The deleterious effects of political dynasties

FOR THE PAST few days, we have seen once again the spectacle of candidates filing their candidacy for elective posts in the 2019 midterm elections. The faces and surnames of most of the serious candidates are familiar to us. This spectacle shows the same people who keep on coming back for reelection, including a few of them who had been indicted for misuse of money. It also made manifest the recycling of family members into elective posts: son or daughter in place of a parent or vice versa; a spouse for the other spouse; a sibling in place of another sibling; several members of the family running simultaneously for elective posts. And the most shameful of all: close relatives running for No. 1 and No. 2 positions in the same political jurisdiction.

Some people say there is nothing wrong with that. Any qualified person has an inherent right to run for public office. This kind of thing happens also in highly developed countries.

The situation, in our case, is not a question of right, which should have been modified in the first place as required in the existing Constitution. It is a question of effectiveness in governance over the long term.

It may be true that similar things happen in highly developed countries. But not to the very wide extent that we do. We have allowed political dynasties to be the norm, not the exception. Moreover, our social and economic settings and the scruples of local politicians are far different from those in developed countries.

Let us take the United States, a country familiar to many of us, for example. Edward Kennedy and John McCain were longserving senators representing their respective states, but I do not think their past record of recurring reelection was brought about by their respective family’s political power. It was brought about by their own effectiveness and outstanding abilities as political leaders. Kennedy was not succeeded by another Kennedy, and I do not think McCain will be succeeded by another McCain. As far as I know, during the last decade or so, no state governor in the 50 states was succeeded by a close relative. Both a father and his son became US presidents in just two instances (Adams, Bush) and these happened far between in time — by about 200 years. Theodore Roosevelt, a famous and respected former president, lost when he ran for president again after four years; former Vice President Richard Nixon lost when he later ran for governor in his native state.

Even in Western Europe, where election is considered highly free, no top political leader was succeeded by a close relative during the last several decades. It is even safe to say that there is no existing political dynasty in Western Europe. There are strong and famous political leaders, of course: Churchill, Thatcher, Adenauer, Kohl, de Gaulle. But they had not created a political dynasty, because doing so was not possible in their respective geographies; not by law, but by the prevalence of a reasonably informed electorate and by their countries’ strong ethical culture.

The situation in the Philippines is far, far different. There is a widespread prevalence of voters made captive by political dynasties through the use of tax money and corruption money. A good example is the so-called pork barrel. No matter how it is described or masked, it represents a very large sum of people’s money identified for each legislator that is used to capture votes for the legislator and, when their election rotation comes, for members of the legislator’s family. In local governments, misuse of public funds and corruption are known to be widespread. These activities are used to accumulate funds, partly or wholly, to acquire votes in the next election. Just look at the poor quality of the infrastructure that had been built, and the lack of very muchneeded infrastructure in the rural areas, even low-cost things such as a short pedestrian bridge to span a narrow river that the children can conveniently cross when going to school. All these are happening under a situation where these local governments receive 40 percent of national tax collections, on top of their own local tax revenue.

Political dynasties have cleverly exploited over time the poverty of our people and their lack of informed judgement brought about by insufficient education and inadequate understanding of the language that government and media use in presenting, reporting, and discussing government and political affairs. These dynasties make the poor dependent on them for doleouts. During election time, they buy votes, the price of which, I understand, is now P1,000 per vote. (You ask a vote seller why he sells his vote and the answer that you will usually get is a very candid one: “Kasi ho, maski sa isang araw man lang, fiesta ho kami.” Or something to that effect.)

The presence of political dynasties has been in our political system for a long time now and, sad to say, has continued to expand during the past decades to such a wide extent that we have now. I believe there is a political dynasty in