Unless you’re part of a dynasty or a beneficiary of dynasts’ patronage, you must be about to throw up from the greed for political power of certain clans.
Congress is supposed to pass a law defining and prohibiting dynasties. But lawmakers won’t self-destruct by curbing their dynasty-building.
A landmark petition has been filed, asking the Supreme Court to compel Congress to carry out its constitutional mandate of passing an enabling law defining and banning dynasties.
The ban is meant to complement term limits, which were enshrined in the Constitution to prevent anyone with the tendencies of the conjugal Marcos dictatorship to stay in power forever.
Without the anti-dynasty law, however, families soon found a way to skirt term limits – by fielding as replacements their spouses, children, siblings and the siblings’ spouses and children.
In time the relatives were not content with just serving alternately. They soon began seeking different elective seats in their turfs simultaneously – from Congress to the provincial capitol to the city/municipal hall and down to the barangays.
The greed has expanded to the Senate, where we have close relatives sitting simultaneously – and wanting to add more, more, more. If they can have two, why not three, six? What about 12? There ought to be a law, but since there’s none, what can stop them? Avarice is not a criminal offense.
Unless the challenger of a clan is someone with widespread name recall, the dynasty is preserved. But even national name recall is no guarantee of toppling dynasts. Manny Pacquiao lost in a local race, and so have several movie stars.
Dynasts argue that if they don’t serve well, voters can always kick them out. When a single clan occupies nearly all positions in local government, however, with other members holding key posts in the national government, the clan has control over the immense state resources for doling out favors to their constituents: jobs in government, public works (with kickbacks, or else the clan itself is the supplier), and yes, the distribution of tax-funded ayuda for a wide range of basic needs from health care to expenses for “KBL” – kasal, binyag, libing. Weddings, baptisms and funerals.
With clan members in the Senate and the House of Representatives, they can earmark infrastructure and other development projects that will benefit their family enterprises. As anti-graft advocates have pointed out, these days the clans may even own the contractors and suppliers of the projects.
With all those layers of conflict of interest, our graft-busters should be working overtime. But lacking the manpower and resources (and more importantly, political will), they don’t initiate probes on their own, preferring to wait for others to file formal complaints.
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Just to encourage the high tribunal to act forthwith on the issue of dynasties, Chairman George Garcia of the Commission on Elections is hoping that people will ask the Comelec to disqualify candidates in the May elections for violating the anti-dynasty intent of the Constitution.
The Comelec recently junked such a petition against five members of the Tulfo clan who are running simultaneously for various positions, two of them for the Senate. But the junking was merely on technicalities, which means a complaint can be filed again if the deficiencies are corrected.
Last week, Garcia told me on The STAR’s online show “Truth on the Line” that the Comelec welcomes such complaints against dynastic candidates. The complaints, he stressed, can be filed not only by rival bets but also by any taxpayer.
Garcia, an election lawyer, vows prompt action on such complaints. Even in the absence of a law banning or regulating dynasties, he doesn’t rule out the possibility that a disqualification petition may be granted.
He wouldn’t disclose the possible basis for such a DQ ruling. And he expects a legal challenge, including being accused of grave abuse of discretion. But he says this will provide an actionable case for the Supreme Court, which can then be an opportunity to clarify if the anti-dynasty provision in the Constitution is merely a joke or a mandate that Congress cannot ignore.
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Apart from undermining the system of checks and balances in government, dynastic systems also facilitate vote buying using state resources.
People who have been directly involved in election campaigns tell me that the money for buying votes is distributed through local leaders – often barangay officials. This is why senators and congressmen, backed by Malacañang, suck up to barangay officials by pushing for term extensions for the village personnel through repeated postponements of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.
The cash is given together with sample ballots bearing the slate of the vote buyer. These days, e-wallets are also used. Rival candidates can be on the lookout for such illegal activities and file complaints, but this is difficult when a clan has a stranglehold on local government.
Garcia is aware of how vote buying is carried out. In this land of short memories, the voter must remember the giver. So the votes, he says, are bought just three to four days before election day.
The amounts are also relatively small per person, he says. In the past elections, the amount that we heard was about P500 per person. Vote-buying politicians deploy bagmen who literally lug around bags stuffed with cash for distribution.
Garcia is hoping that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas can prohibit the withdrawal of large amounts of small bills a few banking days before election day. By small, I guess he means up to 500-peso denominations.
How do vote buyers know if they got what they paid for?
Localized election results show if the vote buying worked. Winners know which voting districts and barangays backed them, and sometimes retaliate by neglecting rutted roads, for example, or inadequate street lighting.
The Comelec can only do so much. For whatever it’s worth, legal challenges by taxpayers might help curb dynasty-building.
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