Tax creating father, tax collecting son

Poland up to recently was seen as a Central European heavyweight, with the region’s highest investments and lowest inflation. But politics just had to spoil it. Last month the government of president Lech Kaczynski elevated his identical twin brother Jaroslaw to prime minister, breaking their earlier pledge to commit no such oddity. It’s not a crime for Polish siblings to hold the country’s top two posts; besides, they’ve long been in politics, with brainy Jaroslaw running their party for years and brash Lech once serving as mayor of Warsaw. Still it gives Poland a bad image that, in this new era, it can be as plutocratic as its communist and medieval past.

No different is the Philippines, where the reign of rich kinsmen often has been used as symbol of Filipino immaturity in statecraft. Here the same old families have ruled provinces for the past century, and the Senate since the ’50s. And if Poland’s opposition has not eased its condition any, so it is in RP. In Warsaw also last month a legislator, whose fringe party often conflates homosexuals with pedophiles, uttered anti-Semitic slurs, echoing his ultra-rightist father who, as member of the European Parliament, hails Franco as the continent’s greatest hero. In Manila administration and minority politicos fund coups and file charges against each other, but agree to never write a law that would enforce the constitutional ban on political dynasties.

Filipino pols pushed the envelope last week with the election of Rep. Herminio Teves (Lakas, Negros Oriental) as head of the powerful ways and means committee. What makes the chairmanship awkward is that the 85-year-old second time congressman is also the father of Finance Sec. Gary Teves. Like Poland’s twins occupying the top two government seats, the Philippines now has a father as prime tax creator and the son as chief tax collector. There’s no law against it, but it’s nuttier than having a mother and son sit together in the Senate, where first cousins used to sit too. Investors will not only ask questions but also stay away in the meantime.

Political clans even in modern times can’t resist the urge of dynasty building. While nobles of yore used right of succession, today’s rulers use election to alternate in seats of power. India’s present railways minister was for 15 years chief minister of Bihar state, a post his wife also held many times (and where he committed offenses that sent him to jail five times). Some don’t bother with elections and simply mimic royalty: North Korea’s Kim Il Sung passed the torch to son Kim Jong Il; Cuba’s Fidel Castro only last week handed the presidency to brother Raul. Even in "democratic" America, voters tend to treat their officials as aristocrats whose descendants have to hold the same office. Two of New Orleans’ political dynasts are Rep. William Jefferson and former mayor Marc Morial. And not to forget, its current president rose to the position eight years after his dad stepped down, earning a quip for the term of the seducer they had sandwiched as "sex between the Bushes."

The Philippine dynasties are not about to end, given the example of present leaders. Gloria Arroyo is the daughter and two senators are the grandsons of presidents. Three other senators are sons and a daughter of senators; a fourth is a grandson. Still three more senators have sons who are congressmen; a fourth has a wife in Congress too. At least half of the 235 congressmen and 50 of the 82 provincial governors descended from politicians. Many of the 112 city mayors alternate with their spouses or children for the post. Some clans simultaneously hold three or four national and local positions, elective or appointive. And so they live happily ever after.

* * *

The US embassy quietly is examining visa fraud by Filipino officials. It appears that a senior aide at the Dept. of Transport and Communication flew with his private secretary to California on July 18 on the pretext of "confidential assignment and official mission" for Sec. Leandro Mendoza. But their travel authority was faked; Mendoza’s signature was a computer scan. The private secretary is not even a DOTC staff, but no less than an assistant secretary, the senior aide’s pal, issued a fake certificate of employment. Embassy officials have asked the NBI for help.

The joint probe will also be on faking the reasons for the US trip. The only thing "confidential" about the senior aide and private secretary’s travel is their illicit love affair. The aide got the girl pregnant, and promised her dad a "clean abortion" in San Mateo county, where they stayed at Hilton Garden Inn on Bridge Pointe Circle, San Mateo City. And the only thing "official" about it is that they both drew travel stipends from Mendoza’s intelligence fund.

The couple was already in California when US immigration men were tipped off about the fraud. They were supposed to return to Manila last week. If they did, they must now also answer to DOTC auditors. And since the colluding assistant secretary is a Malacañang appointee, the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission could also step in. The senior aide drew lump-sum travel allowance of $6,000, while his moll took $159 a day for 14 days, or $2,226. Adding their round-trip business-class plane tickets of $1,800 apiece, the duo filched from government roughly $12,000, or P624,000 - all in the name of libido.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]