- 8 months ago
- #considerthis
As Southeast Asian leaders gathered for the 46th ASEAN Summit, activists and civil society groups had also convened in KL for the ASEAN Peoples’ Forum—calling for democracy, rights, and political accountability to be part of the regional conversation. On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Brizza Rosales, Executive Director of the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), Alexa Yadao, Junior Project Officer for Electoral Reforms at the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE), and Cornelius Damar Hanung, East Asia and ASEAN Programme Manager at the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA).
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00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:24where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day. Now as
00:28Southeast Asian leaders gather here in KL for the 46th ASEAN Summit, activists and civil society
00:36groups have also convened in KL for the ASEAN People's Forum, calling for democracy, rights
00:42and political accountability to be part of the regional conversation. So joining me on the show
00:49today are three guests who are in town for the forum. Brisa Rosales, who is the executive director
00:56of the Asian Network for Free Elections, known as ANFROL. We have Cornelius Darmal-Hanung,
01:02who is the East Asia and ASEAN Program Manager at the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development,
01:10known as Forum Asia. And Alexa Yadao, who is a junior project officer for electoral reforms
01:16at the Legal Network for Truthful Elections, known as Lente, based in the Philippines.
01:22Welcome to the show. Together we're going to be exploring the state of democracy in Southeast
01:26Asia and where it's headed. Thank you for taking time to speak with me on the show today. I appreciate
01:33it. It's a big topic to cover. So I'm going to get kind of an overview from you. Let's start.
01:40Big picture. Brisa, may I begin with you? How would you characterise the state of democracy
01:45Southeast Asia today? Are we on a decline? Are we stagnating? How would you characterise it?
01:51That's a big question also. But probably I'll start since 2024 was a super election year, right?
01:58So at least for the Southeast Asia. We are still below the global average when it comes to when
02:05we're talking about representation, rule of law, and rights. So it's something that we are still
02:10below the global average. But there are still some hopes because we've seen more free elections,
02:17more credible elections, at least from two of the countries coming from the Southeast Asia.
02:23But at the same time, there are also declining democracy. So we've seen that in Myanmar, Cambodia.
02:32So it's something that it's really sensitive right now. And the international community and
02:37even the environment is very volatile. So it's something that we are also focusing as a regional
02:42election monitoring. So you're seeing some progress in some areas and decline in others. So not quite
02:48in level playing field or everyone's not quite equal in that respect. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Do you share the
02:54same sentiment? I think I share the same sentiment as well. But in terms of democracy, I would like to add
03:01that we need to also think about the right to participation of all people. And we need to also
03:06think from the most marginal swine and the most marginal swine and then those who work with them,
03:12particularly human rights defenders. As Forum Asia works together with the human rights defenders,
03:17we have seen a very worrying decline of democracy that in the past two years, we have documented at least
03:23400 events of human rights violations against human rights defenders. And among of them are also
03:29pro-democracy defenders who try to be critical against the governments. And these have been done
03:34by the implementations of restrictive laws that is also targeting defenders, journalists as well,
03:43covering governments, covering protests. And it's actually quite worrying because we see a similar
03:49tactics are being implemented in one country to another in ASEAN level.
03:55Similar tactics. Learning from each other, that tells me.
03:59That's not a good thing to learn from each other. Alexa, what about you? How would you characterize big picture state of democracy in recent years?
04:09Coming from the Philippines, just fresh from elections.
04:13Elections, yes. So yeah, we just had our elections. It's a midterm election in the Philippines just two weeks ago.
04:20So it's, we sometimes call our midterm elections in the Philippines a referendum on the current administration.
04:27So how well administration-backed candidates perform in midterm elections really talk about how satisfied Filipinos are with the current state.
04:38So it's, well, there was, there's a consensus that the, it was a dismal performance at least for current administration and, but at the same time, that also tells you how elections are functioning, how it should, you know, like elections are a way to hold, you know, it's a voice for, for Filipinos or for the constituency, how they could express their, what they don't like, what they don't like about the government.
05:05So we always say that during elections, it's the only time where Filipinos are equal because you have one vote, everyone's one vote.
05:14So yeah, so I think that's it. And in terms of electoral integrity, we've, our election management body in the Philippines has pioneered some good innovations that hopefully that could be, we could touch on later.
05:28And so other Southeast Asian countries can learn from as well.
05:32Okay. So these are the good things to learn from the, yeah, from all the countries.
05:37I want to talk to you about something that almost every ASEAN country is grappling with, which is the manipulation of social media, of oppressive cyber laws, of online censorship used to stifle dissent.
05:50And I look to you, Danu, because you also talked a little bit about, because you talked a bit about using this against human rights defenders.
05:57Talk to me about the observations of how these, you call it digital authoritarianism, right?
