Thursday, November 15, 2012

Political Dynasty Stays

Political dynasties are here to stay

Written by NESTOR MATA 
Malaya Business News Online

‘Dynastic political families exist not only here in the Philippines but also in other democracies all over the world, in the United States, South America, Europe, Africa, and other Asian countries.’ 

WHY is there so much ado about political dynasties here in the Philippines today? Twenty-five years ago, after the framers of the 1987 Constitution included in it a provision prohibiting political dynasties, Congress since then never enacted a law defining the meaning of the term “political dynasty” and implementing the ordained ban on dynastic political families. A few senators and congressmen have tried but failed to do it. And now, with the 2013 mid-term national elections looming in the political horizon, it has become, as a former solon so fearfully described it, “an explosive issue.” 

Why, oh, why? They say that political dynasties present a threat to our democracy. But, if this is true, how come that in many other democratic countries all over the world where political dynasties also exist, we have not heard of voices wailing to high heavens against them? Neither have we read of any report of someone, in any of those countries, organizing an anti-political dynasty movement! 

Not in the United States, which planted the idea of democracy when it colonized the Philippines a century ago, where political dynasties are as old as the republic itself. John Quincy Adams, the country’s sixth president, for example, was the son of John, its second, and father of Charles, a congressman. And the same pattern has been repeated in every corner of government, within generations and from one to the next, as far as Alaska and down to California, Arizona, Indiana, Texas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Rode Island, Florida, and many other states, where members of some 700 dynastic political families have served in the federal legislature since 1774. 

Similar stories about political dynasties have occurred elsewhere all over the world, including Italy, Greece, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, Congo, Japan, South Korea, and other Asian countries, where dynastic politics takes the form of a male-to-female transfer, following the American pattern of widows stepping into their dead husband’s shoes, through either a coup or an assassination or both, often serves to hurry the succession along, as it happened in the mid-eighties here in the Philippines. 

Thus, in 1986, Corazón Aquino was propelled to the Philippine presidency, three years after the assassination of her husband, Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino. And in 2010, their son, Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino was catapulted to the presidency in the wake of his mother Cory’s death. And, in the coming 2013 mid-term elections, a cousin of President Aquino is running as a senatorial candidate. There are other familiar names belonging to political families, other than the Aquino and Cojuangco clans, like Binay, Estrada, Revilla, Enrile, Cayetano, Angara, Villar-Aguilar, Marcos, Ortega, Singson, Crisologo, Roxas, Osmena, Durano, Garcia, Fuentibella, Escudero, and many others numbering 95 political families.

In Bangladesh two combative widows nowadays seem to take it in turns to run their country. Both are the relicts of murdered politicians. Elsewhere daughters have been the main beneficiaries of male politicians’ turbulent departures. In Pakistan, it took little more than a decade for Benazir Bhutto to become prime minister like her father who held the post before he was deposed and sentenced to death in 1977. In Indonesia, nearly four decades elapsed after the ousting of Sukarno, the country’s first president, before his daughter, Megawati Sukarnoputri, was installed as its fifth president. In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi may soon succeed her father Aung San, who negotiated independence from Britain, but was murdered in 1947 before he could become prime minister. In Sri Lanka, its incumbent president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, is the widow of a film-star politician and daughter of two prime ministers. It is India, Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, was the father of Indira Gandhi, its third and sixth (assassinated 1984), who was the mother of Rajiv, its seventh (assassinated 1991), whose widow, Sonia, now hopes to be its 15th.

Indeed, dynastic political families have flourished in all the democratic countries of the world. After all, the idea of political dynasties is not inherently absurd. Dynasties may be found in plenty of other professions, such as in acting, which share with politics the value of a well-known name and only subjective criteria as to what constitutes ability, and in medicine, law, and the natural sciences, which require some objective qualifications that do not come with a birth certificate, suggesting that heredity may indeed play a part in any continuing family success. 

Personality and beliefs are not quite the same as acumen and effectiveness, as one political commenter has put it, but, hereditary or not, they must still be counted significant components of a politician’s make-up. In politics, it seems, as in so many other professions, nurture and nature both play a part.
And so, like it or not, it really looks like political dynasties in the Philippines, just like in all other democratic countries of the world, are here to stay! 
***
Quote of the Day: “Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.” – Anonymous Commenter
Thought of the Day: “Let us give our republic a fourth power with authority over the youth, the hearts of men, public spirit, habits, and republican morality. Let us establish this Areopagus to watch over our children, to supervise national education, to purify whatever may be corrupt in the republic, to denounce ingratitude, coldness to the country’s public service, egotism, sloth, idleness, and to pass judgment upon the first signs of corruption and pernicious example.” – Simon Bolivar

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