MACHIAVELLIAN MOVES

YOU are delusional if you think that when the 186 members of the House of Representatives voted to oust Alan Peter Cayetano and replace him with Lord Allan Jay Velasco as speaker, change is coming. If there is anything in this political maneuver, it is simply another move to strengthen the hand of President Rodrigo Duterte and his children.

It is easy to paint this political theater as one where Alan Peter Cayetano simply overplayed his hand and lost, miserably. Others who dislike him may even revel in the thought that he just got what he deserved. He took the rejection by an overwhelming majority of the House of his first attempt to resign as a vote of confidence. He counted on the support of 205 members of the House. So, when 186 voted to oust him and replace him with

Velasco, this meant that 119 of his 205 supporters either failed to vote or remained with him. It is now obvious that 86 members changed their minds and abandoned him. It is indeed karmic, if one sees it as an instant blowback after turning his back on the gentleman’s agreement that he had with Velasco.

If we take this stance, then it is easy to paint Cayetano as totally naïve. He simply forgot that in the House of Representatives, where party discipline is simply a figment of one’s imagination, the Pied Piper is not for loyalty, or friendship, but for money and power. He failed to take heed of

Niccolò Machiavelli’s fair warning about men, and women, in politics. Machiavelli warned: “… because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon.”

Certainly, these men of politics will not change, and the same fate could befall Velasco eventually if he no longer acts as that Pied

Piper. So, the only change we can see in the House is the dance of money and power now enthroning new persons in old positions, and even old ways. This is not about policy differences, or some principled fight. It is all about who will control the appropriations, more so in a crucial year before the 2022 elections.

But the other way to interpret the events may even be more exciting.

It may, in fact, be possible that Cayetano knew that his power as speaker has an expiration date, and his mind is no longer set on keeping it, but in moving up and setting his eye on a higher office. Cayetano may have his flaws, but he is certainly not naïve or stupid. He may have realized that he will not be able to get the endorsement of the President in 2022, and that the best way is to