ELECTION 2022 has merely affirmed political dynasties as a fact of the nation's life. Long entrenched in the fringes of local politics, it has burst into center stage with the return of the Marcoses and their complete rehabilitation as the premier Philippine family dynasty. This would not have been possible without the enabling role of President Duterte, founder of a newly minted but full-fledged political dynasty himself. But come June 30, he will be reduced to a titulary, passing the torch to a capable daughter, Vice President Sara.
The merger of these political families may have been foreordained given that the Duterte pere was once a Cabinet member of Ferdinand and perhaps to reciprocate, Duterte gave preferential treatment to Ferdinand's cadaver allowing him a state burial although he has of late turned cold to the son. The fruits of this alliance, however, gave credence to the existence of the mythical loyalty of the Solid North as Ferdinand Makoy's legacy; a template for what the Deegong may have been undertaking for the evolving South as his own legacy.
But the success or failure of the union of the two dominant families may be defined further by how their respective progeny accumulate influence and participate in governance. Competition for power between dominant families is inevitable as only one must remain on top of the totem pole, as it were. Offhand, Marcos has the deeper bench in contrast to the Duterte's shallow team — given the differential role of a VP. But I'm afraid, the political dynasties are here to stay for the next generations.
Marcos-Duterte elected officials
As of this writing the Marcos clan has captured several elective posts. The son of the president-elect, Sandro, will sit as congressman for the first district of Ilocos Norte while Senator Imee's son, Matthew Manotoc, has been proclaimed governor of the province. A cousin-in-law, Cecilia Araneta Marcos, is vice governor. The second district of Ilocos Norte is Congressman Barba's, a relative. Michael Marcos Keon is Laoag city mayor.
In the Visayas, BBM's cousins were reelected: Alfred Romualdez as mayor of Tacloban and Martin as congressman of the first district. He is touted to be the incoming House speaker while his wife Yedda may assume a party-list post. These do not include the number of councilors and board members in the provinces and cities in the North.
In Davao City, Vice President Sara's brother, incumbent vice mayor Sebastian "Baste", succeeded her as city mayor. Her older brother, Paolo "Polong", was reelected first district representative.
Marcos-Duterte Senate
The configuration in the Senate could even be more scandalous. Anti-federalist senator Cynthia Villar, the wife of the former House speaker and erstwhile Senate president Manny Villar would be joined by Duterte's former Public Works secretary, Mark, Cynthia's son.
Alan Cayetano, the Deegong's former Foreign Affairs secretary who also served as House speaker, will join his sister Senator Pia, who has already served two Senate terms and one as congressman. They are children of dynasty founder, the late senator Rene Cayetano of Taguig.
Former President Erap's children, half-brothers JV Ejercito and Jinggoy Estrada, may get into the Senate together. Jinggoy, out on bail on a plunder case, is the son of former senator Loi Estrada.
If former vice president Jojo Binay had successfully gotten a seat, he would have joined his daughter Senator Nancy in the chamber.
Cory EDSA forces and 1987 Constitution
The current realities could be the zenith of a trajectory in Philippine politics that began 36 years ago with the expulsion of Ferdinand Marcos and the subsequent adoption of the 1987 Constitution that was meant to be the anti-thesis of the 1973 Marcos Constitution. Cory Aquino, at the head of a revolutionary government, sought to craft a constitution that was precisely constructed to prevent the recurrence of martial law and the conditions which allowed the emergence of a despot.
Her concept of a new politics of inclusivity mirrored the aspirations of the forces that helped her and the country topple the dictatorship. This was an eclectic group that ran the gamut of the political spectrum, from the leftist and communist groups who were fence-sitters during the EDSA uprising biding their time to take on a more substantial role or capture the uprising after the fact; to the rightist militarists who provided the spark for the breakaway led by a component of the Marcos clique opting for a coup d'état.
