Many leaders of the Klusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL or New Society Movement), a coalition of politicians, technocrats, military officials, and sectoral leaders who supported the Marcos dictatorship did not appreciate the holding of “snap” presidential elections, expressing fears that its dynamics would be beyond the control of Marcos. Besides, they were not consulted by Marcos, a wily politician who always held his cards closed to his chest.

Even wife Imelda did not like the idea. The same was true with Washington, which regarded the snap presidential elections as the proverbial powder keg that could blew the country apart and trigger the further emergence of the communist rebels. In the end, Marcos prevailed. He set the date on February 7, 1986. Marcos was a deeply superstitious political leader, who believed that 7 was his lucky number.

Many quarters thought that Marcos was caught in a trap set by Will and Donaldson and that his announcement of snap presidential elections was more of a spur-of-the-moment decision made during the TV interview. But Marcos was a deliberate man. It was a well thought announcement.

The truth was he was already contemplating to call it because of the frequent criticisms that he was no longer in control of the situation. U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt, a Republican lawmaker, claimed that he suggested it to Marcos sometime in October, 1985, when he visited Manila. Later, Laxalt played a big role to convince Marcos to flee at the height of the fateful EDSA Revolution.

Opposition dynamics

Leaders of the political opposition did not immediately agree on the presidential candidate the opposition would field to face Marcos. The camps of Cory Aquino and Salvador Laurel bickered, believing that either candidate was the rightful contender to face Marcos in a one-on-one showdown.

The late Manila Prelate Jaime Cardinal Sin intervened and convinced Laurel to give way to Cory Aquino and chose to run as her vice presidential candidate. He succeeded. The Cory-Doy ticket was born under the United Democratic Opposition (Unido). Marcos chose a veteran politician in former senator Arturo Tolentino as his running mate.

Several quarters challenged the constitutionality and legality of the snap presidential elections before the Marcos-control Supreme Court. Former Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez appeared as an amicus curiae during the oral arguments and successfully convinced the magistrate that the issue had become a political issue. Two hours after the oral arguments, the Supreme Court decided in favor of its holding,and adopted Pelaez’s arguments that the issue was indeed political.

The snap presidential elections only had 30 days of political campaign. I remember covering the Unido kick off rally in Batangas City, where Laurel explained before his provincemates the reasons for his decision to slide down to the vice presidency. Wily as ever, Marcos did not give sufficient time for the political opposition to campaign.

Indeed, the political campaign was characterized by harassment and intimidation. In some areas, the electricity was cut off, forcing the opposition candidates to speak before the people in the dark. But the opposition was prepared for those contingencies. They brought candles to light the political meetings.

February 7, 1986 was a day characterized by widespread cheating by Marcos minions, who stole ballot boxes, replaced them with fake ballot boxes stuffed with fake ballots with Marcos as winner, and violence, where Marcos armed supporters intimidated voters to vote for the Marcos-Tolentino ticket.

The National Movement from Free Elections (Namfrel), a private watchdog organization, fielded thousands of volunteers, who monitored the election proceedings and documented those instances of electoral violations. Washington also sent a bipartisan team of lawmakers as observers. The U.S. monitoring team likewise reported instances of massive cheating and applications of violence.

The results of the Feb. 7, 1986 snap presidential elections were inconclusive. Marcos led in the official returns of the watchdog Commission of Elections. But Cory Aquino was leading in the Namfrel parallel count. Even the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said that Marcos did not win the elections. The rubber stamp Batasang Pambansa composed mostly of Marcos minions declared Marcos and Tolentino as victors, making them official winners.

It was the EDSA People Power Revolution that settled the issue. Cory Aquino replaced Marcos after the latter was toppled in the near bloodless uprising. Hence, Cory Aquino assumed the presidency on the basis of the outcome of the EDSA People Power Revolution, not the snap presidential elections.