Branding

We have a shrinking political class. That will not be good for our democracy in the long run.

Already we have two offspring of past presidents serving in succession at the highest post of the land. The next presidential election could see the grandson of another former president pitted against the son of yet another one.

The Senate looks pretty much like a family-controlled corporation. We have seen a mother and her son sitting simultaneously as well as brother and sister doing the same thing. After next May’s election, that could be supplemented by half-brothers and a father-and-son tandem.

Over the years, we have seen senators stepping down to become congressmen to evade term limits, wives succeeding husbands, sons succeeding their fathers. We now have a vice-president who avoided term limits by fielding his wife in the interim, eventually succeeded by his son and, in the next election, will be deploying his daughter in the senatorial race. Yet another Aquino wants to be senator.

When the two main coalitions announced their line-ups earlier this month, many were dismayed. Not only did the two coalitions do something unheard of anywhere else: share three candidates. Old names filled both line-ups.

Many have condemned the phenomenon as dynasty building. We once tried limiting political dynasties by imposing term limits. That did not work. Ruling families simply pranced around the term limits by having kin play the game of electoral musical chairs.

We once tried to pass legislation banning political dynasties. We could not arrive at a definition of “political dynasty” in the context of freely contested elections.

Aquilino Pimentel, a senator for many terms, once upon a time led the crusade against political dynasties and grappled with legislation intended to make them extinct. His son and namesake eventually succeeded him in the Senate. He does not seem too interested in his father’s futile crusade.

I submit the phenomenon of political dynasties is a symptom, not the cause of the malaise. The cause is a basic design flaw in our constitutional order. The flaw militates against institutionalized party contestation. It fosters personality-centered, charisma driven electoral politics.

That personality-driven electoral culture is fostered by a presidency, elected at large, wielding vast powers of patronage as well as a Senate, also elected at large, where access to a seat is based entirely on name-recall.

The last time we had a truly ideological electoral struggle was when the Partido Nacionalista battled the Partido Federalista in the twenties and thirties.

The former believed in the holy grail of independence. Better a country run like hell by Filipinos, as Quezon put it — exactly what we got.

The latter took a more pragmatic, entirely unromantic attitude. Better to have ourselves adopted as an American state than risk being overrun by our own propensity for chaos. In a country outstanding for sentimental voting, the Federalistas stood no chance.

During the 1971 Constitutional Convention, as in the convention that produced the 1935 Constitution, there was robust debate over those who preferred a presidential and those who wanted a parliamentary system. Those who preferred the presidential system constantly argued that our people wanted to elect their leader directly. They always won the day.

The commission that produced the 1987 Constitution saw advocates of the parliamentary system enjoy a slight edge most of the way. This explains why many provisions in the present Constitution are better suited to a parliamentary framework. Then someone of considerable political influence popped the question: “But what happens to Cory?” The presidential system was restored by a margin of one vote.

When I sat at the 2005 Consultative Commission on Charter Change, I proposed a radical redefinition of district representation (because the small districts were vulnerable to clan domination) and a rethinking of the first-past-the-post method for choosing territorial representatives. The sitting congressmen did not like the idea.

I argued for a shift to the parliamentary form of government because it encourages institutionalized, party-based electoral contestation. The politicians would rather talk of federalism, especially giving subnational entities first crack at revenues. I thought this was a surefire formula for fiscal meltdown.

The position I took against federalism won the first vote. With intense pressure applied, some who voted with me changed their minds. The matter was put to a vote once more. I lost the second vote. At any rate, the gallant effort to push forward constitutional renovation met strong resistance from guardians of the status quo and the draft charter was shelved.

The basic constitutional design flaw favoring personality-centered electoral politics remains. It will remain securely in place into the foreseeable future. There is no interest among the powers-that-be for constitutional renovation.

Last week, a bill proposing state subsidies for political parties progressed at the House. It offers an illusory solution to the chronic weakness of our political party system. In the end, we will be commandeering public funds to finance factions controlled by the same dynasties. Because the subsidies will be handed out to parties on the basis of their present capacity to provide counterpart funding, the same narrow political class will continue to rule forever.

In a word, this is a stupid, anti-people bill because it looks at the symptom but not the cause of what ails the democracy we are trying to build.

Nothing short of a radical constitutional renovation will address the malaise that makes our democratic system electoral but not at all popular. It masks the dynastic control of a small political class perpetuating itself by the sheer dynamics of familial branding.