As the midterm election draws near, an old saying comes to mind, “Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan.”
I am reminded of a passage from one of the works of Jose Rizal, The Indolence of the Filipino:
“The good curate,” he says with reference to the rosy picture a friar had given him of the Philippines, “had not told me about the governor, the foremost official of the district, who was too much taken up with the ideal of getting rich to have time to tyrannize over his docile subjects; the governor, charged with ruling the country and collecting the various taxes in the government’s name, devoted himself almost wholly to trade; in his hands the high and noble functions he performs are nothing more than instruments of gain. He monopolizes all the business and instead of developing on his part the love of work, instead of stimulating the too natural indolence of the natives, he with abuse of his powers thinks only of destroying all competition that may trouble him or attempt to participate in his profits. It matters little to him that the country is impoverished, without cultivation, without commerce, without industry, just so the governor is quickly enriched!”
Here Rizal is using a quote from a French traveler who lived in the Philippines to emphasize that the abuse of power by political elites was the true reason why Filipinos remained poor and hopeless in a land of natural beauty and bounty.
The hacienderos and the encomienderos monopolized both political and economic power, as if these were their god-given right. They treated others who did not belong to their class as inferior and oppressed them severely to keep them docile and subservient.
Sadly, we still see the “governor” today in the form of political dynasties. Political clans now dominate our economy and politics. Close to 80% of our legislators, both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, belong to fat political dynasties.
Our current President is a perfect example of this travesty. His sister is a senator. His first cousin is the Speaker of the House of Representatives and whose wife is also a member. The President’s son is also a “Senior Deputy Speaker” of the lower chamber. His nephew is the governor of their home province. Various relatives hold different local positions there as well.
But remember that this web of familial ties within government is not unique to the President’s clan. These kinship links in political office are commonplace now. We even have a dynasty where mother and son are in the Senate, daughter and daughter-in-law are in the House of Representatives. Not coincidentally, this family is one of the wealthiest today.
In a democracy, suffrage is the power of the people to choose the right persons to manage their government. If incumbent officials are not performing up to par, the voters will always have a chance to replace them in the next election.
In the Philippines, the domination of political dynasties has undermined the electoral process by making genuine political competition virtually impossible. Equity of the incumbent, name recall, and patronage politics all make the hold of dynastic politicians on power almost unbreakable.
The lack of genuine political competition ultimately equates to bad governance. Previous studies on political dynasties in the Philippines show that lower standards of living, lower human development, and higher levels of deprivation and inequality persist in the districts governed by dynastic politicians. Even more alarming is the fact that the fattest dynasties are ensconced in the poorest parts of the country.
It is a tragedy indeed, that the weakening of democracy in the Philippines has been gradual and shrouded by the regularity and necessity of holding periodic elections. Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini and our national heroes will turn in their graves seeing the slow death of the democracy that they had died for. And how it has come to pass so easily unnoticed by us.
The reality is political dynasties dominate politics and governance because the polity has become so “docile and subservient” like the indios of yore. The Pinoy adage, “ginigisa sa sariling mantika”, rings so true here.
But we know that the indios also woke up from their submissiveness and fought for change. Thus, a fire can still be ignited amongst voters to reverse dynastic domination of politics and governance. Hopefully, this fire burns bright in 2025.
(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Michael Henry Yusingco, LL.M is a law lecturer, policy analyst and constitutionalist.)