S1L28 – The Inherent Defects of Republican Democracy that sent Miss Deema crying
Mr. Juan Dimacaawat, will you please count how many of you are here?”
After a minute Juan reported, “We are twenty, sir.”
“Alright, listen class. I prepared four lectures for tonight but I couldn’t decide which one to deliver, so I will let YOU decide. All those in favor of Lecture ‘A’ raise your right hand…”
My puzzled law students looked at one another.
Ms. Deema Niwala asked softly, “Aren’t you going to tell us at least what Lecture ‘A’ is all about, sir?”
“What for? You’re not delivering the lecture, I am. So just vote on instinct. Again, all those for Lecture ‘A’? How many?” Sheepishly six hands went up.
“Six for Lecture ‘A’, good,” I pretended to write it down on a piece of paper. “Now all those in favor of Lecture ‘B’ hands up…” Five unsure hands went up. Deema started whispering something to her seatmate and best friend Kata.
“Five for Lecture ‘B’. Good. All in favor of Lecture ‘C’ hands up…?” Another 5 shaky hands went up.
Deema couldn’t hold herself back anymore, “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t see your point at all in this little experiment of yours…”
“Are you abstaining, Miss Niwala?”
“No, sir, I’m not!” the Winona Ryder lookalike retorted, “I’m just not comfortable with the idea of voting for something I don’t understand or know anything about!” she was clearly upset which is why I found it strange she wasn’t rolling her eyes.
“Well, you were very adamant about NOT abstaining just 5 seconds ago. You had no idea what it is you don’t want to abstain from either. So I can’t understand why you’re upset now. Shall I put you down for Lecture ‘D’?”
“I’ll join Deema for Lecture ‘D’ sir,” Miss Kata Ngahan said.
“I think I’ll join Lecture ‘D’ also, sir,” Juan Dimacaawat said. “Me, too, sir,” said Jack Makataruz.
“Alright, so Miss Deema and the ‘Me, Too Movement’ are all for Lecture ‘D’—all four of you.”
I could see my students getting really anxious. What has gotten to their professor, why is he acting this strangely?
“Alright, class, here are the results: Six for Lecture A, five for Lecture B, five for Lecture and C and 4 for Lecture D. It’s settled then, we’ll have Lecture A, the winner of the votation.”
Deema stood up angrily, “Wait a minute, not so fast sir! There are FOURTEEN of us who voted against Lecture A!”
“Yeah, but you’re not united,” I said provocatively, “you are fourteen people broken up in three Lecture groups B, C and D. Am I correct?”
“Something is wrong here, sir, I just can’t put my finger on it,” Deema said, “but I say definitely I feel my right being violated somehow. I demand a revote..!”
“Alright class, forget this voting results, we’ll do it all over. We’ll use a more geographical approach.” I said.
“Everybody stand up and move over to one side of the room,” they all stoodup and pooled in one corner.
“Now, I want to divide the classroom into four districts, and I want each district to have a sole representative.”
I saw Deema, Kata, Juan and Jack huddled in one corner and I could hear Juan whispering, “Make sure we all belong to one district…Deema, you need to pull TEN more people into our district, you gotta use your charm! We have to be united!”
“Alright, at the count of ten, I want those four districts formed…1….2….3…!” I barked.
Everybody scrambled into each corner of the room. Juan, Jack, Kata and Deema were all in the same corner and, just as they planned Deema was able to pull TEN more classmates (all male) making them FOURTEEN in their “district.”
The six students who had voted together earlier for Lecture A had been broken up and distributed into three districts, each one pathetically with only TWO members.
“Alright, I want to talk to those four district representatives now.” I said.
Four students came forward, apparently Deema was sent by her district to represent them. Then I asked, “Alright you four, how many of you are in favor of Lecture A?”
Three representatives raised their hands, only Deema was not in favor. So I announced the results, “Alright class, by a vote of THREE-FOURTHS MAJORITY among your representatives, we will have Lecture A tonight.”
Deema was red in the face, “Wait, wait, wait, weeeeeeytt..! What happened?? Bakit nagkaganun, sir? We are FOURTEEN and we are united! How did we lose to SIX people who are not united?? FOURTEEN KAME?!!”
“Yeah, but you all live in the same district,” I said provocatively, “You are united but you have no revelation whatsoever!”
This time the whole class broke out laughing, although none of them knew exactly why. They all just felt foolish.
Deema said, “sir, with all due respect, I feel like you are President Duterte, Congress and the COMELEC all rolled into one! We’ve never felt so manipulated like this before!” More laughter and eyerolling.
Finally, I banged the blackboard to refocus the class.
“Listen, class. What we did is to illustrate the inherent defects of democracy, whether in the DIRECT MODE mode or the REPRESENTATIVE MODE. The point of the whole experiment is to show you that I, acting as the dictator because I was the one laying down the rules of the game—if I had an agenda, I can use whatever mode of democracy the ignorant citizens demand, and still achieve my goal.”
“Did you make us play the role of ignorant citizens sir??” Deema demanded to know.
“Sure, and you played it to the hilt!” I said, “I mean you were so caught up in it, what with your planning and strategizing and everything, angrily demanding to know what the choices are all about, but voting anyway even if you got no clear answers…You all acted like typical Filipino voters, so engrossed and obssessed with elections, but with so little real understanding of the true dynamics of democracy and how easy it is to hijack the whole process.”
Deema and Kata were outblushing each other. Juan and Jack buried their faces in their hands.
“But I’m not Duterte,” I said, “I play fair so I’ll give you a chance to redeem yourselves. Deema, what’s the moral of this whole experiment?”
For the first time, I heard Deema talk slowly and deliberately. “Sir, we can’t allow ourselves to be manipulated by any outside influence. And we cannot have fake district residents. It destroys the delicate math of the elections and negates the true dynamics of representative democracy,” Deema said sadly and ever so slowly.
“That is so true class, those who do not guard the processes of democracy only face the consequence of losing it. What did Thomas Jefferson say in this regard, does anybody know?”
Kata, my English major pet student, was the only one who remembered, “The price of democracy is eternal vigilance, sir.”
Deema spoke again, “I feel so sad, I could die right now, sir.”
“Suppose you did, Deema, suppose you, as sole district representative, died while in office, do you know what I, as a dictator, would do?”
“Of course, sir,” the Benguet girl from Tublay said, fighting back tears. All her classmates leaned forward to hang on to every next word she would say.
“Tell the whole class, Deema, what would I do?”
“You would appoint a caretaker in my place, sir,” and then Deema finally broke down and cried.
I allowed her a few moments before I spoke to the class in a low and soft voice I have never used in class before: “Go all across Benguet, people, and do your best to share this lesson… with the uninformed citizenry….class dismissed.”
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”