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POLITICAL DYNASTY IN THE PHILIPPINES
I.
INTRODUCTION : DEMOCRACY
In all Philippine elections, the core issue being presented to the public
has not drastically changed – poverty alleviation. And depending on
whose side you are in, the arguments are almost predictable. The ruling
regime will present an array of selective statistics showing the
improving trends proving their point while the opposition counters these
with their own economic mumbo-jumbo.
The 2013 elections are no different except for two adjunct hot issues: the
RH bill which screamed for the dominant Catholic Church hierarchy’s
patent involvement in electioneering; and phenomenon of political
dynasty, which is a blatant disregard of the Philippine Constitution.
Today’s talk will explore the latter.
America’s revered 16th President Abraham Lincoln eloquently laid the
predicate for democracy in his Gettysburg address in 1863.
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“…that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom – and that government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the earth”
These three crucial features defined democracy in America. Let us use
this test to define ours.
 Do we have a government ‘of’ the people?
 Is our government ‘by’ us?
 Is our government ‘for’ us?
Let us examine what the successors of Abraham Lincoln left us as their
legacy when they declared us free in 1946 and what the successive
Pilipino regimes did with that legacy. The current electoral campaign is
a perfect backdrop to this.
II
THE CURRENT CROP OF NATIONAL CANDIDATES
American system of government has two houses of Congress (the
Legislative Branch). The House of Representatives (lower house) is
composed of directly elected members from each district of the 50 States
based on population. The Upper Chamber, or the Senate, is composed of
two (2) elective representatives from each of the 50 States of their
Union. They have 100 Senators.
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They have not given this system to us. They impose a different one.
The Philippine legislative branch of the government comprises 24
senators elected universally by the majority of Philippine voters and
come from no specific province or region. Like the President of our
Republic, they represent the Pilipino voters in general.
There are no existing Philippine laws that prohibit the entry of
candidates coming from the same region, province or city.
The current eminencies of opposing political groupings are:
ANGARA - Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara (son of Senator
Edgardo Angara);
AQUINO – Margarita “Tingting” Cojuangco (aunt-in-law of
President Aquino);
AQUINO - Paolo Benigno “Bam” IV (nephew of President
Benigno Aquino);
BINAY - Nancy Binay-Angeles (daughter of Vice President
Jejomar Binay);
CAYETANO – siblings Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano in the
Senate;
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EJERCITO-ESTRADA - if Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito will be
placed into the pedestal of power in the government in
this elections on May 13, 2013, there will be two sons
of Erap Estrada in the Senate with Jose “Jinggoy”
Ejercito Estrada, the felon;
ENRILE - once Juan Ponce “Jack” Enrile Jr. wins in the political
bout on May, he will join Juan Ponce Enrile, his father,
in the Senate;
MAGSAYSAY - Milagros “Mitos” Habana-Magsaysay and
Ramon Magsaysay Jr., son of the popular former
President; and
VILLAR - Cynthia Villar (wife of termed out Sen. Manny Villar).
If ever all of these candidates win in the May 2013 elections, we will
have a grand total of 13 family-related senators in the senate.
This is more than 50% of the entire Upper House. That makes eight
family collectively in control of the Senate.
The relevant question is - do they really represent the people of the
Philippines?
Another case in point is the clan of the current President Aquino – the
Cojuancos.
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Noynoy Aquino is one of the direct descendants of Melecio Cojuangco,
former representative, 1st Philippine Assembly; which counts among
clan members, Eduardo Cojuangco Sr., former provincial governor;
Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., former congressman; son Carlos Cojuangco,
congressman and former town mayor; Congressman Marcos Cojuangco;
Jose “Pepe” Cojuangco Sr., former Representative of the 10th Philippine
Assembly, father of former President Corazon C. Aquino; and brother
Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, Jr., former congressman; “Ting-Ting”
Cojuangco, Undersecretary for Interior and Local Government, former
provincial governor, and wife of Jose Jr.; former President Cory
Cojuangco Aquino; mother of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III,
15th President of the Philippines; Mercedes Cojuangco-Teodoro, former
assemblywoman of the Batasang Pambansa; Gilberto Teodoro, former
congressman, former Secretary of Department of National Defense, and
son of Mercedes Cojuangco-Teodoro; Congresswoman Monica Louise
P. Teodoro, wife of Gilbert Teodoro; and Mayor Miguel Cojuangco
Rivilla
(http://globalbalita.com/2012/12/02/political-dynasties-in-the-
philippines-1/).
