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By BenCyrus G. Ellorin

ON Bangkok’s streets, one sees an array of red and yellow flags. Traffic was almost at a standstill over the weekend as red shirted protesters upped their protests against the present regime.

When I wrote this, the front page of The Nation, one of Thailand’s major dailies, splashed a photo of a sculpture of a red-trunked muay thai fighter landing a solid kick on the head of his yellow-trunked opponent.

Driving past the Royal Grand Palace, the traditional symbol of power of Thailand, one still sees the remnants of the huge demonstration of the red shirts. Their tents are still there and laud speakers still blaring anti-government speeches. Army troopers scour the busy Bangkok sidewalks.

The red shirts belong to the United Front Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) which is calling Prime Minister Ahbisit Vejjajiva to dissolve Congress and hold elections. Abhisit of the Democratic Party was catapulted power in 2008 after yellow-shirted protesters staged massive protests actions which included the occupation and crippling of Bangkok’s main international airport, the Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Thailand’s political landscape has been on a roller-coaster ride since the 2006 coup d’etat that sent Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra into exile.

While the red shirts are generally referred to as Thaksin loyalists and the yellow shirts as supporters of the present regime, the Thai political conflict is deeper than that. The deeper context of this conflict are the differences between Thailand’s rural poor and the Bangkok elites. Thaksin’s name prominently figure in this conflict as he has a mass of supporters from rural Thailand which is not an iota of shadow to the highly urbanized capital, Bangkok.

The yellows represent the traditional Thai elites and the current dominant political forces in the country. At the core of the red shirt’s grievance many political observers say is the snobbery, arrogance, exploitative and oppressive characteristic of the Bangkok elite who are ruling the country.

The political situation in Thailand now is akin to the Philippines. Many political scholars in Bangkok would agree that the huge protest actions in Bangkok drew some lessons from Manila and the Philippines’ protest movement. To wit, two people’s power revolts have ousted two presidents––dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001. Marcos was exiled in the US and later died in Hawaii. Estrada was convicted by Philippine courts for plunder, a high crime, but was given executive clemency by the present regime under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Queerly, he is now running for president in the May 10, 2010 elections.

Thaksin has been on the run since 2006, gaining citizenships in Nicaragua and now in the European small state Montenegro after going to neighboring Cambodia as an economic consultant of sorts, which frayed nerves in the already tense Thai-Cambodian border.

The election season in the Philippines is business as usual. There is also a war of colors, with orange and yellow and little green trying to outshine each other. Orange is the color of presidential candidate Manny Villar, yellow of Noynoy Aquino and green of administration bet Gilbert Teodoro.

Yellow has mundane origins in Philippine politics. Inspired by Orlando Dawn’s Tie a Yellow Ribbon song, people tied yellow ribbons to welcome the leader of the opposition during the Marcos dictatorship, Sen. Benigno ‘‘Ninoy’’ Aquino. Gunned down on Aug. 21, 1993 in the Manila International Airport, people angry over his death and tired of the 20-year military dictatorship turned into a sea of yellow protesters that made his low-key widow a presidential candidate in the 1985 snap elections. She was sworn into office after the historic bloodless People’s Power Revolt in February 1996 in Manila’s main thoroughfare the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue or Edsa.

After the death of the well-loved president Corazon Cojuanco Aquino in August 2009, power brokers from Manila’s elite, ranging from the ranks of business like some prominent members of the Makati Business Club, a segment of the civil society and the Coryistas in the Liberal Party, one of the country’s oldest political parties, pushed Cory and Ninoy’s only son Noynoy Aquino, a balding bachelor approaching his 50s but with a lackluster performance as senator and nine-year stint as congressman representing their bulwark, Tarlac, north of Manila. The Aguinos and the Cojuancos are old political dynasties which represent the union of the old rich ilustrado who are mainly feudal lords and rich Chinese businessmen or Taipans.

Many pundits see this as what the Noynoy Aquino presidency represents. And it is not difficult to see this as he has been flip-flopping in his stance on the agrarian reform process in the Cojuanco family owned Hacienda Luisita. And for this, the blood of the victims of the agrarian reform related violence in the more than 6,000-hectare hacienda may still be wet in his hands.

