More of the same

The kind of candidates aspiring as Senators, members of the House of Representatives and local government officials in the May 2013 elections clearly shows that the business of government and the administration of public affairs in this country are getting more and more limited to a few persons. Knowingly or unknowingly, we are slowly slipping away from a broad based democracy to a narrow based oligarchy; from a government “of the people, for the people and by the people” to a government revolving around rich, famous and powerful personalities and well entrenched political clans.

Of course people are still given the right to choose the officials who will run the affairs of government. It can be said that sovereignty still resides in them because they still elect their leaders in the Executive, and their representatives in the Legislative branches of government. But as it is now turning out during the filing of the certificates of candidacy (COC), their choice especially in the coming elections has been substantially reduced and confined to the few rich families, clans, moneyed class and other persons who have tasted political power, loved it and would not like to give it up because of the economic power they have have likewise acquired.

Actually the framers of our Constitution tried to ensure the democratization of political power and to see to it that this power will be shared by as many citizens of whatever class or stature. This assurance is particularly found in Section 26, Article II, which provides that the “State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service.”

To guarantee such equal access, the same section of our Charter prohibits political dynasties as may be defined by law. Then our framers also introduced the multi-party system instead of sticking to the two-party system we had before. Thus we now have the party-list system of representation where any registered national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations can be represented in the House of Representatives (Section 5 (1) and (2) Article VI).

As an added measure to eliminate obstacles to equal access to opportunities for public service, the Constitution likewise limited the terms of office of elective officials. Thus the President only has a single term of six years and shall not be eligible for reelection. On the other hand no Vice President shall serve for more than two successive terms of six years (Section 4, Article VII). Likewise, no Senator shall serve for more than two consecutive terms of six years while no member of the House of Representatives shall serve for more than three consecutive terms of three years each term (Sections 4 and 6 Article VI). The same is true with respect to local government officials except barangay officials whose term of office shall be fixed by law (Section 8 Article 10).

The framers of our Charter undoubtedly wanted to give the poor, underprivileged and marginalized people in our society who are deserving, qualified and sincere an equal chance to serve our country. Such intention should have been honored and respected with or without any enabling legislation especially by our political leaders past and present. Unfortunately, exactly the opposite has happened.

The multi-party system has only engendered the politics of personalities rather than politics of principles. Political parties with differing and varied platforms and programs of government designed to attract the electorate depending on which will serve their best interest, have joined forces and coalesced behind politically and financially powerful personalities mainly for purposes of winning in the elections. Never have I imagined that the NP and LP, the major political parties fighting each other in many elections of the past will have common slate of candidates representing the incumbent Aquino administration. Nor have I imagined that Erap, Enrile and Binay three bitter political enemies of the past are now together under a loose, informal and uncredited political organization called UNA fielding their own candidates to oppose the administration slate. And the worse part here is that both political groups have three common candidates for Senator!

Worst still is that never before will there be a succession of Senators, Congressmen and local government officials belonging to the same family or clan than in the coming elections. Even P-Noy who brought so much hope of genuine change in our politics has a cousin and an aunt as candidates for Senator. Enrile is fielding his own son to succeed him as Senator. Erap who is running for Manila Mayor have two sons running for Senator. Villar whose term as Senator has expired is fielding his wife to succeed him in the Senate. So is Angara whose son is running for Senator in the P-Noy slate. After the elections our Senate will be composed of the sons and daughters of former senators and brother and sister.

The political dynasties are more entrenched in the local government units (LGU). Since the adoption of our Constitution prohibiting political dynasties more and more families in almost all the provinces, cities and towns have retained possession of the local government posts. Obviously the various local government offices are transferred from one member of the family to another in order to go around the term limits fixed by the Charter.

Incumbent officials who have reached their term limits will just ask members of their families to run for the same posts until the next election when they could run again. This is how the Marcoses, Singsons, Dys, Revillas, Ejercitos, Garcias, Dutertes and many other families have managed to retain power in their respective LGUs.

So in the coming elections we will have more of these political dynasties. The is very sad indeed because one of the changes people expected to happen during P-Noy’s term is precisely to gradually eliminate political dynasties.

Instead however we have more of the same.

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