The political scenario of our very own city is no exception – the
Dutertes: Rodrigo, city mayor for several terms, now vice-mayor to
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daughter Sarah, the current mayor; the former running for his old post
with son Paolo as his vice-mayor.
And so on and so forth.
III
We
POLITICAL DYNASTY
call
this
interrelationship
as
a
Political
Dynasty
or
DYNASTOCRACY– a government ruled by a few families controlling
certain regions, provinces and cities and municipalities in our country.
This is designed to preserve and propagate power within the clans giving
scant options to the less privileged people to assume political power.
Needless to say the clans their allies and minions who hold the levers of
power likewise have economic dominance. Such is the perverted power
dynamics we have today.
IV. ABSENCE OF LAWS ON POLITICAL DYNASTY
What then is political dynasty? The Supreme Court had defined the term
political dynasties in the case of Navarro v. Ermita (GR No. 180050;
April 12, 2011).
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In that ruling, Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio defined political
dynasties in the Philippines as a “phenomenon that concentrates
political power and public resources within the control of a few
families whose members alternately hold elective offices, deftly skirting
term limits.”
There were Bills files in the legislature. One of these is the Senate Bill2649: Anti-Political Dynasty Act of the Constitution, Article II, Section
26 states:
“The
State
shall
guarantee
equal
access
to
opportunities for public service and prohibit political
dynasties as may be defined by law.”
The accompanying arguments of this bill, thus:
To give force and effect to this provision, the playing field
of the political arena should be levelled and opened to
persons who are equally qualified to aspire on even terms
with those from ruling politically dominant families.
Philippine society, many sociologists note, revolves around
the system of extended families. However, this extended
family system, an otherwise beneficial concept when
applied to the social aspects of human behaviour, finds its
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pernicious effects in the political arena where public office
becomes the exclusive domain of influential families and
clans that are well-entrenched in Philippine politics. The
monopoly of political power and public resources by such
families affects the citizenry at the local and national levels.
The socio-economic and political inequities prevalent in
Philippine society limit public office to members of ruling
families. In many instances, voters, for convenience and out
of cultural mindset look up to these ruling families as
dispensers of favours, and thus elect relatives of these
politically dominant families.
This bill was filed by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago on January 24,
2011. Similar to this are SB-1317 of 2004 by then senator Alfredo Lim,
SB-1468 of 2007 filed by Senator Panfilo Lacson and the House Bill2493 of 2007 by Rep. Teddy Casino. Sadly, none of these bills were
passed into a law.
Former Chief Justice Renato Puno pointed succinctly the cause for
failures for any initiatives on such bills: the phrase attached to the
provision “…as may be defined by law.” In this country with this
system, the dynasts are empowered to define political dynasty.
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This singularity makes a fine case for changing our system
V.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
So I come back to my original proposition. Have we passed the test
embedded in Lincoln’s Gettysburg address?
I leave that to you to mull over.
The decision making process in the decades of the unitary-presidential
system has structurally negated the participation of the governed. This
anomaly has been so imbedded in the structure that the powers and
authorities over time have been so concentrated that they have begun to
suffocate the system.
The CDP has seen this futility and therefore sees the need for a
restructuring of our political and economic systems. We have come to
the conclusion that the decades of the same configuration have
condemned our country to inevitably deteriorate over time.
The debate on charter change must go on, and we call for the
participation of all. And we, the members of the CDP have taken upon
ourselves to shape that debate.
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At this juncture, let me digress to present to the new ones what the CDP
is and who we truly are.
THE 300
A few weeks ago, in one of our discourses a seminar participant asked
me this question:
“Sir, why are you so passionate about what you do?”