The orange, on the other hand, is the color of Sen. Manny Villar, the former Speaker of the House who pushed for the impeachment of President Estrada in 2000 resulting in the trial of the actor-turned president in the Senate. Sensing failure in the impeachment trial in Senate which was fed live on television, people trooped again to Edsa in February 2001 catapulting Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Estrada’s vice president then to power.

A billionaire real estate developer, Villar rose from an ordinary boy in Tondo, a poor and lower middle class community in Manila to become one of the richest Filipinos. In what maybe a stamp of Filipino crab mentality, many critics fault him for his success and it is trying to pull him down from the presidential race.

But after the young Aquino was thrust into the presidency after the death of Tita Cory in August 2009, only Villar survived among the prominent presidentiables. The others have gone into oblivion or slid down to running for lower positions like presidential survey front runner Sen. Mar Roxas who settled for as the vice presidential candidate of the young Aquino and Sen. Panfilo Lacson who has gone into hiding after murder charges were filed against him.

Many political pundits agree that Villar’s ‘‘natapos ko ang aking kahirapan’’ narrative in his campaign has captured the imagination of the poor Filipinos especially in the countrysides. Villar’s strong showing in the countrysides belies commissioned surveys by academic mercenaries who bill six to seven digit rates for surveys that cover anywhere from a thousand to five thousand people in a country of over 90 million.

Many disagree with Villar’s rags to riches story, some from the segment of the Philippine civil society that ironically supports the representative of the old feudal elites and comprador classes, the Taipans.

But for close observers of the civil society, this stance is no surprise. Alienated from ground realities in the first place, they are most of the time only engaging in so called development discourses in Manila air-conditioned offices and conference rooms and primarily enjoying and dependent on the largesse from Official Development Aid funded development projects.

The mainstream left that has engaged in electoral politics on the other hand have joined Villar’s Nacionalista Party with respected activist and now legislator Satur Ocampo and foremost women rights activist Liza Masa running as senators under the Villar line-up.

Genuine Opposition stalwart, Mindanawon and also a senatorial candidate of the Nacionalista Atty. Adel Tamano credits this to Villar’s leadership. In a queer twist in queer Philippine politics, Villar was able to put up a unity ticket of sorts, bringing together for example the son of the former dictator, Ilocos Gov. Bongbong Marcos, former political prisoners of the dictator Satur Ocampo and Atty. Gwen Pimentel, daughter of another martial law activist and political prisoner, former Cagayan de Oro mayor and now Sen. Nene Pimentel.

Tamano added that despite speculations that he would cast his hope of becoming a senator with the Estradas, it is Villar’s leadership, ability to unite people and management skills as proven by the success of his business that convinced him to cast his political future with the Nacionalista Party.

Be it in Thailand or the Philippines, social conflicts are driven by class and political divides, especially the sharp income disparities and unequal sharing of power. In terms of the disparity of income of the top 20% of the population with bottom 20%, Thailand and the Philippines are not much different. A measure of this disparity is called the Gini Index, an international gauge of income disparity named after Conrado Gini, an Italian demographer.

The Gini Index in both countries are wide and widening at 41.5 and 42.5 respectively (2007). The Gini Index is used to rate a country’s income equitability, with zero representing absolute equality. The higher the score, indicates higher inequality.

It is hoped that non-violent and constitutional means, including the right to peacefully assemble in redress of grievances, read: protest action, and free and fair election would function as a corrective mechanism in a society in crises.

In my final presentation in Thailand to conclude my one-year Peace Communication Fellowship under a grant from the Norwegian volunteer organization Fredskorpset, I had concluded that participating in democratic process like as a partisan in an election or in the protest action and even as a political commentator and communicator is important.

I have spent 10-months in this Fellowship in Myanmar which has been under authoritarian regime since 1958, and I thought that sharing my experience and social analysis of that country is important as it serves as an early warming of sorts to struggling democracies like the Philippines and Thailand. That while democratic systems of checks and balance, right to free expression, and free and fair elections are still in place, it is being inundated by undemocratic forces day-by-day.

The author, a community organizer, environmentalist and peace advocate based in Cagayan de Oro, just finished his stint as a Peace Communication Fellow (PeaceComm) of the Environment Broadcast Circle. PeaceComm is supported by the Norwegian volunteer organization Fredskorpset. Comments can be sent to bency.ellorin@gmail.com

[Editor's Note: This article has appeared on Mindanao Gold Star Daily and MindaNews under the title "Color-coded politics in challenged democracies".]