WHY do we need an anti-dynasty bill? It is obvious because dynasties have captured 80 percent of public office in this country. Do we need a party-list system? Yes, to represent marginalized sectors of our society, of which there are a substantial number. Why do we need term limits? Because not just individuals, but clans of multiple numbers, have taken over public offices over decades going into forever. All of the above measures have been put together as laws for positive reasons. Except they have been gamed to become not what they should be, but a perversion of what was intended. It could also be that the laws themselves were not crafted carefully enough to avoid situations that they were trying to remove.
To begin with, despite a constitutional demand for dynasties to be phased out, there has been no real effort to put together a measure that would do so. Why? Because dynasties control the legislature. So much so that the Supreme Court has officially called the attention of the legislature to its constitutional obligation to produce an anti-dynasty law. Public opinion has loudly clamored for one. But what do we have despite official government pronouncements about supporting one? A watered-down version by dynasts in the legislature that will probably do more harm than good. Just like the party-list system and term limits laws.
The party-list system has been gamed to bring on further dynastic rule. Note the relatives of legislators, young sons and daughters, relatives, all rather unqualified except as family. But not qualified to be public officials or adequate and true representatives of the marginalized sectors they are supposed to represent. Instead, they pursue their narrow interests, which take away or put in estoppel the real public interests.
The party-list law has to be reworked and given the real purpose for which it was enacted. It is for marginalized sectors, and they should be represented by individuals who are genuine representatives of the sector, not impostors. That would mean representing human rights victims, poor, elderly, disabled, laborers, women, even widows and orphans, rural communities, Indigenous people, teachers, health officials, farmers, fishermen, miners, and landless and homeless persons. Any sector that is on the margins of this society, of which we have to admit there are many, must be given genuine representation.
As for term limits, this law has brought unwarranted and unwanted consequences. The premise is that a public official should not be permanently in office. That seems to be the good that the law is after. But the reality is that giving an official term limits removes good and honest officials who are doing a good job in the midst of their work. Even if in this day and age they may be very few. This is wasteful. We used to have a Senate where worthy senators could be reelected and the unworthy ones not reelected. What a waste to remove a good official, and as a result, have a relative of a lower caliber take over. Once this trend takes root, another relative and then another relative, mostly unqualified opportunists swarm into the various offices in the same district. The final result is that a clan of relatives has no other ambition, purpose or even profession but to secure public office. And over time, through their multiple positions, all of them begin feeding from the public trough. That is how dynasties are made by a law that meant well but did not study its bad consequences. Meanwhile, a good official can be useful for a number of years until he has to retire. There is no forever for one person in office though there may be a worthy and useful one for a length of time. In contrast, dynasties will seem like forever.
The dynasties have been created by the term limits law. Public officials should be judged at the polls. Those that are good should continue to be voted in. Those that are wanting should be voted out. Their relatives must not look to inherit their office but do other work, seek other livelihoods, and leave the politics to one relative. This can only happen if there are no entrenched vested interests that have been political overlords for decades who will not let go. Then it becomes a herculean effort to get them out and have other and better people to serve in public office.
The other thing that term limits brings on is inexperienced if not ignorant public officials (as against better qualified ones) that then enact laws that have seriously negative consequences that need to be removed by amendments or new laws. We have a whole slew of them like the law that made so many demands of the salt industry that it killed it and we ended up importing salt when originally we had salt beds to supply most of our needs. Then there is the Heritage Law that ridiculously and unreasonably declares any structure that is more than 50 years old as heritage, and it cannot be changed, improved, demolished even if it is necessary. That dooms modernization, efficiency, even aesthetics.
Term limits should only be for the highest officials in public office like the president and vice president, and the judiciary and independent agencies of government. That is in the Constitution. When their terms of office are over, the change could bring worthy replacements through fair elections or justifiable appointments. Are we to be saddled with endless dynasties as the result of term limits? This permanence of multiple officials from one clan is not for good but usually for bad. If there is a competent, honest and hardworking official, why dismiss him or her due to term limits? In time, they will retire back to private life for an individual is never permanent in office but a clan can be.
As for the party-list law, it has to be amended and made strictly for the marginalized, or we will endure a grand deception.
As for the term limits and a real anti-dynasty law, these matters must be combined into a new law that is an effective deterrent to the proliferation of clans in politics as well as allowing worthy individuals to serve as long as they are worthy and useful. It is a matter of distinguishing between the individual that is worthy and the clan that is not. It will take knowledge and skill, and the right civic motives from the legislature to do this. And that is the challenge that the public demands them to answer.