It was an unexpected question from a young man, but his next query was
even more intriguing:
“Sir, what is passion?”
I answered him in so many words that must have confused him more. So
I thought that today, I will attempt to delve into the depths of these
thoughts and surface perhaps some nuggets that may explain what
passion is and why it is needed for the type of work we do. I may even
fail to illuminate. So permit a senior citizen a moment of nostalgia
Not a lot of people know my about my early years. To get an excellent
education that my parents can’t afford, I entered the seminary to become
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a priest – a future shepherd of men. Life at a theological college was
austere. We were not allowed to read newspapers, so we knew nothing
about current events. Television was in its infant stage and listening to
the radio was restricted. Our mails were monitored and our reading
materials were heavily censored. We were forced fed classical music
developing in me a love-hate relationship with Chopin, Beethoven,
Mozart and even Wagner.
Most of our reading fare was sterile, so was our behaviour in public, not
contaminated by the social contemporary evils – like fraternizing with
nice girls who are not our relatives; and the priests hovering over us
declared that such conduct is verging toward mortal sin – condemning us
in the afterlife to everlasting fire in hell.
Only safe classic books were sanctioned as reading diversion – to
counter intense pubescent boredom. There I discovered the 300 Spartans
at the Battle of Thermopylae. I pictured myself as one of the Greeks –
comparing myself to King Leonidas, who with his force of 300 stopped
the multitudes of Persians lead by Xerxes I – preventing in time the
conquest of Greece.
I devoured these stories of heroes: David Crocket at the Alamo; General
Custer’s last stand at the Little Big Horn; the Siege of Masada during the
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Jewish-Roman war in the 1st Century; and our very own the boy General
Gregorio del Pilar, at Tirad Pass. There were many lessons gleaned from
these famous “last stands” - deeds of courage and bravery against
overwhelming odds; acts of heroism, self-sacrifice and patriotism.
We are today faced with an onslaught of political corruption and mis-
governance; stasis in the socio-economic lives of the majority of our
people – stark poverty and general hopelessness.
Mining the past, even romantic fiction for these enthralling tales of
authentic heroes we can emulate are what impel people like us, few that
we are, men and women not to surrender to the status quo.
Ah, but my favourite is a saga of two thousand years ago where a man of
humble origins selected a few people and started a worldwide upheaval
whose reverberation is felt even today. As a human, Jesus may have
been a poor judge of character. Among the 13 he chose, one betrayed
him, another one denied him several times, a third did not believe he
came back from the dead and the lone woman was known to be a harlot.
Here was this man who started with a handful but because of the
strength of their conviction, the justness of their cause and the ability of
the peers to disseminate the message they swept the world with an
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exciting idea beyond their era— remember too that among our Muslim
brothers and Sisters Jesus was one of their own.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this gathering today is meant to help you search
and define for yourselves your “Thermopylae” and how each can be a
disciple of an ideology that is meant to eventually benefit the Pilipino.
We are not creating a priesthood here but I hope to enrol you to a select
assemblage of resolute individuals committed to a type of change, rooted
on a philosophy of governance based on the respect for human dignity.
You could be the disciples not of any prophet but of this compelling
dogma.
Whether you acknowledge it or not, you are a fragment of an elite
educated membership, distinguished from the hordes by a mixture of
talents bestowed upon a few and denied the many. We desire that you be
part of a team of politically astute young professionals, shakers, movers
and achievers who will have to alter the very fabric of our society for the
good of the Pilipino.
In this gathering, you may each have your own agenda in mind. It is
expected. The important thing is that you are willing to learn together
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and eventually decide that political technocracy can be woven into your
daily lives.
Possibly, most or some of you are committed. Maybe some of you are
here because of sheer curiosity. Whatever is the motivation, after a series
of conferences, meetings and enhancements you may begin to
comprehend by yourself what your role should be.
You are good if you can uplift the Filipino from their current condition.
But you are greater if you bring them to a condition beyond where they
need not be uplifted.
That one, ladies and gentlemen, is a role you must carve for yourself.
Lito Monico Lorenzana
Chow King, Davao City
April 9, 2013