On the same day that the Supreme Court issued a rare directive to Congress, telling its co-equal branch to pass an anti-dynasty law as mandated 39 years ago by the Constitution, lawmakers rushed the passage of a bill favoring the grassroots arm of their dynasties, the barangay officials.
To do away with a lengthy bicameral conference, the House of Representatives adopted the Senate’s counterpart version of the bill postponing for the nth time the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) scheduled this Nov. 2.
For this latest postponement – which thwarts anew the aspirations of thousands of people hoping to have their turn at running their barangays and youth councils – the incumbents will get a bonus of not just one but two more years in office.
As in the last BSKE postponement, this latest move also resets the terms of BSK officials from the newly approved four years (from the original three) to five.
This is Congress’ way of going around the Supreme Court’s prohibition on BSK term extensions for being unconstitutional.
Barangay posts are the entry-level seats for members of the political dynasties. This has gone unnoticed because many people don’t bother getting to know who their barangay officials are. But check out the surnames and family ties of your village officials. In many areas, chances are they include relatives of the clans entrenched in the area.
Those repeated postponements of the BSKE and ever-lengthening terms gifted to the incumbents should be challenged not only for being unconstitutional, but also for involving conflict of interest among lawmakers and their relatives holding village positions.
Election lawyer Romulo Macalintal, who skipped challenging the last BSKE postponement that was bundled with the grant of a new four-year BSK term, has promised to challenge before the SC this repeat of the tactic, once President Marcos signs it into law.
BBM, who belongs to one of the fattest (vertical and horizontal) political dynasties, is sure to sign the rushed law. Even if it means wasting the P8 billion already spent by the Commission on Elections for this year’s BSKE.
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The mandamus of the Supreme Court on an anti-dynasty enabling law is most welcome. Whether Congress will heed the SC order is another story, as noted by lawyer Eirene Jhone Aguila of the Dapat Isa Lang movement, which is pushing for a people’s initiative for a genuine ban on dynasties.
Also, we have to be careful what we wish for. The SC directive to Congress could hasten the passage of a law that effectively institutionalizes dynasty-building, but presented as compliance with the constitutional provision.
This watered-down measure has hurdled the House, with BBM’s son Sandro and Speaker Faustino Dy III of the obese Dy dynasty the principal sponsors.
The Senate, with four sets of siblings and busy with the impeachment trial, budget deliberations and internal feuding (but not too busy for the BSKE postponement bill), has yet to tackle its counterpart version.
At least the “clustering” concept in the House version will effectively put an end to having siblings sitting simultaneously in a 24-member Senate. This is probably why the measure can’t even get past the Senate committee level.
But the House version allows direct succession by family members, which is the essence of dynasty building. Some senators at least are proposing a ban on such succession.
Dynasties, along with chronic influence-peddling by voting blocs for appointments and promotions in government, are among the reasons why governance is so inefficient and corrupt in our country. Family members who can’t land a decent job on personal merit in the private sector are simply parked by the clan leader in government positions, starting at the barangay level and rising steadily.
These are major hindrances to developing a culture of merit and excellence. Too many Filipino achievers have been disappointed upon seeing underachieving peers leap past them in terms of social advancement based chiefly on the right surname.
A nation can’t achieve progress when one’s standing in life is determined at birth.
Considering the difficulty of governance in our land of pasaways and the relatively modest pay compared to the skills required, we can only guess why people want to turn politics into their main family business.
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Weeks before the anti-dynasty bill was filed at the House, Deputy Speaker Janette Garin had told “Storycon” on One News about the plan to propose “clustering.”
This means positions are clustered into several levels: national, regional, provincial, city or municipal/barangay. The party-list may fall under national. Family members can’t simultaneously seek posts in the same cluster, but can run in other clusters.
Another version is to allow anyone to run, but in case of victory, only one family member can occupy a seat within the same cluster. It’s unclear though how this might be settled: through a coin toss or rock-paper-scissors?
Garin told us that while clustering may seem like hardly a nudge in moderating greed for political monopoly, it makes the dynasty ban palatable to the dynasty-packed Congress.
Critics, on the other hand, see the House bill as an attempt to institutionalize dynasty building.
The SC order is in response to a petition filed by Dapat Isa Lang. Retired SC senior associate justice Antonio Carpio, who is part of the movement, lauded the unanimous SC ruling, which also provided guidelines, although non-binding, to Congress.
These include the coverage of the prohibition up to the fourth civil degree, including half-blood, adoptive, common-law, legitimate and illegitimate filiations. It covers both simultaneous and successive bids for the same or other covered positions within the same administrative region.
Carpio chooses to be positive about the “unprecedented” mandamus, seeing it as “a huge endorsement from a unanimous Supreme Court.”
“We could not ask for more from the SC,” Carpio said.
The devil will be in the implementation of the court directive.