These two extremes failed simply because they were unable to champion the aspirations of most of the people in the wide middle of the political spectrum; from the left of center civil society and NGOs and people's organizations (POs) to the right of center business groups, the oligarchs and elites who were disgruntled by Marcos replacing them with his own. The Catholic Church hierarchy provided the thread that stitched these disparate groups together providing a semblance of moral underpinnings. They found their voice in the motley rabble which proved to work well with the masses. This was the "parliament of the streets" who for years symbolized their disgust for a regime and vocal enough to protest with their feet proving to be thorns on the conjugal dictatorship's side.
It was these motley groups populist demands that were ensconced in that constitution, producing instead the systemic dysfunctions, including a multi-party system scattering the seeds of political dynasties in all levels of governance. These effectively destroyed the ideological underpinnings of political parties, reducing them to personality-based political groupings.
Parliamentary govt and party-lists
The original intent of the selected elitist framers of the 1987 Constitution was to shift to a parliamentary form of government from a presidential system. Briefly, parliamentary system is also known as party government," as the political parties have ascendancy over personalities and because of the pivotal role of political parties in parliamentary elections, governance, and public administrations.
A parliament therefore is composed of elected members from the parliamentary districts, plus those chosen on the basis of "proportional representation" by the political party according to the votes each party obtained in the preceding elections.
The members chosen by the political parties were to constitute a certain percentage of the total number of members of parliament (MP) — for example, 30 percent. The political parties vying for power shall ensure that in the 30 percent "party list," the labor, peasant, urban poor, veterans, indigenous people communities, women, youth, differently abled, except the religious sector, are properly represented. These were the Cory forces that were to be the beneficiaries of the EDSA revolution.
Parliamentary government required the creation of strong, vibrant and ideologically differentiated political parties. Elections would involve the choice of political platforms instead of focusing on personalities. Political parties would have to select from among themselves the best and brightest to lead their parties and the country.
But the parliamentary government was not approved, and the framers reverted to the presidential system while inadvertently retaining the "party list." The effect was that any group with a legitimate or contrived issue or gripe, or worse, any political family, could vie for elective posts. This opened the floodgates to relatives of elective officials or temporary dumping grounds for election losers.
Thus, political dynasties and party-lists — both perversions.
MR. President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr., congratulations on your triumph! Our people have spoken as various surveys predicted. I wish you well. I also take the liberty of putting on paper some unsolicited suggestions, as you promised a unifying presidency. We have never met. You don't know me, and that is fine by me. I have not voted for you, ever, not even as senator. But you are now my president too. I also never met your father, although I voted for him in 1969.
The Centrist Democrats (CD) sent a memo for then President-elect Duterte, which I thought would be taken up at my first audience with him. He sort of hinted he welcomed ideas, especially from a Davaoeño who worked for Charter change in previous administrations. I was of course flattered by this "non-request" and drafted this two-page memo. This was sent to the Malacañang of the South (Davao City) for his review. I never got a reply to that well-constructed memo and that was that! Looking back, it was perhaps the Deegong's way of dismissing an audience scheduled at an ungodly hour nearing dawn.
Although I have not been asked to do so, I am writing a similar memo to you, sir, but this time publicly in my column. The Centrist Democratic Party (CDP) makes no suggestions on how to run your government. This is your mandate, not ours. No doubt you have a plethora of expert advice from your incoming Cabinet.
These concerns, as we see fit, have persisted for decades. Our treatise is that they are consequences of the systemic anomalies perpetuated by the unitary-presidential system and protected through the perversion of the Philippine constitutions. And if they contradict your appreciation of these problems, we hope this will precipitate a clash of ideas which could only redound to the benefit of the Filipinos.
But first, my credentials. I have been anti-Marcos since shortly before your father declared martial law. There were many of us then, but time has decimated our ranks and we are a dying breed. Those whose memories and experiences were defined by your father's despotic regime are now in the minority. Perhaps this is only fitting as your administration should only be defined by your own actuations — nothing more.
