CAGAYAN DE ORO (MindaNews / 20 February) — The top official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Region 10 refused to name, upon questioning in Thursday’s Senate public hearing on the anti-dynasty bills, the political families in Northern Mindanao which can be considered dynasties.
Comelec Region 10 Director Renato Magbutay simply said, “It is public knowledge who the families are,” after Robert de la Serna, an NGO leader, asked the commission to identify the political families dominating the political landscape in the region “as a matter of record.”
Magbutay’s reply drew a sharp rebuke from Senator Francis Pangilinan, who said the Comelec should have the political will to confront political families entrenched in Northern Mindanao.
Pangilinan, chair of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes, said the public should have access to such information so they can support the anti-dynasty proposals and exert pressure on legislators.
“The Senate is holding the public dialogue to listen to the people’s sentiments,” he said.
The Senate committee on electoral reforms and people’s participation, chaired by Senator Risa Hontiveros, held here the final leg of the “Kontra Dinastiya” public consultations on the proposed Anti-Political Dynasty Law.
Northern Mindanao comprises the provinces of Bukidnon, Camiguin, Lanao del Norte, Misamis Occidental, and Misamis Oriental, and Cagayan de Oro City.
The region is home to well-entrenched political families –Zubiri (Bukidnon), Romualdo (Camiguin), Dimaporo (Lanao del Norte), Oaminal (Misamis Occidental), Uy (Misamis Oriental), and Rodriguez (Cagayan de Oro).
Hontiveros said the passage of the Anti-Political Dynasty Bill is long overdue as this is one of the provisions in the 1987 Constitution.
She said one good example is the Anti-Dynasty Law of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which prohibits relatives of an incumbent elective official up to the second degree of consanguinity and affinity, to run for public office.
Hontiveros clarified that among the different versions of the bill filed in Congress, she favors the one proposed by Akbayan which bans relatives of public officials up to the fourth degree of consanguinity from running for public office.
Meanwhile, participants to the public hearing struggled to understand the seven bills pending in the Senate.
It did not help that many of the students—who made up a large portion of the crowd that jampacked the Xavier University covered court—had not read all seven versions of the proposed law.
“I admit I was not able to find time to read the different versions. I had so many class assignments,” said LJ Dawn Dapanas, a first-year student at the XU College of Law.
In a study entitled “The Structural Persistence of Dynastic Rule in the Philippines,” the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung said a stark political reality in the Philippine political landscape is “a cycle where concentrated economic capital fails to translate into distributed political capital.”
“When power becomes a family heirloom, the incentive for systemic change often vanishes, leaving the most politically heavy provinces with light pockets,” the foundation said. (Froilan Gallardo/MindaNews)
