EDITORIAL - Paying lip service to anti-dynasty sentiment

One does not have to go far to find the best proof that no anti-dynasty sentiment is ever going anywhere in this country. All one has to do is go over the names of those who are either set on or are being mentioned as possibly in the running for the highest elective positions in the land - the presidency and the vice presidency.

For the presidency, there are the declared candidates Mar Roxas and Jejomar Binay. Also being prominently mentioned is Grace Poe. And then there are Rodrigo Duterte and Bongbong Marcos. For the vice presidency, Poe, Duterte and Marcos are just as prominently mentioned, as well as Chiz Escudero, Leni Robredo, Vilma Santos Recto, Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes.

Of all those mentioned above, only Trillanes might qualify as not belonging to a dynasty, either an established one or just emerging. Roxas belongs to a family that has figured prominently in Philippine politics, with a grandfather having served as president and a father who was once senator. He used to have a brother in the House of Representatives.

Binay is currently one of four in the family holding positions in government, with a daughter in either house of Congress and a son as city mayor. Poe may be the first in her family to hold public office but her father ran for president and her own stint, in her own words, is a continuation of what her father always stood for. By her own words, she proclaimed her own new dynastic tendency.

Duterte and Marcos are prominent figures from prominent political families entrenched in prominent political bailiwicks. So is Escudero, whose father once sat in Congress and in the Marcos Cabinet. Robredo, like Poe, joined politics to continue the political legacy of a family member, her husband Jesse's. Vilma Santos Recto is, of course, married to Senator Ralph, a member of the political Rectos of Batangas. Cayetano has several members of his family currently in office.

That leaves only Trillanes by his lonesome, which according to critics is just fine with them, as they could not foresee his tribe increasing. Be that as it may, the fact that Trillanes represents the only exception means that, as a rule, the dynastic tendency in Philippine politics is not only alive and well, it is very much alive and kicking in almost all the prospective top officials of the land.

And if you have the top two executors of the laws of the land either already well entrenched in dynastic politics or are just beginning to build their own, that is a very clear indication of where this country is headed as far as anti-dynasty sentiments are concerned, if any. President Aquino, himself a dynasty, made it appear he was against dynasties in his SONA but he quickly took it back by anointing Roxas just days later. So what anti-dynasty advocacy are we talking about?