Rappler photograb
FOR ALL that hue and cry reverberating
across the halls of power, the academe, the religious, and the social media these
days, there is nothing new about calls for the dismantling of political
dynasties. There is only déjà vu, and the feeling of indifferent resignation –
especially among the jaded masses – borne from past and present political
realities.
Pessimism ruling out even
the slightest thought for yet another take on the subject, I laid out in a
series my past stories that could give a wider, if not a deeper, appreciation
of the issue at hand.
Here’s the first,
published on July 20, 2020 but referencing an original from Nov. 25, 2013 – at
the time of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino.
Denying Dynasties
IT COULD not have transitioned to anywhere else. All that presidential
blabber about dismantling the oligarchy naturally flowing to a confluence with
the current of dynasties, political, as a matter of course.
Postulated Sen. Franklin
Drilon: “The lack of an anti-dynasty system or provision in our system would
allow oligarchy to continue... Oligarchy is bad for our governance, and
therefore, as a policy, yes, we should adopt policies to prevent or dismantle
these oligarchies.”
If only to impress the
imperative of the task at hand, Drilon expressed willingness to cross political
lines “to sit down with whoever the administration designates to work on and
examine all laws, especially in governance, in order that the opportunity for
oligarchy will be removed or minimized.”
Emphasizing: “One of those
is the lack of anti-dynasty law.”
Anti-dynasty law. So, how
many times has this been pushed in Congress, only to be pulled out, if not fall
by the wayside, at each try?
Here’s a take nearly seven
years ago, Nov. 25, 2013 to be exact, in this same corner – A voice most
ungodly:
“TODAY IS a historic moment, if only because for the first time, this
was approved at the committee level.”
So declared Bayan Muna
party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares of Nov. 20, 2013, the day the Anti-Political
Dynasty Bill (APDB) was approved – unanimously – by the House committee on
suffrage and electoral reforms.
A consolidation of three
bills, the approved measure seeks to prohibit relatives up to the second
degree of consanguinity to hold or run for both national and local office in
"successive, simultaneous, or overlapping terms."
It also provides
for the Commission on Elections to decide through lottery who in the clan
would be permitted to run in the election in case none of the candidates in the
same family refuses to withdraw.
The first attempt to
legislate a solution to what has been deemed the scourge of Philippine politics
was 18 years ago, a fact all too clear to those who are now ecstatic over the
passage of the bill, if only at the committee level.
"The State shall
guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service, and prohibit
political dynasties as may be defined by law." So, it is enshrined in
Article II Section 26 of the 1987 Constitution.
All attempts to just
cobble an enabling law, aborted at their very conception, the legislative
bodies as much dynastic in their composition as the other layers of government.
So, what difference will
it make this time?
"Power, both economic
and political should not be held by just a few. We need to give a chance to
others who are equally capable but do not have the
opportunity."
Estrada
So spake
eloquently Senator JV Ejercito, author of the Senate version of the APDB,
his motives readily suspect given his being a dynast himself: son of the
deposed, convicted, pardoned President Joseph Estrada, now mayor of Manila, and
former actress Guia Gomez, now mayor of San Juan; half-brother to Senator
Jinggoy Estrada and uncle to the latter’s daughter, San Juan Councilor Janella
Ejercito Estrada; cousin to Laguna Governor ER Ejercito and Quezon Province
Board Member Gary Estrada.
Matter-of-factly thus, JV
conceded that passing an anti-political dynasty law "may not be an
easy legislative task."
"I'd like to make a
stand as me because I'm after all the leader of everybody here and I want to be
as hands off as possible and not try to push anybody. I'm in favor of it...I'm
in favor of it if only because the Constitution says it."
Circuitous locution on the
APDB there from House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. constrained as he is with
a dynasty of his own: only daughter Josefina aka Joy is the incumbent
vice mayor of Quezon City, nephew Jose Christopher aka Kit is the city’s 6th district
representative.
"I want to put it on
record that if there's, let's say, a situation where it's either she or me, I
will yield...Let the youth take over.”
That situation’s long time
passing, Sir.
"I believe (APDB)
will experience rough sailing but you know, Rome wasn't built in a day. We have
already put up a big stone. It already passed in the committee level and I
think that is something to be happy about but it's still a long way."
Belmonte dishing out
a consuelo de bobo.
Binay
Senator Nancy Binay though
takes to a different application of the anti-dynasty measure. Rather than
family members in elective positions – being there by the sovereign will of the
people and divine grace, it is those in appointive positions – merely serving
at the pleasure of the powers-that-be, that should be subjected to the
anti-dynasty scrutiny.
Binay says: “Dapat
mas bantayan natin yung appointing members of one family in key and high
positions of government." A not-so-cloaked reference to the Abads in
positions of power -- Budget Secretary Butch Abad whose daughter Julia is head
of the Presidential Management Staff. Not to mention his wife, Henedina
representing the lone district of tiny Batanes but reportedly getting more
priority development assistance funds than House Speaker Belmonte.
No hypocritical civility
but in-your-face bluntness becomes Binay when, invoking the supreme law of the
land, she argued the APDB "may limit what the Constitution says about
who can run.”
Articulating thus: “…if
the person is elected then that is already the voice of the people. And what is
the constitution about but the voice of the people. So why deprive the people
of their voice."
And went a step higher to
lay her case before the supreme being: “It may also go against the principle
of vox populi, vox Dei.”
The voice of Makati, most
precisely, given the premier city’s being a Binay fiefdom since the Marcos
ouster, breeding the current Vice President of the Philippines who was many
times city mayor, his wife who was once mayor, his son who is current mayor, his
other daughter who is representative of the city’s second district and this
senator daughter.
Ganyan sila sa Makati,
ganyan din sa buong Pilipinas.
A matter of vox
Makatii, vox dei there to me. As the voice of the people Binay
referred to may well be the voice – not of God – but of their gods. Their god
of goons, their lord of numbers, their lord of celluloid illusion, at one time
their glorious goddess of the tapes, and of currency, the almighty epal.
Hear then this caveat all the way out of the 8th century from
the English scholar and theologian Alcuin: “And those people should not be
listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since
the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.”
Yeah, most fitting to the Philippine praxis of democrazy.
INDEED, SO how fare today
the dynasts referenced in this piece?
Not one of the Estradas
survived the elections of 2019, losing even the family’s political heirloom
that was San Juan.
The Abads long wiped out
too, coterminous as they were with their patron, the BS Aquino III.
The Belmontes still have
Joy in QC and Kit in the House.
Of the Binays, Nancy still
sits in the Senate and Abby is inheritor of Makati, triumphant over brother
Jun-Jun in a bitter sibling rivalry. Jejomar, failing in his presidential run
in 2016 and in his congressional try in 2019.
So, how many other
political families were deprived of their long-held turfs in 2019 alone?
And how many have
survived, indeed, even enlarged their domain?
Come easily to mind here:
Duterte, Cayetano, Villar.
Which only goes to show
that dynasties rise and fall on their own merits, or lack thereof. The people –
enlightened and resolute – ultimately deciding their fate, denying their
perpetuity.
No, I am not the least
implying there’s no need for any anti-dynasty law.
I am just leaning on
the pragmatic side of things political here.
(First of 6-part series of previously published articles)