06:07How would that reshape civic space, political life, public discourse around ASEAN?
06:17I'm sure you've been watching this as part of your collective work.
06:21May I begin with you, Brisa?
06:22Yeah, okay.
06:23Actually, it's really a big chunk of what we do.
06:27Since looking at disinformation or digital authoritarianism, we have seen different patterns.
06:33So it's either you look at a country using transparency approaches.
06:39So they are tapping election management bodies, different government agencies, and civil society organizations to collaborate together in order to combat this problem.
06:48But there are also cases wherein you are criminalizing fake news.
06:53You are criminalizing the persons who are, you know, they are just expressing dissent or stifle criticism.
07:01So it's something that you are using it as a tactic to silence the different civil society organizations.
07:10And somehow, it's also a tactic to shrink the civic spaces.
07:15So that's what's happening with regard to the pattern, at least for Southeast Asia.
07:20But we are also seeing a lot of efforts when it comes to, at least for elections, to combat this kind of disinformation.
07:27We are seeing the efforts of election management body.
07:31We have seen that since we observed the Indonesia elections last February.
07:35Is it working?
07:36Somehow.
07:37Okay, it's working.
07:38So the efforts are showing some results.
07:41Yeah.
07:41And you are seeing also efforts coming from the social media platforms.
07:46You are seeing a lot of fact-checking organizations, pre-banking and debunking efforts.
07:51And at the same time, the inter-agency approach is working.
07:57So that's one of the most important aspects that we are also highlighting from the past two days.
08:03Since our cluster was talking about democracy and political rights.
08:07So we are harnessing each other's expertise to at least collaborate more and provide technical expertise.
08:15Because that's where it is needed and that's where it is most needed also coming from the government agencies.
08:25What about you?
08:26I think from what Brisa has mentioned as well, I just want to add that we also need to see the digital authoritarianism from the perspective of who can control and who have resources to control the digital realm.
08:39Because if we dig in some information that we know that some ASEAN governments have invested a lot of money for social media advertisements, for buzzer, for social media army.
08:55And that's something that we as a society need to battle as well.
08:59Because there is a war of narratives here that some of the ASEAN government are trying to portray negative narratives against human rights defenders, against civil society.
09:13And then in addition to that as well, we also see the increase of the using digital attacks such as hacking of website, hacking of personal social media accounts belonging to human rights defenders as well.
09:27And these cases have never been fully investigated and then there is no accountability on that as well.
09:35So if we look at the trend on the digital authoritarianism, in addition to the existence of the repressive laws, as Brisa mentioned, there are also tactics that have been used and deployed against those very critical to democracy itself.
09:51And it's actually very concerning and emerging as well because ASEAN is due to develop its digital master plan in 2030 and it's a master plan of how ASEAN will embark or will embrace the agenda of digitalization for the next five years until 2030.
10:10But big questions whether it will be, will it be a human rights based approach master plan or will it be just serving the security goals who will be benefiting from that.
10:24That is a fantastic point about whether or not civil society is ready to adapt to it.
10:29I'm curious to know if these tactics are being used against human rights defenders, are CSOs in ASEAN adapting fast enough to deal with this digital terrain, this digital warfare in terms of navigating disinformation or protecting themselves and their defenders online?
10:48Do you see that happening?
10:49Yes, so of course navigating the digital security now is a paramount concern of civil society as well, that's why like lots of networks and consolidations are now being made among human rights civil society organizations and with those who are concerned about tech as well.
11:07So there are learning exchanges that happen on how we can navigate these challenges together basically.
11:15I see this as a wonderful opportunity for regeneration of activism in Southeast Asia, particularly because the battlegrounds have changed, the warfare tactics, the authoritarianism has changed and I think young people are quick to recognize this.
11:35If I may come to you Alexa and ask you how you're seeing the landscape of activism and the defending of democracy in Southeast Asia, has that changed, evolved, what forms is it taking amongst young people?
11:55Yeah, I think that was also a big conversation yesterday in the democracy and political rights cluster.
12:01But there are two, I guess in terms of regeneration of youth activism, there are like two sides of the debate.
12:11One, we're seeing youth disengagement, but on the other hand we're also seeing of course how we've seen in Thailand, in Myanmar for instance, these are youth-led protests, youth-led movements.
12:26So there are like two sides of the debate. So which one is it? But I think the more important conversation is how the youth are adapting to, you know, there are different contexts in Southeast Asia.
12:37For instance, in the Philippines, we're not seeing the same type of digital authoritarianism. We're sort of relatively free in terms of our digital space or our online space compared to our other Southeast Asian neighbors.
12:57But at the same time, the more important conversation is with all of these different contexts, how our different youth movements, youth organizations are adapting.
