The votes received by ousted President Joseph Estrada and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay in the May elections represent a thunderous voice from the Filipino urban poor calling attention to the existence of a vast electoral constituency that populist politicians can exploit to catapult them to the commanding heights of political power.

The nation was stunned when the final tally in the presidential race showed Estrada taking second place. Sen. Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III won with 15 million votes (41.87 percent of the national total), 5 million votes ahead of Estrada?s 9.4 million, or 26.12 percent of the total.

More surprising was the result in the vice presidential race that showed Binay winning with 14.6 million votes. He defeated Sen. Manuel Roxas II by less than a million votes, but still winning 41.65 percent of the votes, a percentage that was only a fraction less than Aquino?s.

Binay?s election is remarkable: He made a spectacular surge in the last week of the election from a mere 5 percent rating in poll surveys to overtake Roxas, the consistent leader for the most part of the campaign period.

Binay had no known national constituency?in contrast to Roxas who had established a national constituency, having been elected to the Senate and having served in the Cabinet during the short-lived Estrada administration.

The results of the May election stood on its head the patterns of electoral results that appeared to have gone haywire after Binay beat Roxas and Estrada came in as runner-up to Aquino, who according to the official results had made a sweep of nearly all regions and social class sectors of the country.

?Men of the masses?

Of all the candidates in the presidential and vice presidential races, Estrada and Binay stood out as populists and presented themselves as ?men of the masses,? upholding the interests of the urban poor against those of the elitist oligarchical families based on business and industry and landed wealth.

Riding the crest of the political legacy of his parents?the late President Corazon Aquino and martyred opposition leader Benigno Aquino Jr.?Noynoy Aquino was portrayed as a man for all seasons and as everybody?s man.

In the April 16-19 survey of Social Weather Stations (SWS), Aquino led in all geographic areas and socioeconomic classes, widening his lead over then runner-up Sen. Manuel Villar.

Aquino showed his strength among voters belonging to the ABC (upper and middle) classes where he polled 53 percent against Villar?s 22 percent. Even among the ?masa? voters of Class D, Aquino was ahead by 13 points (38 vs 25 percent) over Villar. In Class E, Aquino was ahead of Villar by one point.

Villar had played the class-vs-poor card, but at that stage of the campaign period in April, he didn?t prove credible. This was the time when the tide turned?the core ?masa? constituency of Estrada started to shift to him.

Villar overtaken

An April 18-22 SWS survey commissioned by Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno found that Estrada had overtaken Villar for second place, with Estrada polling 25 percent and Villar 23 percent. Aquino remained on top with 41 percent.

When the final tallies of the presidential and vice presidential races were announced, Estrada?s constituency among the masses had asserted their voice that their interests needed an articulator and that they needed a mouthpiece.

This unheeded clamor found expression in Estrada placing second to Aquino. Estrada won 9.5 million votes despite his ouster from the presidency following his aborted impeachment trial on corruption charges and his criminal conviction for plunder by the anti-graft court.

The vote for Estrada was a vote of protest, a message that the masses needed a voice in the corridors of power.

For as long as poverty is widespread and remains unalleviated, this constituency remains a fertile recruitment field for populist politicians and rabble-rousers inciting unrest and rebellion in the streets.

Rabble can?t be ignored

The rabble that stormed Malacañang on May 1, 2001, after Estrada was arrested following the filing of plunder charges against him forms the core constituency of populist politicians. They cannot be ignored, even if Estrada has been swept aside by the Aquino landslide.

In Metro Manila, the center of urban unrest among the poor, Estrada garnered 1,170,772 votes that put him just behind Aquino who had 1,882,188 votes.

While Estrada didn?t deliver results to reduce poverty during his abbreviated three-year presidency, the enclaves of poverty in urban centers have become an even wider recruitment field for politicians offering populist remedies to their economic hardship.

Briones warning

Former National Treasurer Leonor Briones has warned that recent forecasts of a resurgence in economic growth following the last election is not reassuring.

Briones said that the Philippine experience showed that economic growth did not result in poverty reduction because there were more poor people now than there were 10 years ago.

She pointed out that data from the National Statistics Office showed underemployment on the rise. In January 2010, underemployment rose to 19.7 percent from 18.2 percent for January 2009.

Briones emphasized that ?when the government says the economy is growing, you have to ask where the growth is coming form, who is benefiting from the growth.?

More credible benefactor

Binay proved to be a more credible benefactor of the urban poor than Estrada.

He carried out a program of social benefits that included free medicine and hospital care to Makati residents, free education, free funeral services for the poor, and free movies?all subsidized by revenues from the richest city in the country. None of these subsidies came from the pork barrel of congressmen or senators.

The visible Makati social security program proved to be a model for hundreds of Makati?s sister cities, which Binay assisted in their administrative projects from Makati?s coffers.

More than Binay?s political ties with the matriarch of the Aquino family, the late President Cory Aquino, during the anti-Marcos movement during his dictatorship, it was the social security programs geared toward the urban poor that won Binay nationwide support.

The election results tell the story of the resonance with the poor of a social security program addressed them, a program that even the central government has not provided.

Populism

In the final tally, Binay won in 61 provinces and cities. Roxas won in only 40 areas despite the fact that his electoral base has always been national. Roxas was perceived as elitist and remote, hovering over the stratospheric heights of power.

By delivering the goods on social security, Binay made populism look good and a credible vehicle for providing relief to the poor on their basic needs.

This is the message that the national electorate sent in electing Binay as vice president. It is the message from the poor who are telling us that they need champions who can deliver results. They need and reward credible populists.