EDITORIAL - Beyond the nepo babies

There’s currently public anger directed at the so-called nepo babies – people who gained social and professional prominence mainly because of their parents. Specifically, the anger is directed at the children of contractors and their cohorts in government who have been flaunting their families’ enormous but questionable wealth.

In their online posts and vlogs, several of which have since been deleted or have gone private, the nepotism babies – who are in fact adults with all their reasoning faculties intact – showed off among other things their collections of luxury cars and expensive designer everything as well as trips on private jets and helicopters.

Until the scandal over thievery in flood control projects and the national budget erupted, such posts drew envious admiration from the nepo babies’ followers, whose numbers they claimed to be in the hundreds of thousands.

So it’s a welcome development that the flaunting of the wealth is now drawing public scorn, including from young Filipinos who are demanding reforms to curb corruption.

A message from Kalookan Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, urged the youth to “make corruption shameful again.” David urged the youth to use digital platforms “not just for outrage but for vigilance.”

“Expose injustice, share facts, demand reforms,” David exhorted the people. “If floodwaters rise because public funds are stolen, the greater flood is the corruption that drowns our future. We cannot build a nation on foundations of systemic corruption. We can only rebuild it on social justice and the resolve to work together for the common good.”

Beyond the contractors, their accomplices and their children, the prominence of nepo babies is in fact widespread in Philippine society. Dynasties dominate politics, contributing to the corruption that has gone unchecked because families have taken control of the pillars that are supposed to provide checks and balances.

Congress, packed with dynastic members, has consistently refused to carry out its constitutional mandate to pass an enabling law curbing dynasties. Petitions are now pending with the Supreme Court, asking the tribunal to step in and order Congress to carry out its constitutional duty.

The four highest officials of the land belong to political dynasties. In many aspects of life in this country, surnames and the right connections trump qualifications in advancing in one’s chosen field.

The result is evident: instead of a meritocracy, there is mediocrity in many areas. It has to be one of the reasons why the country has progressively fallen behind its regional neighbors in competitiveness and other measures of human development.

Perhaps this current outrage against nepo babies can still reverse the slide.