13:06So the young people are being more creative. For one, we're now seeing aside from, you know, protests on the street, the traditional you'd say, we're also seeing online activism or the use of digital technologies, creative ones, you know, trying to work around restrictive laws in respective countries.
13:26Yeah, because there are certain, in the Philippines, it's relatively free, but you know, there are still cyber level and disinformation and attacks and red tagging, but so as other Southeast Asian countries.
13:36But yeah, but I think the more important conversation that we should be having, I mean, not now, but in the future, how do we sustain this youth movements?
13:45Because, you know, it's, at the cluster yesterday, I said that sometimes the conversation or the rallies loud in TikTok and online.
13:58Okay, it's the most performative, is it? You want to make sure that it transfers from online to real life.
14:04And some, that these concerns are actually channeled to more important forum, right? How do we push young people, not only to stop in, in, in making noise online or on the street, but also being able to consolidate this and bring it to a proper forum where this could be addressed.
14:22Could I ask you about youth disengagement? How are you observing trends about that? Are young people disengaged because they feel disenfranchised, not part of the democratic process, or they don't have agency to create change? What are you observing, Lexa?
14:40I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't think I could speak from, but in the Philippines, for instance, there is a, there is a national youth survey that was conducted in the Philippines ahead of the 20, one of our last major elections in the 2022 elections.
14:56And I shared it yesterday in the, in the forum, more than half of Filipino youth said that they would not take part in protests and would not do it or have not taken part in it.
15:14But at the same time, and this is very interesting, the more than half of the youth also said that they would want to take part in issue-based conversations.
15:24So I think that's the, that's the trend. So for instance, they would rather, you know, voice their, their opinions online, but would not rather do it.
15:34I think that would be the effect of how red tagging and also progressive youth are being subjected to surveillance and harassment in the Philippines.
15:41But at the same time, there is also high engagement among Filipino youth about how they would want to, how they think that it's a right to vote,
15:53how they think it's important for them to express their opinion, how they think that it's important issues such as climate change, poverty, etc.
16:00All of these important issues are important issues that should be addressed.
16:03So I think, you know, for, for, for our leaders and civil society as well working for policy, the, the, the trick is how do you manage this?
16:12Yes.
16:13This, this sentiment among these, how you could work around so that you don't, you pull them out of their apathy and, you know, and engage them.
16:22Because there's, there's already the interest there, but, but how they could channel and how they could perform and, yes, this interest.
16:31Brisa, you've been in the civil society space for a while, and I want to ask you, I mean, not, not that long, I'm not, but enough to see, maybe the duality of older and younger operation, like activists.
16:47Are they aligned in terms of goals and methods? Do you see a tension in the intergenerational?
16:54Yeah.
16:55Is that, is that, within democratic movements, are generations aligned in how to achieve and the vision that they want to achieve?
17:03With regard to vision, it's still aligned.
17:05Okay.
17:06We, I've been working with Alexa for the past five years because we came from same organization in the Philippines also.
17:12We are acknowledging the generation.
17:15When it comes to methodology, digital means is for the Gen Z right now.
17:20But millennials are keeping up, actually.
17:23Okay.
17:24But looking also from cross-regional perspective also because Alexa talked about the perspective of the Philippines and at the same time, the perspective of different countries in Southeast Asia.
17:37But just to reiterate that sustaining it is very important because looking at the South Asian region, we've seen what happened in Sri Lanka, in Bangladesh.
17:49It hit them at the very bottom wherein the basic needs for a people to survive cannot be given already.
17:58So something that the youth has led the protest, the movement, digital or even on the streets.
18:05So it came to a point that it's very, very sensitive to them.
18:10So I am hoping personally that it will not happen to Southeast Asia.
18:15Because what happened to South Asia, actually it illustrated a really big shift because they are less willing to accept the status quo.
18:23So we are also following what's happening in two countries because they were able to oust their leaders.
18:32Yeah, the sitting leaders.
18:33Yes, the sitting leaders at that point.
18:36And we are following them because of the transition as well.
18:39We've seen the elections in Sri Lanka on how the youth participated also in their elections.
18:44We are seeing the transition right now in Bangladesh.
18:46So that's something very relevant.
18:48That the Southeast Asia, in our region, we should take a moment to step back a little and see what's happening also in other regions because it might also be relevant.
18:59Because our economy is still surviving.
19:01But when our economy drops and it hits us, probably it will bring something different to the youth as well.
19:09That's a fantastic point.
19:10We should definitely be watching for trends and see how it affects us.
19:14What is your hope for the future of democracy and political rights and civic space in ASEAN?
19:20Are you hopeful?
19:21Are you worried about these trends that we're seeing around the region that might spill over to us?
19:28Can I ask you what you hope for the future of democracy ideally but also realistically?
