“FOR DECADES, power has been concentrated in the hands of so few political families, and it’s about time, if we want… our country to be a real democracy, [to pass the anti-political dynasty bill.”
So, Akbayan party-list Rep. Chel Diokno was quoted on Dec. 10, in the wake of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s urging Congress to prioritize the passage of a bill that would ban political dynasties in the Philippines, along with other measures that would help “institutionalize transparency and accountability.”
“We cannot underestimate the power of people’s expression of their opinion, and napakalakas ng ugong ng call for an anti-political dynasty bill, and all the moral and legal backing is there,” furthered Diokno. “Corruption and political dynasties are … intimately connected, and if we address one, we have to address the other.”
Over a dozen years ago, we read an even more euphoric urgency, thus: “Today is a historic moment, if only because for the first time, this was approved at the committee level.”
So declared then Bayan Muna Partylist Rep. Neri Colmenares of Nov. 20, 2013, the day the Anti-Political Dynasty Bill (APDB) was approved – unanimously – by the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms.
A consolidation of three bills, the approved measure seeks to prohibit relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity to hold or run for both national and local office in “successive, simultaneous, or overlapping terms.”
It also provides for the Commission on Elections to decide through lottery who in the clan would be permitted to run in the election in case none of the candidates in the same family refuses to withdraw.
We all rued where that APBD ultimately went – to the dustbin of good riddance in a House ruled by dynasts. So, should we expect anything different from this new minting of the once doomed bill?
Differently worse, from the looks of it.
True, House Speaker Bojie Dy and Marcos Tercero, Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander aka Sandro, jointly filed a bill prohibiting political dynasties on the same day Diokno called out for one.
Immediate was the red-flagging of the Dy-Marcos bill, for at least three perceived infirmities: 1) it does not prohibit cross-level or cross-jurisdiction dynasties; 2) It does not prohibit a dynast from immediately succeeding an incumbent relative in the next election; 3) it is silent on party-list abuse by dynasts.
In effect, Dy-Marcos’ anti-dynasty bill shall instead institutionalize what it intends to abrogate. It is impacting de jure imprimatur to de facto anomaly.
