The Cinderella story of Grace Padaca, the governor-in-waiting of Isabela, one of the country’s largest provinces, has been touted as signaling a move away from the country’s traditional power bases.
The daughter of retired teachers who overcame her disability to become a high-profile radio broadcaster, Padaca defeated incumbent Gov. Faustino Dy Jr., heir of a logging and construction magnate whose family has ruled Isabela for more than 30 years.
With just half-a-million pesos in donations and a core volunteer group of 15 youths, Padaca, 40, a public accountant and centrist, hauled her crutches into a beat-up van to campaign among the largely agricultural province’s 1.4 million voters.
"I just thought the people deserved a choice," said Padaca, who had lost to another Dy brother by 48 votes in a bitter congressional contest in 2001.
Three years on, recounting her maiden foray into politics still reduces her to tears.
"They had all but killed democracy" in the province due to the ruling clan’s success in co-opting the local opposition, she told AFP.
Before the campaign ahead of the May 10 vote, still another Dy brother, Cauayan City Mayor Caesar Dy, closed down the popular Bombo Radyo, Padaca’s former employer, over the lack of a mayor’s permit.
In a political system dominated by all-powerful political clans, Padaca is "a symbol of democratic reform," said her top ally, losing presidential candidate Raul Roco.
"It’s a protest vote," said Glenda Gloria, author of a book that details the phenomenon of Philippine political dynasties and warlords.
"The people were fed up, not necessarily with the incumbent governor who has many infrastructure projects, but over the lack of genuine choice for a long time," she said.
Padaca’s success "in a way reminds me of Cory Aquino," Gloria told AFP.
The widow of a popular senator who was assassinated by members of the security forces in 1983, Corazon "Cory" Aquino became president after a bloodless, military-backed popular revolt ended the 20-year regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, a friend of the late Dy patriarch.
"The Rulemakers," another book that analyzes how the rich dominate the legislature of this former Spanish and US colony, said the clan-based nature of Philippine politics was set once the local elite won suffrage ahead of ordinary Filipinos in the early 20th century.
"Regimes come and go but the families remain," said the book, published last month by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
"Politicians are elected largely by mobilizing their kinship networks and family assets. Once in office, they pave the way for other relatives to be appointed to the bureaucracy or elected government posts," the book said.
However, the families also have to adopt to a fast-changing socio-economic landscape. From a plantation economy, the Philippines is now highly urbanized and increasingly dependent on light manufacturing, the service industries, and on millions of Filipinos who work abroad.
"Today’s votes can no longer be won solely by intimidation or by appealing to family loyalty or collecting on debts of gratitude. Voters are becoming more and more independent-minded," the book said.
But former President Fidel Ramos says political clans remain entrenched because, though the 1987 Constitution banned political dynasties, the Charter left it to Congress to pass the enabling law.
Nearly a generation later, no such law has been passed "because it would hurt the interests of the legislators," he said.
Dy, an ally of President Arroyo, is blocking Padaca’s proclamation on grounds she was helped by communist guerrillas, a charge his rival denies.
But Padaca acknowledges her success as governor over the next three years would depend on the cooperation of the Dys and their local allies.
Another Dy brother has kept his seat in Congress and other clan members still hold a number of local posts for which they ran virtually unopposed.
But that hasn’t stopped Padaca planning to open up the province to investment to blunt the Dy family’s economic dominance. — AFP