Requiem

Our long-ailing political party system finally died this week. Instead of party politics, all we have now is celebrity/dynastic politics. This will not serve the nation well.

It was a long, painful process of death. It began after the nation was put under martial law in 1972 and elections became highly controlled exercises. Organized party engagement in elections never recovered from this.

In 1987, a Constitution was hurriedly written and quickly passed in plebiscite. That vital document originally intended a shift to a unicameral parliamentary system. It provided for a multi-party system resembling the European pattern of representation.

At the last moment, one swing vote shifted the form of government back to a US-style presidential system. Given the rush to bring a new Constitution into place, all the provisions in the document suited for a parliamentary government were left unaltered. This is the reason we continue to quarrel over whether the two chambers of Congress vote jointly or separately over proposed amendments.

Over the years, we battled over the strange party-list system embedded in the Constitution and failed to enact any legislation that would ban political dynasties. We were never sure if the party-list system intended to amplify political party representation or ensure minority ideological factions survive. We never arrived at a common understanding about what “sectoral representation” meant.

What we did adopt was term limits. There is no final judgment on whether this works better for our democracy. It arbitrarily limits the tenure in elective office of competent officials. Even as it does, it encouraged whole families to enter electoral politics to substitute each other to defy the intentions of term limits.

So it goes that over the last week we saw whole families filing their certificates of candidacy. We have relatives in Congress and relatives running for mayor and vice mayor in the same elections. Contrary to the intention of the Constitution, term limits encouraged rather than discouraged political family dominance. Seeking elective posts has become a family business.

As money politics dominated, there was little incentive for our political elites to invest in party-building. Instead, there was every incentive to make money quickly for use in the next electoral contest.

Families invested in the patronage networks needed to win elections had every incentive to optimize the investments by fielding more family members. Eventually, even the party-list system was coopted into this mode of patronage politics. It was merely another avenue for entrenched local powerbrokers to expand their portfolio of elective posts.

There is a price to pay for the institutional design flaws. It heightens the corruption that afflicts our government. It centralizes power even more.

Unfortunately, the haphazard constitutional design we live under will punish the nation rather than redeem it.

Regulatory capture

In principle, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) is there to protect the protect the rights of passengers. In practice, the agency appears to have adopted a preferential option for the airlines it is supposed to regulate.

 In May last year, four Filipino passengers bound for Turkey were denied boarding by Emirates. The passengers had all their documents in order, including a valid visa for Turkey. There appeared no valid reason to deny them boarding.

The four filed a complaint with the CAB. The agency rejected their complaints.

They then filed a motion for reconsideration and were denied again. The four had no choice but to elevate the case to the Court of Appeals, alleging the CAB failed in its mandate to protect passenger rights.

This case has clear parallels with the Simangan versus JAL case that took about a decade to work through our judicial system until the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in 2008.

The Simangan case involved a passenger who purchased JAL roundtrip ticket to Los Angeles, California. The passenger was on his way to the UCLA School of Medicine to donate a kidney to an ailing relative. The hospital facilitated issuance of a visa for this purpose.

After clearing immigration and security formalities, passenger Simangan was ready to board the plane. He was, however, ordered to disembark by the JAL crew on unfounded allegations his documents were spurious and that his real intent was to stay and work in Japan.

Simangan sued JAL before the Valenzuela City RTC, claiming embarrassment, mental anguish and inability to donate his kidney to save a life. The RTC ruled in his favor. JAL elevated the case to the Court of Appeals, which basically affirmed the lower court’s ruling. The case was brought up to the Supreme Court which found JAL guilty for breach of contract of carriage.

All through this tormented episode, the passenger received no support from CAB.

In the case of the four passengers denied boarding by Emirates, the case brought to the Court of Appeals raises the issue of “regulatory capture.” The appeal reads: “The systemic failure on the part of CAB to go after erring giant airlines is a clear indication of regulatory capture of its agency that has resulted in utter prejudice to passengers.”

If the Court of Appeals favors the complainants, this should jolt the CAB into reviewing its handling of passenger complaints. All the laws and regulations we have in place protecting our consumers will be for naught if the frontline regulatory agencies reflexively favor the big companies they are supposed to regulate.

There is much at stake for all consumers in this case.