The anti-dynasty law: A cosmetic measure

As long as we focus on dynasties as the main political bane, we are masking our inability to admit that
we still adhere to the one law that rules above all: the iron law of oligarchy

Filipinos have a strong penchant for passing laws. The drawback is these laws are often skin-deep
treatments, where the act of legislating is more important than the substance and its consequences.

Given this, what the anti-dynasty bill offers is another cosmetic surgery to hide severe deformities of our
political system. The current buzz on its benefits is understandable to the extent that a number of
studies link dynastic rule to poverty and corruption, especially in local governments. The commonplace
assumption in passing the bill is that if we limit the number of government officials with similar
surnames in office, then there is a high probability that governance could improve.

While it is difficult to dismiss this view, we cannot deny what we already know: with or without the anti-
dynasty law, those who want to preserve their political stronghold will find means to do so. Philippine
dynasties, after all, are mere faces of a deeper malaise of the countrys oligarch mentality.

Bigger picture

Our customary understanding of political dynasty dates back to its Greek origin, dynasteia, a term used
to characterize a chiefdom where a handful of individuals have unlimited power, and are often shielded
from questions of legitimacy. Power, in this sense, is defined in terms of power over the people, not
from the people, or what we would identify today with illegitimate power. From this strict perspective,
we can see that dynasties cannot exist in a modern political system where, albeit the weakness of
institutions, the peoples power to contest the legitimacy of the ruler is recognized and sometimes
compelling.

Taking political dynasties purely in its negative form may lead us further away from addressing the real
problem.

Like any other political concepts, political dynasty is situated in what Ludwig Wittgenstein calls
language games wherein a group or an individuals usage of language adheres to a particular context
and "rules of the game."

For example, when PNoy claimed in his SONA that it is time to have an Anti-Dynasty Law, perhaps
mainly targeting the Binays, he was clearly choosing to play a specific game that defines dynasty as a
source of our political decay. Five years ago, he could not get caught saying these words for his triumph
at the polls was highly contingent upon the legacy of his parents.
While dynasties have always been a target of condemnation, there have also been those who support
them. In other words, how we understand a political dynasty depends on the kind of narrative that
dominates our idea of socio-political order.

Thus, presenting a different language game through counterfactuals is necessary to see a picture bigger
than what we are used to or allowed to see.

One of the biggest criticisms against political dynasties is that they are anti-democratic: they rig
elections through violence and name recall instead of proposing genuine political reforms. Political
dynasties tend to get the upper hand in elections. Their competitors have to work extra hard just
because they are not kin to previously elected officials.

Since money speaks in campaigns, dynasties are already at an advantage because they have more funds
in their coffers, either from inheritance or outright corruption, than their opponents.

Then there are the dynasties that operate like the mafia. They adopt intimidation tactics to protect their
positions. They are guilty of electoral violence, bribery, and even murder. Although the people know
that the dynastic leader is corrupt, they prefer not to challenge him out of fear.

These are realities of Filipino politics, but to assign less democracy and bad governance to dynasties only
tells part of the story.

The other reality

Because of our selective way of tackling political dynasties, we have sidestepped the reality that
surnames have served a purpose for reforming politics in the Philippines and elsewhere in the region.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, the son of a former vice premier indispensible in building modern China, is
known domestically as the leader who broke the long-standing rule of the Chinese Communist Party
through his anti-corruption policies.

In postwar Japan, dynasties represent the Asian emphasis on predictability and stability, where politics
for some families is treated like a career passed on to generations. It wouldnt hurt to mention here
that the late Lee Kwan Yew perhaps the quintessential ideal Asian leader especially for the
Philippines was able to build Singapore through consolidating a political dynasty.
In the Philippines, dynasties for brief periods have also been a bastion of hope. Filipinos felt it when
Aquino ran for the presidency. There are also dynasties that have performed well in their respective
localities.

When I was doing field work in Balanga, Bataan, I met the Mayor Jose Enrique III, son of Bataan
governor Enrique Garcia Jr. During his term, Balanga City received the DILGs Good Housekeeping Seal,
was recognized by the international community for its anti-tobacco efforts, and has been working on an
ambitious project to become a university town by 2020.

Former Negros Oriental governor George Arnaiz, who comes from a political clan, was awarded as Most
Outstanding Governor at the 2006 Local Government Leadership Awards. Several years ago, prominent
political analyst Alex Brillantes noted the younger generation in political clans who emerged as capable
local leaders in the national effort to decentralize governance.

The point, which has been reiterated over and over again, is that bad governance is not a problem of
dynasty but a lack of political will and of greed. Sons, daughters, and relatives should not be deterred
from running just because they are kin to incumbent or former public officials. There is nothing criminal
about it. Existing laws already sanction what is truly criminal.

Regardless of their family tree, once public officials commit graft and corruption, murder, fraud and
harassment, they should be punished. While manufacturing laws gives an impression of a working state,
adding another law on top of the existing ones only proves the weakness of our authorities to
implement them indiscriminately.

Once we move into another language game that views dynasties differently, then an anti-dynasty law,
instead of improving democracy, might close the doors to future potential reformers just because of
their surname. The argument for democracy is therefore not mutually exclusive to dynasties alone.

Why bad dynasties are here to stay

It is difficult to find the right prescription if we are treating the symptom as the real disease. In this
sense, an anti-dynasty law is obviously not the solution. Despite Section 26, Article II of the 1987
Philippine Constitution providing us with a legal guarantee against political dynasties, they still exist in
various phases and forms, which when taken altogether nourish the roots of the real problem: oligarchy.
Oligarchy stems from the beginnings of being a tutelary state to the United States and beyond.
According to Professor Julian Go, Filipino leaders during the American colonial period managed to
domesticate the colonial attempts to reform the country to serve their interests. They operated on
the logic that a mature Philippine society is structured based on a directing class a class of educated
and well-off individuals blessed with the privilege to rule over the obedient popular mass.

The former's privileged status automatically legitimizes them to rule. The latter, having internalized this
mentality, follow their role of a dutiful herd and perpetually vote for them. This is the crux of our
political problem. Unfortunately, this reality has been obscured by our insistence that we are an equal
society.

Political dynasties become a complication only when we look at it in a chain of concepts that define
oligarchy. It is easy to target dynasties because their negative types are the most visible of all oligarchic
forms. They are usually rich, educated with the privileged directing class mentality. Yet we must be
reminded that the lesser visible power is, the more effective it becomes.

History repeatedly tells us that our oligarchs are trained to domesticate opposing energies and turn
them to their advantage. Dynastic leaders that operate in the backdoors can morph into cronyism if
not families, then friends. Greedy dynasties can hold power in more insidious forms. They can finance a
seemingly innocuous candidate, train a non-family member into its crooked ways, or endorse people for
office.

In this case, talking about political dynasties warrants a different kind of imagination: what would
Philippine politics be without them?

Nevertheless, bad political dynasties are here to stay, with or without the anti-dynasty law, because
they operate on the embedded logic of oligarchy. It is this logic that truly allows the concentration of
power and wealth among small groups of people, and that prevents us from having proper land reform
and wealth redistribution initiatives.

As long as there are groups, familial or not, who still claim entitlement to rule based on a privileged
social and economic class, as long as we still believe that there is a special class who should think and
speak on our behalf, any law is a cosmetic surgery that makes us feel beautiful. The anti-dynasty law will
just compel us to forget that we are temporarily turning falsities into truths.
Indeed, as long as we focus on dynasties as the main political bane, we are masking our inability to
admit that we still adhere to the one law that rules above all: the iron law of oligarchy.