A reality not lost on the Cha-cha boys

Why do politicians behave the way they do?

Politicians behave for a number of reasons. Some are driven by ideology, a category to which left-leaning politicians belong. Others feel so deeply about an issue, to the point of risking an electoral defeat. This is what exactly happened to Ralph Recto, principal author of E-VAT, who lost his second senatorial bid in 2007.

Untangling this web of complex motivations, public choice theory assumes that politicians behave to maximize their chances of re-election. Very simply, public choice theory says politicians are vote-maximizers.

Take the Cha-cha being hatched by the President’s men. Just this day, news broke out that Lakas-CMD, in its executive committee meeting, decided to put the Cha-cha bid on the back burner to avoid a 2010 election fiasco.

“Grim prospects of a resounding defeat in the 2010 national elections,” Ben Rosario of Manila Bulletin reports, “have prompted top officials of Lakas-CMD, the country’s most dominant political party, to give up the Charter Change (Cha-Cha) bid that is being espoused by its members in the House of Representatives.”

In contemplating for the fate of Cha-cha, its ardent proponents certainly had in mind the results of the surveys conducted by such polling institutions as SWS and Pulse Asia. Recent Pulse Asia survey, for instance, shows that a “sizable majority” or 64 percent of Filipinos do not think that it is appropriate now to tinker with the Constitution — a view “shared by majorities (60 to 70 percent) in all geographic areas and social groupings.”

This reality is not lost on the Cha-cha boys. Listen to Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri’s counsel to his colleagues. “I-withdraw n’yo na ang Cha-Cha, Mr. Zubiri, who presided over the meeting, was overheard as saying, adding, “Matatalo lang tayo sa 2010 pag tinuloy n’yo yan. Cha-Cha is a very unpopular issue; ayaw ng tao dyan,” Zubiri was overheard saying during the meeting.”

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