Syndicate

Here we are, deeply polarized by our rotten politics. The other day I heard someone joke, while tackling candidates’ promises of uniting the nation in case of victory: what do you call “fat” political dynasties uniting behind a common candidate?

A syndicate.

Sindikato, according to the one cracking the joke. The word in Filipino has no benign meaning, unlike its English counterpart; sindikato refers specifically to a criminal organization, with mobsters as members.

For many Filipinos, laughter is the best medicine. We joke and laugh about a lot of things, and our humor can be unabashedly un-PC (President Duterte is Exhibit A).

You can usually tell how dire the situation is when we can’t crack jokes about it. Super Typhoon Yolanda and the pandemic have been among those rare cases. With the arrival of the highly infectious Omicron mutant BA.2.12, more COVID suffering could lie ahead.

The upcoming elections, even if deeply polarizing, haven’t dampened our sense of humor.

That Easter Sunday press conference, for example, generated so many jokes about the participants from their rivals’ political camps – usually a good gauge of the damage inflicted by the event on the butt of the jokes.

A “fat” dynasty is one that has been entrenched for a long time, with several generations of the extended clan in politics simultaneously. Fat dynasties show immoderate greed by fielding clan members for every possible position in both the local turf and the national government.

Someone commented, during the scandal-ridden presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when the advice to “moderate your greed” became a buzz phrase, that greed is intrinsically immoderate. But you get my drift.

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Today the sky’s the limit in shameless, greedy dynasty building in our country. And if the federation of dynasties succeeds in the current race, our country will effectively become gangster’s paradise.

That’s how the fat dynasties behave: like mobsters, minus the murders, although there are some clans that engage in gangland-style assassinations to eliminate political rivals. The Ampatuans of Maguindanao were just the extreme examples.

More common is the use of the incumbents’ power to eliminate or sideline clan rivals in both politics and business.

It’s OK if what is being perpetuated by the dynasty is exemplary governance, with the best member selected to serve.

Increasingly, however, dynasty members who can’t make it anywhere else are foisted on the people, perpetuating mainly their family entitlements and thievery. The younger generations often see nothing wrong with the system because, as the Coolio pop song goes, they have “been spending most their lives livin’ in the gangsta’s paradise.”

When government posts become the dumping ground for mediocrities with Grade A connections, it inevitably shows in the quality of governance.

Our system of government is designed to provide checks and balances. Local councils, headed by the vice mayor or vice governor, are supposed to guard against abuse of power and privileges by the mayor or governor.

Obviously, this won’t happen if the key local seats are occupied by members of the same clan.

Not content with hogging local government seats, certain clans field members as nominees of party-list groups that represent no particular sector except the family interest.

It’s not unusual for such fat dynasties to enter nearly all lucrative economic activities in their turf, including utilities, ports, construction, gas stations, commercial and entertainment centers, banking, health care and food establishments.

Some control illegal activities such as jueteng, smuggling and yes, drug trafficking, confident in the belief that they can influence all aspects of the criminal justice system and get away with anything.

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Since they control city hall, there is no red tape for clan members and they can put roadblocks to business competition.

The setup has multiple layers of unfair practices that should be kept in check by the Philippine Competition Commission, if its members aren’t sleeping on the job or looking the other way. The regulatory environment in our country, however, is one of the weak links in our weak republic.

Enforcement of laws regulating bank loans to related parties or DOSRI (Directors, Officers, Stockholders and their Related Interests) is also disappointing.

The uneven playing field is a major disincentive to job-generating investments. But if there aren’t enough jobs to go around, the dynasts won’t mind. They will simply provide periodic dole-outs to the neediest, using tax money, further reinforcing the patronage system.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Mandanas ruling, local governments now have even greater resources for this.

The three branches of government are also supposed to provide checks and balances to each other. Congress, however, is packed with members of dynasties dedicated to serving mainly their own vested interests.

The judiciary, for its part, is compromised by its members’ twisted sense of indebtedness to the appointing power. Often, those appointed through connections rather than their mediocre qualifications are easily corrupted.

Even members of the Supreme Court can be influenced by Malacañang (or its allies and cronies) with promises of appointments to government positions (ideally with fixed terms) or state-run corporate boards upon their retirement.

In dynasties, the copulation of political power and personal business is as corrosive and corrupting as incest.

Elections are supposed to save us from this. We can still make it happen.