THE Philippines once had two presidents but only for a few days.
On Tuesday, February 25, 1986, Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino held dueling presidential inauguration ceremonies, each being sworn in as President of the Philippines.
Each claiming to be duly elected by the people in “snap elections” held a few weeks before. With Trump’s refusal to concede, could the 2020 presidential election lead to a similar scenario?
When major media organizations called the U.S. presidential elections for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, jubilation over their victory led to celebrations in the streets, complete with someone spraying the crowd with champagne, and others crying with joy. Trump is still to concede as of this writing, claiming that he had prevailed by a large margin of votes. It is over a week now since media organizations predicted the Biden/Harris victory.
Official results, have yet to be certified (as expected) as every ballot cast has to be duly counted, with election workers in every state and county working feverishly to meet deadlines.
During the February 1986 Philippine elections, the counting became fraught with allegations and counter allegations of fraud, with the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC), a government but Marcos controlled entity, and a non-partisan, election poll watcher, NAMFREL coming up with different tallies. COMELEC had Marcos ahead in the count, while NAMFREL’s favored Aquino. The conflicting tallies came to a head when 35 COMELEC computer technicians staged a walkout alleging that the figures they were posting did not correspond to the tallies that were getting posted. This protest pretty much sealed the faith of Marcos as the election loser. NAMFREL’s numbers became the accepted figures for election results. And the specter of widespread social unrest became a reality. The dueling inaugurations were only a front, as the U.S. worked behind the scenes to diffuse the situation.
Folks will recall that this was during the Cold War era; the Philippines was a client state of the U.S. Marcos was dependent on assistance, especially military assistance, to maintain himself in power. All he had to do, really, in order to maintain himself in power, was to demonstrate, as a fig leaf, some adherence to democratic processes, such as holding periodic “demonstration elections”to insure continued U.S. Support. (Demonstration elections was the term that the progressive community applied to elections held by dictators in U.S. Client states.)
In the fall of 1985, during an interview with Nightline’s host, Ted Koppel, Koppel observed that Marcos appeared to be losing public support. Marcos denied this, and with much bravado, asserted, “If you want, I will hold elections to prove this.” This set in motion an unscheduled presidential election in the Philippines, thus the term “snap elections.” No other offices were at stake, only the presidency (and vice presidency). As the cliche goes, the rest is history.
U.S. Senator Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, went to the Philippines to observe the elections. Upon his return he convinced President Ronald Reagan, a fellow Republican, that Marcos claims about winning were without merit, but Marcos’ intransigence in the face of election results might well plunge the Philippines, into chaos, and open the way for an ascendant communist insurgency to take over.
The alternative, to abide by the election results and transfer power to Corazon Aquino, would be much more desirable. This led President Reagan to offer Marcos safe passage out of the Philippines and safe haven in Hawaii. Lore has it that Senator Lugar, after delivering the details of President Ronald Reagan’s offer said with finality, “it’s time to leave, Mr. President.” A couple of days later, under cover of darkness, Marcos abandoned Malacañang, the official residence of Philippine presidents. When news spread that Marcos had left, jubilation spilled out into the streets of the capitol region with Filipinos shouting, “We are free! We are free!”
I would be remiss if I failed to recognize the role that Filipinos played in this “relatively” peaceful and “bloodless” (there were injuries but no lives lost) transition into a Corazon Aquino-led government. The threat of a bloodbath was very real as parts of the military headed by General Fidel Ramos, and Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile staged a military revolt, taking control of Camp Crame, and called upon other members of the armed forces to join them. A bloody confrontation between forces led by Ramos/Enrile and Marcos loyalists was averted by civilians literally flooding access points to Camp Crame, especially EDSA, the beltway boulevard that bordered Manila. Barricades and civilian bodies were literally thrown into the paths of tanks and troop carriers to prevent Marcos loyalist forces from reaching the military rebels. It is really this outpouring of civilian support for the military revolt led by Ramos and Enrile and that morally undermined any Marcos claims of legitimacy and hastened defections. This revolt is known today as the EDSA/People Power revolution. Marcos might have suffered a more ignominious faith, had the U.S. not intervened to pluck him out of the Philippines.
Republicans (Lugar and Reagan) then affirmed the people’s vote in the Philippines for Aquino. In the current U.S. election, they have become conspicuously silent, despite uncontroverted vote counts heavily favoring Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, raising probabilities of a post-election scenario of one country, two presidents for the U.S.A.
American democracy, depends as much on law, as on tradition. The law decrees that every president must stand for election every four years, and can serve no more than eight years, or two terms. Tradition dictates to insure a smooth transfer of power that the losing candidate concede the elections, as soon as it becomes fairly clear, that he cannot win the majority of electoral college votes. This same tradition also dictates that the outgoing president provide as much assistance and resources to the incoming president to insure a minimum of disruption on the affairs of the state and the federal government.
Policy and security briefs must be prepared. Security codes must be transferred, and security clearances must be obtained in preparation for these transfers.
Clearly, an outgoing president’s concession of the election is pivotal to all these. Though not legally required, it eases and smoothens the transfer of power, and tells his supporters to abide by the election results, as he is. There is an unwritten social contract to elections, by the way, which is that by participating in the election process, we all agree to abide by the results, everything else being equal. Compliance with this unwritten contract to abide by the election results is the basis for smooth transfers of power in any democracy. Losing candidates and their supporters who renege from this contract endanger the democratic transfer of power and the processes that presuppose it. The result could very well be violence, civil unrest, a military coup, or civil war.
While I am normally be skeptical about predictions of civil unrest and violence from this election, I cannot make light of them in light of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. He has stoked fear, and repeatedly made baseless claims about election irregularities. His othering of women, LGBTQ+ folks, and persons of color has encouraged a siege mentality among his followers. During the RNC, he has warned that “Joe Biden and the radical left are also now coming for our freedom of speech, and want to bully us into submission.”
Other convention speakers declared that “They (Democrats and Sanders) want to destroy this country.” Trump has stoked violence and insurrection; his irresponsible tweet, “Liberate Michigan,” may have encouraged a self-styled militia group to plot the kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Fortunately, the plot was foiled.
American democracy is at an inflection point. President Trump can choose to abide by tradition and graciously concede in light of uncontroverted election results, or he can be intransigent. I call on him to do the noble thing, as President Reagan did when it came to the Philippine election results: Comply with the choice of the people. It’s time to leave, Mr. Trump.
* * *
The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.
• • •
Enrique de la Cruz is Professor Emeritus of Asian American Studies at Cal State University, Northridge.
