It may be true that similar things happen in highly developed countries. But not to the very wide extent that we do. We have allowed political dynasties to be the norm, not the exception. Moreover, our social and economic settings and the scruples of local politicians are far different from those in developed countries.
listened to abby binay-campos on karen davila’s headstart. my smpathies go to jojo binay.
this is what dynasty has come to. abby says she worked so hard to do all the things she has accomplished for the city of makati, so it’s unfair that she’s being asked not to run for re-election, as in, paano na ang projects niya, something about a subway and free wifi, e baka di na matuloy, sayang naman.
crazy, right? para namang hindi niya kapatid ang ibig makabalik sa puwesto. bakit hindi itutuloy ni junjun ang mga project na nasimulan na kung para sa ikauunlad at ikaliligaya ng makati? iyan na nga mismo ang rationale, ang advantage, ng dynasty rule, di ba, yung built-in continuity ng leadership ng isang angkang nagkakaisa, with the good of their constituents in mind. but wait. heto naman si junjun, saying the same thing, gusto daw niya tapusin yung mga nasimulan niya na apparently ay hindi itinuloy ni abby. eh iyon naman pala.
life was simpler back when dad jejomar aka jojo, the original mayor binay, went national and became veep: the lines were clearly drawn, it seemed to me. jojo left the mayor’s seat to junjun, abby went to congress, and nancy made it to the senate. hati-hating kapatid, kumbaga. ang kaso, into his second term, sometime 2015, nakasuhan si junjun sa ombudsman at na-suspend; saglit nakaupong mayor si oppositionist vice mayor kid pena. noong 2016 elections, di pa puwede si junjun, dinidinig pa ang kaso, so si abby ang tumakbo in his place. kaysa mapunta sa iba, di ba. syempre, as with any dynasty, keep.it.in.the.family ang mantra.
perfect timing naman dahil kaga-graduate ni abby sa congress (one of two makati seats), three terms na, so ang asawang si luis campos ang tumakbo in her place, na nanalo siyempre. kumbaga, bonus na kay abby yung biglang run-for-mayor-and-win. ang problema ngayon, she’s enjoying herself much too much (and we can guess why) and simply doesn’t want to give it up / back to junjun now that junjun wants city hall back. she practically tells junjun to clear his name first (or something like that) before going back to public service. in a statement, meron pang:
… when she took over as mayor two years ago, Makati was “in a state of neglect and disorder… worse, dirty politics and shameless political patronage had taken their toll on basic social services.”
teka. the year before she took over was the year when acting mayor kid pena couldn’t get anything done because binay supporters in and out of city hall were forever blocking him on every front imaginable. dirty politics din iyon at dirty politics pa rin ang namamayani sa makati (like everywhere else), or at least that’s the maugong na chismis.
and now here’s junjun on headstart. hindi pala siya bilib sa subway project ni abby, cute and fancy, but is it viable? AND he reinforced some chismis i’ve been getting from three different grapevines about abby’s hubby who’s running for re-election sa congress, nag-e-enjoy din, I suppose, and abby doesn’t have the heart to ask for her seat back, pero si junjun kayang-kaya niya?
OR the chismis goes, okay lang kay campos na bumalik sa congress si abby but he wants to run for mayor in abby’s place? junjun does not say it in so many words but he certainly says a mouthful.
…my father doesn’t like him, may mga issues with him, may nga nagsasabi sa father ko na may sinasabi na hindi maganda tungkol sa family. … I’m sure he has his own ambitions. Isa yan sa naging isyu dun sa ground. Naging isyu yan… my brother in law. Meron siyang iba ring agenda eh. Which is, hindi namin gusto ang agenda niya, it wont be good for the city.
and yet jojo in his wisom has refused to rule, or even just remind, that city hall is junjun’s, congress is abby’s – the husband is abby’s problem. i’m still trying to figure out why.
sabi naman ni rene saguisag who was with jojo sa comelec.
The other day Mayor Abby Binay filed her CONA. The day before, JunJun, her brother, did. Normally, one may say that the Binays and the Estradas enjoy the paradise of pedigree, but not this time. How I wish they could find a way to reconcile, but a Prez Duterte, Mayor Duterte and Vice Mayor Duterte? https://www.manilatimes.net/cream-rises-and-values-dip/453983/
hard to sympathize with either binay or binay-campos. much easier to sympathize with the poor people of makati, and of davao, and poor people everywhere in this benighted land, who aren’t really being given a choice any longer, kept largely without options, caught in the cruel trap set by dynasties who mean to rule forever.
tony lopez rightly asks, what has been the impact of dynastic rule?
