“THE law is harsh, but it is the law.” So goes the saying. That said, we could also say that democracy is imperfect, but it is the only political system that we have. It could be good or bad, depending on who is looking at it, but by force of circumstance, capitalism is the constant companion of democracy. Unlike communism wherein the political system and the economic system is bound by the same ideology, it is only democracy that we could consider as the ideology, because there is no ideology at all behind capitalism, an economic system that is driven by nothing else but the profit motive. We may not like the fact that democracy bundled with capitalism does not really make one whole system, but we really do not have a choice, because the more we do not like communism either, even if it is one whole system. We are supposed to believe in the legal fiction that a democratic government would be strong enough to hold a capitalistic society under its reigns, but that fiction is so far from the truth, because in reality it is the “golden rule” that prevails, i.e. “he who owns the gold makes the rules”. In theory, both the rich and the poor are supposed to have equal chances to win in an election, being a democratic process, but that too, is far from the truth, because as of now, it is only the rich that could afford to run and win. Although it has already become a sad refrain, I would still say that wealthy candidates will always win for as long as the “politics of patronage” will still be dominant. I do not know how and when it would happen, but there are many of us who would still hope that one day, sooner or later, the “politics of performance” would come into play. Many would say that the purpose of public service is to deliver public services, but I believe that it should not end there, because public servants should really go beyond plain and simple public service. We could only understand this point if we could understand the difference between growth and development, as well as the difference between poverty alleviation and poverty reduction. Growth can happen even without proper planning and good management, but real socioeconomic development could only happen with proper planning and more so it would happen if it is coupled with good management. Sad to say, many public servants would even think that poverty alleviation is synonymous with poverty reduction, but that is not true. For the record, the leftist elements in our society have already debunked plain and simple public services as being part of poverty alleviation, because they argue that public services, no matter how good these are, are part of the usual and normal duties of public servants. By my definition, poverty alleviation means anything and everything that a government would do to lessen the impact of poverty or to enable the poor people to feel better somehow, despite their economic status in life. Poverty reduction on the other hand, by my own definition, means anything and everything that a government would do to graduate people from below the poverty line, or in other words, to numerically lower the poverty rate as a whole. Poverty alleviation could be likened to an anesthesia injection, while poverty reduction could be likened to a surgical operation. What we would usually call the “politics of performance” could actually be called the “politics of development”, to emphasize the importance of good development planning as opposed to circumstantial growth. It would be reasonable to think that under a democracy, it would be possible to elect public servants who are capable of planned development and managed growth, if there is really such a thing as the latter. As I see it, any good chief executive officer (CEO) of any respectable corporation could actually become a good Mayor or Governor, because being a good executive is what they are, regardless of whether they are retired or not. Although that would be the ideal situation, politicians appear to be a different species from the corporate executives, and the reality is that most experienced executives would not even think of entering politics. Whether we like it or not, our election process has become a popularity contest, therefore it is actually the “politics of popularity” that comes into play. Many political analysts would say that candidates would either get “command votes” or “market votes” or a combination of both. Obviously, it is the “politics of patronage” that dictates the behavior of the command votes, and there is very little that we could do with that. There is however a ray of hope that we could still do something about the “market votes”, if only the “politics of popularity” could be steered towards more rationality instead of mere familiarity. Any Tom, Dick and Harry could easily come up with a political platform, but what is harder to do is to design development programs that would become the basis for implementing projects. Based on existing government practices, policies have to be formulated first before programs could be designed, because policies are the legal basis for the creation of programs. Down the line, programs have to be designed first before projects could be implemented. If we apply these practices to the local government level, there is a chance that the behavior of “market votes” would become more rational, because in theory, the electorate will vote for those candidates that could make real socio-economic development happen, instead of just delivering public services. When I was a student of literature, I was taught that “art is the reflection of society”. Considering our present reality, we could perhaps say that “our politics is the reflection of our society”. If only our society will demand performance, those politicians who merely rely on patronage will not get elected. In reality however, it is only an intelligent electorate could vote good executives into office. Our politics being a reflection of our society as it is now, there are still very few intelligent voters so to speak, and therefore we could not really expect good executives to be elected as of now. In this new world of social networking and increasing mobile access however, there is still hope that all these could change, hopefully in the near future. Going back to the subject of ideology, all of our mainstream political parties would have no choice but to profess that they are all promoting democratic ideals. All things being equal among them however, they would also have no choice but to present to us what brand of democracy they are actually promoting. In this connection, we could perhaps say that the only way to differentiate one brand of democracy from another is to compare one approach towards development from another. Much as I would like to say that poverty reduction should be the main goal of development, I would rather say that the main goal should be regional economic dominance. Indeed, if we become the dominant economy in the region, no one will bully us in our own territory, and no one will think of dumping their unwanted garbage in our shores. E-mail: bantaygobyerno-subscribe@yahoogroups.com