The gov’t we deserve

Yesterday’s joke of the day was that those who can’t walk can still run. And that in this country, age is just a number for those seeking elective office.

Considering that I’m approaching dual citizenship status myself (Filipino and senior), I should appreciate those who show that there is no age limit for those who want to serve the nation.

The butt of yesterday’s jokes was plunder defendant Juan Ponce Enrile, out on bail because he’s supposed to be old and sick enough to require hospital detention following his arrest. But at age 94, JPE is showing that he’s not old or sick enough to forgo running in the midterm elections next year.

Allowing him to post bail ostensibly on humanitarian grounds (which Enrile didn’t even cite in his bail plea) must have been like winning the lotto for the eight Supreme Court justices led by the one who wrote the majority ruling, Lucas Bersamin.

Enrile is running for a Senate seat as an independent. His certificate of candidacy, filed by his lawyer, initially listed his occupation as “businesswoman,” but someone else must have prepared the COC.

The other person who’s showing that one is never too old or sick to run in this country is Imelda Marcos. Looking bloated and often seen moving around in a wheelchair, Imeldific was photographed standing on her own yesterday. The former first lady is running for governor of her husband’s home province of Ilocos Norte. Imeldific aims to replace her eldest daughter Imee, who looks assured of winning a Senate seat as brother Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. prepares (if the legal grapevine proves accurate) to assume the vice presidency. Younger members of the clan are also said to be seeking local elective posts.

You know politics is big business when some of the wealthiest clans in the country can’t get enough of it, and even notorious drug dealers and jueteng lords become politicians.

Dynasty-building has reached shameless proportions, plumbing new depths in every Philippine electoral exercise.

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The same can be said of the party-list system, now just a farce of the constitutional intent of marginalized representation, and an unnecessary drain on public funds.

If taxpayers didn’t have to bankroll the upkeep of all those party-list congressmen in the House of Representatives, a.k.a. the HOR, the administration could easily forgo that onerous excise tax on fuel products – not the scheduled increase this January, but the existing one that has been in place since the start of the year.

It’s just as well that the draft federal charter drawn up by the consultative committee or Concom formed by President Duterte now looks dead, since it proposes even greater party-list representation and an expanded bureaucracy.

The Concom’s draft charter, however, also proposes a non-negotiable provision to curb dynasty building to complement the lifting of term limits. Not surprisingly, the HOR tossed out the draft federal charter and quickly drew up a replacement, retaining the lifting of term limits for all officials except the president and vice president, but without the anti-dynasty provision.

The attitude is that parents want their children to follow in their footsteps and take over a successful family business, so why can’t it be the same in politics?

Many family fortunes are built on politics. For the corrupt and those engaged in other criminal activities, politics is the biggest and most efficient Laundromat for dirty money. And the government, in the minds of many, is the perfect employer: it won’t go bankupt, and recruitment and promotion are based on connections rather than competence and fitness for the job.

Once in government, a “public servant” – often an oxymoron in this country – becomes (at least in his mind) a cut above the rest of us second- and third-class citizens. He gets special protection, with armed state security escorts whose vehicles are equipped with blinkers and wang-wang so he can be exempted from slogging through infernal traffic jams, in the same way that he exempts himself from the law. He helps himself to personal use of public resources and funds. He knows this is illegal, but even if he is caught and indicted, what the heck – he could be dead by the time the case is resolved with finality. Or better yet, he can steal even more people’s money to buy justice in his favor.

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There are two principal ways of stopping plunderers, narco politicians, jueteng lords, smugglers and other unsavory characters from winning public office.

One is through the law. This is true in countries such as South Korea, where official wrongdoing is punished with imprisonment and permanent disqualification from public office within about a year from the start of trial.

Sadly, we know this is not the case in our country. Even convicts are allowed to run for elective office as long as there is no final judgment in their cases, and adjudication could take forever. At 94, Enrile may no longer be around for the final ruling on his plunder indictment in connection with the pork barrel scam.

Even if by some miracle, the Supreme Court renders final judgment in his case as quickly as it booted out Maria Lourdes Sereno as chief justice, Enrile might never set foot in a prison cell if he again invokes his age and the administration pardons him.

Imelda Marcos, whose clan holds a special place in the heart of President Duterte, is certain to get that pardon in the unlikely event that she is convicted of any crime attributed to the dictatorial regime of her late husband.

The other factor that can stop questionable characters from winning public office is the vote itself. And yet we keep voting for politicians who are known to be plunderers, gambling barons, drug dealers, murderers, smugglers, wife-beaters – you name it, the crooks are all there in our political firmament, in the payroll of taxpayers.

We shouldn’t be surprised that over the past half-century, much of Asia has left the Philippines behind in terms of economic progress and many development indicators.

Truly, we get the government we deserve.