LAST week's column laid down several predicates, which my guest columnist Patmei Ruivivar eloquently articulated. On one level, she made a case for Sara's blatant contrived meltdown as a diversion from legislative investigations pinning her and her staff down on corruption and anomalies, particularly in the lower house. These inquiries were upon the behest of the Marcoses orchestrated by Speaker Martin Romualdez and merely a symptom of the brewing conflict between the Marcoses and Dutertes with surrogates Sara and Martin. Patmei succinctly injected a barbed rhetorical: "... what [is] this conflict all about. Is this about us and our country? Or is it just about them? This... is not even about us... It is not because of any fundamental differences in policy or principle..."

The UniTeam, the Marcos-Duterte political alliance, was simply designed to overwhelm and entice the naïve Filipino voters for the return of the Marcoses to power in 2022, riding on the coattails of the still popular President Deegong with the tacit understanding, now belied, that Sara's turn comes in 2028. This was not to be. Once the Marcoses are back, they will cling to power like leeches. Thus, the open conflict employing language through their respective social media trolls descending to the gutter with accusations of a first family stoned from drug-sniffing versus human rights violators and extrajudicial killers. This is more than the pot calling the kettle black. And their impudence asking us to take sides!

This bizarre public display by both camps is more than just a derivative of the UniTeam's breakdown, which at the time of its creation titillated Filipinos as a political vehicle that will propel the Philippines to greater heights. This was the political theater of the absurd. But the reality eventually overtook all of us, realizing that this UniTeam was, after all, just a marriage of convenience destined for a precipitate divorce. This alliance was not anchored on ennobling principles, revealing a bankruptcy of morals and political ideology. This turned out to be a clash of political dynasties, to quote Ms. Ruivivar, "an attempt by two political dynasties to lay the groundwork for a political fight for the 2025 midterm election as a prelude to the control of power for the next presidential elections in 2028."

Dysfunctional presidential system

On another level, today's column will attempt to put into perspective this conflict within the context of our political system and governance. Last week's column triggered corollary questions: "What's wrong with Philippine politics? How might it be fixed" (TMT, May 4, 2016). I wrote then: Everything's wrong with Philippine politics, period! This tongue-in-cheek reply encapsulates the frustrations of many a writer on where to begin to dissect the multitude of problems and reduce them into palatable morsels. The easier way to go about this is perhaps to focus on the current state of affairs, which has obstinately captured the interest and occupied the minds of our people since VP Sara's meltdown and the collapse of the UniTeam. This column will start with a synopsis of a subsequent piece, "Presidential system, patronage politics and political dynasties" (TMT, March 18, 2018).

Historical precedents

As handed down by our American colonial overlords, the concept of democracy and the presidential system of government was imposed on us, piggybacked on the 300 years of Spanish colonial patronage. It was meant to instill in our political life a novel concept of governance and thus widen the participation of a greater majority of our people toward the path to political maturity. But what took root instead were traditional practices of our earlier culture perverted by the colonialists for their own purposes and emerged as traditional political patronage (tradpol). Inevitably, these resulted in the development of weak democratic institutions.

But the most glaring defect of the presidential system of government under a democracy is that this is the embryo upon which patronage politics is nurtured. For 100 years, the system flourished, feeding upon the least desired facet of the Filipino culture — the desire for and dependence on a benefactor from the datu and sultan, heading a clan, to the Spanish patron looking over the indios, to the American "big brother," morphing into the Philippine president, "ang ama ng sambayanan," the father of our nation.

Ferdinand Macoy elevated patronage politics and practiced this to perfection during the martial law years, when "crony capitalism" came into our political lexicon. To hold on to power, "patrons and padrinos" were allowed to dip their dirty fingers into the public coffers and dispensed them to the chosen electors — thus, a new sub-species of the oligarchy was born, and another word appeared in the glossary, "kleptocracy."

Today, political patronage has become pervasive and has fomented corruption. Our electoral processes, for instance, are the overarching environment upon which political patronage incubates. Paradoxically, democracy can't exist without elections, except that in our culture, we managed to debauch the same.

Politicians, whether "wannabes" or incumbents, spend millions of pesos to gain the support of their constituents. As a result, a major consideration once elected is to recoup their expenses through all sorts of "rent-seeking activities," leakages in public funds and outright corruption — to the detriment of society's development and public good.

And in our presidential system, where the president is elected at large, he is expected to provide the wherewithal for an expensive election campaign. This opens an aperture for a corollary evil influence in our political dynamics — the oligarchy and the moneyed elite influencing the outcome. And we can only speculate on the quid pro quo.

Political dynasty vs political parties

With the constitutionally mandated term limits of elective officials, this deviant model of "public service as a private business" becomes a strong impetus toward the perpetuation of this power base — thus the birth of powerful "political dynasties."

A multitude of ills has piled up, and as a resultstunted their growth, one of the important instruments of democracy — political parties — has had their growth stunted. In truly democratic societies, political parties are meant to aggregate the various and sometimes differing aspirations of the people and mediate between the electorate and the government, translating the same into good policies of governance. Instead, the political dynasties become substitutes where power and privilege accrue to a few families.

The politics of personality sets in, and political patronage is then ingrained in the dynasty's practices of local governance, ensuring its survival.

Three branches of government

Another feature of the presidential system is the institution of the three branches of government, a republican concept reflecting the culture of American individualism and personal freedoms: the legislative (Congress — the House and Senate — makes laws), the executive (the president enforces the laws), and the judiciary (interprets the laws).

In the Philippines, this institution has broken down. A legislature that makes laws and investigates not so much in aid of legislation but as a grandstanding platform for electioneering. A lower house that exerts its preeminence under the dictates of the speaker — a "wannabe president." A judiciary that misinterprets laws depending on the interests of clients.

And worse, senators, being elected at large like the president, behave like "little presidents" entitled to contest the next presidency.

And the gridlock is palpable, preventing good governance.