Folly

The so-called “progressives” are peddling us yet another silver bullet to cure what is wrong with our governance: an anti-dynasty law.

This silver bullet is supposed to execute a provision in the 1987 Constitution that was enshrined without being thought through. It will likely suffer the fate of those other provisions we have tried.

The 1987 Constitution prescribed party-list representation to properly represent the so-called “marginalized” sectors. It is a cross between proportional party representation as practiced in some European polities and some fuzzy native concept about “marginalized” sectors somehow self-organizing to ensure themselves a voice in government. In practice, it is neither.

We all know what happened with our party-list system: it was transformed into a method for special interests to infiltrate Congress. Initially, it was used by highly ideological groups to magnify their political positions disproportionately. Then it was used by the entrenched political clans to win more seats beyond district representation. Today, the party-list system is used to get “cong-tractors” – such as Zaldy Co and Edwin Gardiola – into positions of strategic influence, allowing them to reshape state spending to facilitate plunder.

This anomalous party-list system will continue to be corrupted. Some are simply smarter than others. It will continue to seat political players claiming to speak on behalf of the dispossessed.

Allowed too many seats in an already bloated House of Representatives, this bizarre system of representation will continue to undermine the development of a proper political party system that rests on control of geographic constituencies. The party-list representatives have, collectively, become a powerful interest group in the present Congress – conserving a system of representation that has neither rhyme nor reason.

Disguised as an effort to break the influence of entrenched political clans, we imposed term limits on those who occupy elective posts. We know what happened with this particular “reform.”

Term limits denied voters the opportunity to reelect worthy political leaders and induced the growth of political dynasties. Promising political leaders were forced out because of term limits. Entrenched political families dug deeper, involving more family members in electoral politics.

Instead of ending the rule of political clans, term limits widened their compass. What was supposed to be a method to widen democratic access became a toll for narrowing the political elite. Elections became a family business. Patronage politics became more encompassing.

We have committed other follies that subsequently backfired.

We invented the crime of plunder and imposed the highest penalties. This made prosecution of corruption even harder. It raised the standards of proof. Consequently, no one gets convicted for this stiffly elevated crime.

We have raised penalties for possession and sale of banned drugs. All this accomplished was to increase the incentives for bribery while overpopulating our jails with suspects awaiting trial with no possibility of bail. This enhanced corruption in our justice system while multiplying the misery levels in our detention facilities.

Social science research confirms that what deters crime is not the severity of punishment but the certainty of prosecution. Despite that, our lawmaking continues with obsessive inflation of penalties. We rely on prohibition rather than imaginatively addressing the root causes of our problems.

There is a reason why, for decades, we have failed to implement the constitutional dictate banning political dynasties: no one has been able to define what they are.

The framers of the 1987 Constitution, working in haste and inspired by reformist zeal, did not think through the terms used. The first problem any legislation banning dynasties encounters is epistemological. We really do not know what they are.

The test for dynastic politics is similar to the test for pornography. We trust we will know it when we see it.

Proposals to ban political dynasties are trapped into definitional quandaries: does this involve second- or fourth-degree of consanguinity? How many family members does it take to make a dynasty?

Like the ban on term limits, the proposed ban on dynasties will run into controversies over voter choice. If voters want to reelect a member of an entrenched political family, should they be preempted by a dynastic ban?

We have an electoral democracy. The voters are supposed to be sovereign. An anti-dynasty ban – like the term-limits arbitrarily imposed – constitutes prior restraint on the voters’ freedom to choose.

A ban on political dynasties will run into a judicial minefield involving class legislation. Should probable candidates be denied participation because of their surnames or their blood relations?

Our political system imposes the most minimal requirements for participation: citizenship and age. We do not even have a literacy test. We do not require candidates for high office to have a college degree. We have had presidents who never completed college – including one who might not have passed a reading comprehension test. Are we now adding kinship as a criterion for participation?

It might seem counter-intuitive: the viable solution to the predominance of political clans might lie in changing the system of representation, not in a blanket ban on who might participate.

Marcos Sr., during the dictatorship, displayed keen understanding of the dynamics of oligarchic politics. He shifted the system of representation from first-past-the-post district representation (easily dominated by the entrenched political clans) to regional representation (which enhanced the importance of political parties).

There is a specific political economy that makes possible the prevalence of political clans that prohibitive legislation alone cannot cure.