The Yellow Peril and 1987 Constitution
I worked with President Cory's government after the EDSA People Power Revolution terminated your father's regime. I am an original supporter of the Yellow color — before her son, President Benigno Aquino 3rd, co-opted and perverted the yellow symbolisms. I never met PNoy himself though I knew of him as a dilettante uninterested in the free tutorials in governance available to him as the unico hijo of a mother-president and heir to a storied political family.
My main tiff with PNoy was never personal but my disillusionment with the son of my former boss, was gradual, from his leadership flaws in the handling of crises that defined his administration: the Luneta hostage fiasco of August 2010; to Typhoon "Yolanda" (Haiyan), the most powerful storm that hit the country in November 2013 devastating swaths of the Visayas region; to his personal motivations behind the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona where senators were bribed P50 million each to have him removed; to the Mamasapano incident in June of 2015 that caused the death of 44 elite SAF troops.
His economic achievements during his term, which could be considered as better than that of his predecessors, failed to mitigate these catastrophes. But the single factor that for me broke the camel's back was his refusal to consider systemic changes that were the curse of good governance, for decades and ensconced by his mother's elite cohorts in her 1987 Constitution with a pompous declaration that "not a comma of the 1987 Constitution will be changed."
As a backgrounder, the late Professor Jose Abueva and I were designated by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as chairmen respectively of the 2005 Consultative Commission (ConCom) and the 2006 Advocacy Commission (AdCom) tasked to recommend revisions to the 1987 Constitution. We sought to shift the Philippines from a unitary-presidential form to a parliamentary-federal system, while striking out the anti-foreign direct investments (FDI) provisions.
Centrist Democrats and the 4 pillars
Let me introduce my group to you, sir. We are adherents of CD ideals, and we situate ourselves within the wide center of the political spectrum with political ideologies spilling toward the center-left and center-right. I am a member of the CDP. Mindanao congressman and Deputy House Speaker Rufus Rodriguez is our party president. My party did not support you. But we supported Vice President Leni Robredo and Vice President-elect Sara Duterte. I infer from your statements that we share common cause with some important advocacies. This is the reason why I am writing you this memo. Unless systemic changes are applied to our current concepts and modes of governance, the Philippines will perpetually be condemned to stark poverty, corruption and social injustices — which you declared you wanted eradicated.
The following are excerpts from our literature.
"Human dignity is the core value of Centrist Democracy. We hold therefore that political, economic, and social order must be logically designed that the dignity of each person is promoted and enriched. Freedom is a prerequisite upon which human dignity is enhanced. Self-determination by each individual, an essential component, is the impetus for collective expression towards the development of a just society; and for society to prosper, it must make available to each individual the needed ingredients for a decent life.
"Complimentary to this, Centrist Democracy therefore embraces these essential sets of doctrines which we call the four pillars that support this core value: 1) We must strive to create a truly functioning democracy and the rule of law; 2) We must endeavor to establish a thriving social market economy (SOME), the reliance on free markets imbued with social responsibility; 3) We must work for the adoption and practice of subsidiarity in all structures of government and the principles of decentralization leading towards an eventual Federal Republic of the Philippines; and 4) We must help build up strong and sustainable political parties."
You ran under your clarion call for unity. By this we assume that you intend to bring us all together after years of polarization, disarray and acrimony. Your message resonated with the Filipino as reflected in the majority votes – unprecedented since you father's terms in 1965 and 1969. We glean from your pronouncements that you are now setting in process your priority programs, foremost of which is to end the vestiges of the pandemic which your predecessor has started to surmount but at a great cost to the country's economy. No doubt the economic team you are forming will find ways to get us through these difficulties setting the path towards recovery and eventual gains, expansion and sustainability.
Meantime we Centrist Democrats continue to fashion our role in a dynamic manner. For a vibrant democracy to flourish, we must remain critical to your government as a legitimate opposition.
For your consideration, sir.