Image laundering

It’s dismaying to learn that the Ampatuan clan continues to dominate the race for the May elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), with other clans including the Mangudadatus also building their own dynasties.

But the trend is not surprising. If you can launder dirty money, you can also launder a dirty image in this country – even one stained by the massacre of 58 people. And the best route for image laundering is by winning elective office.

Election victory is like Catholic penance: all sins are absolved (and the penitent is free to sin again). By winning, the candidate’s legitimacy, both as a public servant and private citizen, is affirmed.

We can start from the top, with disgraced presidents whose names were redeemed through the vote. Ferdinand Marcos never made it back to his homeland from exile, and his remains look like an exhibit at Madame Tussauds as the family waits for official permission to give him a hero’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. But Marcos’ only son and namesake is a senator who has not been coy about dreaming of becoming president one day. Marcos’ widow Imelda is a congresswoman. Their eldest daughter is governor of their home province.

Joseph Estrada, ousted from the presidency less than midway through his term, jokes about being an ex-convict as he runs for mayor of Manila. His son by the former first lady is a senator, and may soon be joined in the chamber by his other son by San Juan’s first lady. If Erap’s kids by other women were of age, we might have a full basketball team of his children in a 24-seat chamber.

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, ailing and detained for plunder, is running virtually unopposed and does not need to campaign for re-election as Pampanga congresswoman. Her son, thanks to the recent Supreme Court ruling, may yet win back his seat as party-list representative of security guards.

Even “The Butcher” Jovito Palparan, reviled by left-wing activists for human rights violations, became an honorable member of the House of Representatives through the party-list.

Ruben Ecleo Jr., whose family-led cult was linked to ritual killings, was elected as Dinagat congressman in 2010 despite his graft and parricide cases. Romeo Jalosjos was re-elected as congressman while serving time at the National Penitentiary for statutory rape.

In the ARMM, the Ampatuan clan is so large many voters can claim a distant link to the family by blood or marriage. All those relatives have networks of friends and supporters whose votes they can count on. It’s not surprising that despite the 2009 massacre in Maguindanao, people surnamed Ampatuan were still elected in 2010. Wives of the principal defendants are among those running in this year’s race, and they could win.

As in much of the rest of the country, the overriding consideration of those ARMM voters is not where a candidate stands on raging issues, but the answer to one question: What’s in it for me?

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What’s in it may be employment in government, a promotion or coveted assignment for oneself or loved ones, and of course a lucrative business or public works contract.

In areas where the illegal gambling industry is a major employer, several notorious jueteng lords have successfully entered politics.

Not all people try to get a job or make money through family or friendly ties to public servants. But the extended family system and political patronage are so entrenched in our culture that at the very least, family ties to a public official can make a person feel he has direct access to government and a voice in the way his world is run.

Because of the amorphous nature of our political party system, voters tend to be loyal not to a party but to an individual and his clan. Politicians, after all, can jump from one party to another even within a single campaign period, while clans (although there are exceptions) are generally stable and predictable.

In local races in particular, voters tend to remember if a clan patriarch has served the community well, and not just by being generous with patronage. Basic services matter to voters with no family ties to candidates: public education and health care, garbage collection and general sanitation, peace and order, commercial activity, even the quality of roads and traffic management are attributed to local government officials, regardless of their party affiliation.

If a local executive performs well, he can be rewarded when he pitches for a relative to take his place at the end of his term, even if he is implicated in plunder or other crimes.

Visit Ilocos Norte and you’ll understand why the Marcoses remain unbeatable in that province. Talk to people from depressed communities in Makati and you’ll have an idea of why it has become Binay country.

Even road access can matter. Jejomar Binay, for example, fought residents of exclusive gated communities to open some of their roads to the public to ease traffic in Makati. In Las Piñas, the Villar-Aguilar clan did the same, opening a so-called Friendship Route that’s free for city residents and cuts through several gated villages.

In contrast, motorists must pay P1,200 a year to a homeowners’ group to pass through the BF Homes subdivision in Parañaque, a city with only a handful of major thoroughfares outside the village. Garbage is piled along its major roads and the pavements are rutted.

In impoverished communities, politicians’ regular donations to “KBL” – kasal, binyag, libing (weddings, baptisms and funerals) – are remembered come election day.

This early, a politician known to be eyeing high office in 2016 is already hard at work doling out this kind of patronage all over the country.

In the ARMM, the Ampatuans used a combination of patronage and intimidation to remain in power. The clan remains so influential the support of some of its members is courted by major parties in next month’s elections.

Similar situations exist in many other parts of the country. And this will persist, as long as there are many Filipino voters whose principal concern is where they will get their next meal.