The emerging fiefdoms

Khaled Elgindy wrote in the Foreign Affairs last August 20, 2024 that “As Israel’s current war in Gaza has unfolded, Abbas has remained impotent and irrelevant, and even his fiefdom in the West Bank has begun to crumble”. As a backgrounder, the Internet says that Khaled Elgindy, (who may not be familiar to many of us here in the Philippines) is a senior fellow and director of the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute while the Foreign Affairs is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs.

Elgindy used the word fiefdom which, to me, refers to a rather old socio-political concept. Again the internet says that a fiefdom “is an area over which someone exercises control as or in the manner of a feudal lord. xx It is a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal allegiance, services or payments.

I cannot but help to relate to what The Freeman reported the other day as emerging fiefdoms some localities here in Cebu province. The news came out on the first day of the filing of certificates of candidacy for the 2025 elections. To be sure, this paper did not use the word that Elgindy wrote - fiefdom. This is only my own personal perception on how the report should be taken. To me the emerging fiefdoms are Mandaue City, and the municipality of Consolacion, Cebu and the Ouano’s and the Lagons, are the likely emerging feudal lords. These families are, like the feudal lords of olden times, perceived to possess the necessary wherewithals to run a heavily funded political campaign machinery more than enough to overwhelm even a principle-based opposition! Thus, my analogy to fiefdoms.

Let us take the case of the Ouano’s. The Freeman reported that there are five Ouano clansmen seeking fresh mandates from Mandauehanons and Consolacion voters. The first three arethe city’s Lone District Representative Emmarie “Lolypop” Ouano-Dizon, her brother Provincial Board Member Thadeo “Jonkie” Ouano who is speculated to be running for Mandaue City mayor, and Consolacion Councilor Alfie Ouano, who will run for Board Member of Cebu Province. Lolypop, Jonkie and Alfie are the children of the late former Mayor and Board Member Thadeo “Teddy” Ouano.

Aside from the 3 Ouano siblings, Alfie’s son Miko is also running, (as the fourth Ouano candidate), for the first time, as municipal councilor of Consolacion, a local government unit adjacent to Mandaue City, where City Councilor Anjong Icalina Ouano, is reportedly seeking re-election as the fifth Ouano candidate. The Freeman also reported that the mother of Councilor Anjong, former Opao Barangay Captain Liza Ouano is a younger sister of the late Mayor Teddy.

This paper also reported that the Lagon family is poised to seek anew people’s mandates. At present, two of them, husband and wife, sit in the House of Representatives. The husband is incumbent Ako Bisaya Partylist Representative Sonny Lagon and the wife is incumbent Sixth District Representative Daphne Lagon. Their sons Larenz (who is currently a municipal councilor of Cordova. east of Cebu Province, and Lorenz (an incumbent municipal councilor of Tuburan, in west Cebu)will be running for Cebu Provincial Board. This family must be among the best educated and most honest in the province more deserving Cebuano votes over other politicians!

I dare to present this analogy of emerging fiefdoms in an honest effort to help awaken our people to what the real politics is. The question that lurks in my mind and which our countrymen should consider is this: Are the emerging realistic forms of fiefdoms compatible with our republican ideals?