19:37I think for me representing a regional civil society organization with 90 members in 25 countries, we have always seen that struggle for democracy has never been a constant way.
19:58It's always a fluctuate situation.
20:03So challenge will be there.
20:04Challenge will be amplified.
20:05But it doesn't mean that we have to deter ourselves to not consolidating with each other, not to empowering each other through intergenerational exchange, through cross-country exchange or cross-regional exchange that Brisa has mentioned as well.
20:24Because I think there's something that we can learn from one another to defend and enhance the democracy itself.
20:32And it can also contribute to the betterment of the democracy and political rights in ASEAN.
20:38So it should not be or let us not allow that democracy and political rights be determined by how those who are in power determine it.
20:52But we as a civil society needs to also take an active role with civil society, citizens, journalists and so on and so forth to play an active role on defending democracy and to shape the democracy that we want.
21:06Yeah, which is why it was so encouraging for me as someone outside of the space, but just watching, it was so encouraging to see this people's, the ASEAN People's Forum, to see 500 over activists and civil society groups converge and talk about issues about regional democracy and, you know, help each other.
21:27And sometimes I think maybe within this space, you feel alone, but having everyone else group, this kind of grouping and actually really boosts morale and I'm sure it was an injection of energy for civil society groups.
21:42Alexa, can I ask you, you mentioned at the start of our conversation, you said it's important for us to look at some of the concrete solutions or concrete ways to things to do to move forward to strengthen democracy in this part of the world.
21:55What were you referring to? Can I get you to share a little bit with us?
21:59Well, I think drawing from our experience in the Philippines as well as the work of my organization, we're really into reforms.
22:12And I think that's also a component in civil society work that could be further strengthened, you know, channeling, you know, after all of the roundtables and the discussions are done.
22:23Yeah, what happens next. What happens next, right? And what are the actual steps that you would do? So, but also at the same time, just relating it to what you asked, Hanong.
22:35I think the common thread in the conversation yesterday is like, in some ways, we're concerned of what, you know, what's happening in our other Southeast East neighbors might happen to us.
22:46But at the same time, we're also cautiously optimistic because, for instance, in the Philippines or in Indonesia, for instance, in Malaysia, civil society is much alive at least.
22:58And, or they are, our civil society is able to break into and engage with, you know, formal mechanisms and formal institutions.
23:06So not so much on the kind of sideline.
23:09Yes, that's so much. And with, you know, because we have our friends from Bercy, for instance, and Perludem, for instance.
23:14So, yeah, but in terms of concrete reforms, we, in, at my organization, we always advocate for, don't be allergic with working with your legislators, for instance, or with your government officials, or with the bureaucracy.
23:28Because there are, we, we are firm believers that you'll have, you know, you'll find champions there.
23:35Not, yeah, you'll find champions there and you can work with them.
23:39But it's very important also to, as civil society, to know what are your non-negotiables.
23:44And you don't always get to get everything that you want, you know.
23:49It's a compromise.
23:50Yeah, I know, but at least it's important, you know, it's important to be very clear about what you want, that these are the bullet point one, two, three, four, that should be, you know, passed, should be talked about.
24:04And that's how, you know, this is how you work with, because, you know, it's, it's, it's very easy, for instance, to say that, you know, that you're out in the streets protesting.
24:14It's very important, you know, you make a noise, you make, you make, you make your issues known.
24:19But what happens after the dosset?
24:22Yes, yes, yes.
24:23That's very, very important.
24:25And so my last question will probably be to you, Brisa, your, your view, your hope for the future of democracy in Asia and Southeast Asia.
24:34Are you, what are you seeing in terms of the future?
24:38If I, if I got you back on the show a year from today, what would you say?
24:43No, actually, it's more of a commitment coming from the civil society organization.
24:49We shall remain hopeful, but at the same time, we should also amplify our voice that democracy should not be taken for granted.
24:58Because right now, our opportunity is on how to protect the democratic institutions and uphold the rule of law.
25:08Because that's the main tactic being as a trend across Southeast Asia, that you are using the, you are doing it in a very legal way, legal means.
25:20So somehow, how do you accept it as a status quo?
25:23So that is where the civil society organizations are coming from.
25:27We are citizen observers working for elections and citizen observers are basically human rights defenders also.
25:33And we are on the verge and we are on an important point right now on how to better protect the democratic institutions.
25:40Because that's the way how to best survive this kind of democracy which is ever evolving.
25:47For sure.
25:48Well, thank you all three of you for being on the show with me today, sharing some of your insights and also the work that you do.
25:54I appreciate your time.
25:58That's all we have for you on this episode of Consider This.
26:00I'm Melissa Idris signing off for good evening.
26:02Thank you so much for watching.
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