‘RP politics still based on patronage’

SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union — From the time she cast her first ballot in the 1960s, retired teacher Editha Rimando can only remember one family being in control of her tobacco-growing province in the northern Philippines.

As the dust settles from May’s national elections, the names of those who won the most powerful posts in La Union still have a familiar ring: Victor Ortega, governor; his brother Manuel, congressman; Victor’s wife Mary Jane, mayor of provincial capital San Fernando.

The list goes on through virtually every elective position down to local councilor.

"As long as I can remember the Ortegas have lorded over La Union," Rimando told Reuters. "When I first voted in the Sixties, they were already our politicians."

After all the raucous campaigning and tall promises of the elections that returned Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the presidency, most Filipinos are back to a familiar reality with leaders from political clans that have been around for decades.

More than half of about 2,000 local officials — governors, congressmen and mayors — come from established political families, said Gladstone Cuarteros, a research associate at Manila’s Institute for Popular Democracy.

And most of them, about 75 percent, won overwhelmingly against challengers in the May 10 local elections, tightening the families’ control. They began a fresh three-year term on June 30.

"Our political system is based on patronage," Cuarteros said. "Local political elites control domestic economies because there’s a thin boundary between what is public funds and private money."

Reforms Wilt

A weak party system and pork barrel hand-outs to local leaders have helped entrench the power of family dynasties, with important consequences for national development.

Critics say families are more interested in consolidating their grip over home provinces than in promoting reforms to revive weak foreign investment or improve the lot of the 40 percent of Filipinos living in dire poverty.

The record of the last Congress seems to support such criticism. It passed a record low 76 laws from 2001 to 2004 and left legislation aimed at plugging the country’s huge budget deficit on the shelf.

The political buzz since the election has been about plans to change to a parliamentary system from the US-style presidential one, aiming to strengthen parties and reduce gridlock.

But powerful families are unlikely to support a system that threatens their interests. They usually justify their remarkable success by pointing out that they were elected in free polls.

"We have to be clear on the definition of dynasty," Francisco Ortega III, a 37-year-old elected city councilor, told Reuters at the family’s beachside property.

"Dynasty is to me is power handed down to a member of your family without the benefit of election. We present ourselves to the people and the people have choices and it so happens that every election the people choose us."

Francisco’s great grandfather, Joaquin, was the first to gain public office when the American colonial administration appointed him civil governor of La Union in August 1901.

Six months later, he was elected into office.

His two sons followed his footsteps, one of them serving as a six-term congressman until Congress was abolished by martial law in 1972 under dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Joaquin’s grandsons are now in power as governor and congressman.

Cuarteros said clans have a huge advantage at election time due to their name recognition, a monopoly on providing roads and bridges, and a backward electoral system that "requires people to vote for personalities, not programs or platforms."

With cheating rampant, it also comes in handy if your family controls the means of violence. Private armies are common.

Unlike other families, the Ortegas have stayed away from local business and concentrated only on politics, banking on the power of the family name.

"Teamwork is our secret weapon," said Francisco.

Cracks Appear

There are signs, albeit patchy, that things are starting to change.

In a stunning upset, a female radio announcer won the race for governor of Isabela in the northern Philippines, breaking the Dy family’s 30-year-old grip on power there.

Nicanor Felix, who had run Cainta municipality near Manila as his personal fiefdom for nearly six decades, lost the mayor’s job to an upstart television news reporter.

"Old politicians are fading away," said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform. "A household name no longer guarantees poll victory. Dynasties are no longer invincible."

To turn the trickle of surprises into a tide, however, will likely require the modernization of an electoral process that has proved wide open to abuse.

It took up to six weeks for the winners of May’s elections to be announced as each hand-written ballot was painstakingly counted and collated, leaving ample scope for vote-padding and other forms of cheating.

"The more you get the process out of the hands of people, the more difficult to intervene," said Casiple. "Faster counting lessens cheating in elections."