Philippine presidential elections have been for so long top-down affairs where traditional politicians with plenty of money proclaim themselves and then ask ordinary citizens to vote for them.

Will it be the same elite-and-money-driven presidential contest among the entitled few in the coming May 2010 national elections?

Not, if the People’s Primaries Group, a newly formed alliance of multi-sectoral organizations succeeds in assembling from the ground up what it calls a people’s presidential candidate – a strong, reformist, non-traditional politician.

Inspired by the success of a community-based selection process – the primaries in the United States – in choosing presidential candidates, the PPG aims to implement a liberal variation of that system. It also has distinct Filipino twist: aspirants will be chosen through the Short Messaging Service (SMS) or “texting.”

Ricky Javier, spokesperson for the PPG, said in a recent conference at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati, that they have been busy making preparations since December last year for what they term as the People’s Primaries, a selection process that enables communities to identify and consider presidential aspirants for next year’s electoral contests.

Participants in the AIM meeting that considered the primary selectionprocess included the Subsidiarity Movement, the Movement for Good Governance, Green Convergence, Partidong Pandaigdigan Pilipino, Magnificat Movement, Global Filipino Network, Movement for Hope, and Jesus is Lord Movement.

According to Javier, the following have accepted the invitation to form the committee that will screen the nominees for an alternative presidential candidate: Bro. Rolando Dizon, former president of the De La Salle University System, Bishop Deogracias Iniguez of Caloocan, Sixto K. Roxas of the Maximo T. Kalaw Institute for Sustainable Development, Mina Ramirez, president of the Asian Social Institute, Nina Galang of Miriam College, Milwida Guevara of the Movement for Good Governance, and Tony Roldan of Transparency International.

The nomination period ends this coming September 6.

Philip Camara, president of the Subsidiarity Movement, explained that the primaries will be district-based involving a one-person, one-vote approach that will be tallied through a computerized Short Messaging Service (SMS) or texting – vote-counting method.

Based on the existing 219 congressional districts all over the country, the primaries project which has now more than 500 volunteers, will organize district chapters to implement a District Electoral Voting System or DEV.

The primaries aim to mobilize enough votes per congressional district totaling as much as 50 percent of the 48 million registered voters nationwide. The one-member, one vote system under the DEV is counted at the district level through the SMS watched by a national facilitator group that will prevent cheating.

According to political analyst Lawyer Frankie Llaguno who is conversant of the newly introduced PPG’s processes, the people’s primaries are “a uniquely modern contribution towards making Philippine democracy more equal, and lessons learned in 2010 can be applied towards a better district–based ground-up campaign in future presidential contests.”

The PPG is optimistic the primaries will be able to come up with a presidential candidate who will lead his or her own slate before the November 30, 2009 deadline for the filing of the certificate of candidacies set by the Commission on Elections, Llaguno said.

(zhern_218@yahoo.com)