Is it a coincidence that the Philippines has one of the worst income equality ratios in the world, that it is the only major country that failed to solve its poverty after the entire world solved its poverty in 2015, that in ASEAN, it has the highest poverty incidence, the highest unemployment rate, the highest inflation rate, the highest interest rates, and the lowest level of foreign investments?
no coincidence. more like cause and effect. political dynasties enrich the dynasty at the expense of the masses. at the expense of democracy. which makes ours a poor and fake democracy.
it happens in the best of families. siblings grow apart, each to one’s own life. ideally the blood-and-flesh bond and the shared upbringing and values prove tight, and are passed on; ideally the family remains united across nuclear units, down generations. but this is rare. especially among families dealing with inheritance and entitlement issues, sincere sibling rivalries are not surprising, if not the norm.
in the case of the binays, we are seeing how bad it can get when sibs squabble over the mayor’s seat. why can’t abby and junjun just take turns? e kasi, hindi sila bati. parang mga bata except that the stakes are so high. each thinks he/she has the upper hand, abby because as far as she knows everything’s good and everyone’s happy in makati under her watch, junjun because he has supporters from the mayor’s office telling him it’s otherwise, pipol miss the binay PR that abby doesn’t have, or so it is said.
imbiyerna si abby, of course, at parang nakwerdasan. kesyo kung me diperensiya pala ang palakad niya sa makati, bakit hindi siya sinabihan ni junjun, then she could have done something about it, or something like that. and kesyo her brother forgets yata that he is banned from running for or holding public office, remember that graft case? eh, teka, say ng COMELEC okay lang because the case is still on appeal.
so, binay vs. binay sa makati. ay mali. binay vs. campos, say ni junjun. (campos is abby’s married name, which no doubt helped win hubby luis one of two makati seats in congress.) SEXIST! tili ni abby, binay daw siya forever! yeah right, but campos too, when it suits her. no sympathy from women, i’m afraid.
the real question is, totoo ba na abby has dad jojo’s ok to run for re-election? totoo ba ang tsismis na si abby ang favorite ni jojo, sorry na lang si junjun? but we don’t know that for sure yet. magfa-family council pa daw, say ni senator nancy; it will be a collective decision.
but ‘twould be interesting to see this abby-junjun show to a decisive finish. kulang nga ba sa karinyo si abby? may panalo nga ba si junjun? it might even be kinda solomonic with a twist, as in, go fight each other, go make spectacles of yourselves, binay vs. binay, never mind how bad it makes the family look, and let the people decide. my god, makati will rock and, maybe, crack, who knows. maybe it’s how to undo a dynasty.
sinabayan pa talaga ni madam speaker ang red october eklat ng militar. na-deja-vu ako. in the run-up to erap’s ouster, then vp gloria conspired (or maybe just met often), it is said, with some generals intending to withdraw support from erap (five different factions daw). and we know how very far that got her.
this time around she’s house speaker and pushing her version of a federal constitution and perceived to be fast-tracking a constituent assembly, never mind the senate, what senate, just in time for a rev-gov situation it would seem, na di pa pala binibitawan ng mga ka-DDS. read lito monico lorenzana’s Duterte is not a Marcos.
but wait. just 2 months ago she announced that it was too late for chacha and federalism, lalo na’t kailangan pa ng info campaign at ng plebiscite. read Speaker Arroyo: Not enough time for charter change of aug 16.
Arroyo has described as “black propaganda” the claim of some senators and critics that she is eyeing the position of prime minister under a federal system.
“I think those who are raising those issues are those that want to stir controversy,” Arroyo said. “As far as elections are concerned, I’ve already said I’m not in favor of term extension, so I’m not in favor of no-el (no elections).”
In the first place, Arroyo said there is no such position in the setup recommended by Duterte’s consultative committee on Cha-cha, which she added was federal-presidential.
… Arroyo has stopped Veloso’s committee from drafting its own version of a new Constitution. “It’s waste of time. That should be done by the assembly,” Arroyo told committee members during a meeting of the panel, which she attended.
“So now we will work with Senate President (Vicente) Sotto and fellow senators on how to move forward,” she said.
anong nangyari between then and now. obviously hello gloria and and her gang continued anyway to draft the house version of a federal constitution — with input from senate prez sotto and his gang, possibly? Resolution of Both Houses No. 15! — just in case?
plan B siguro, in case bongbong doesn’t make it to veep. how else to circumvent leni’s lawful succession except by adopting gloria’s proposed charter providing that in the transition to federalism-kuno under a rev-gov, the president in case of death or illness or incapacity will be succeeded by the senate president, not by vp leni. a draft charter that is already so controversial, even self-servingly obscene, on so many points, like, wow, no-term-limits for reps and senators, parang dictatorship of the dynasties, among other unthinkables. at parang di pinoproblema na baka di tanggapin ng publiko. siguro walang plebiscite, a la marcos, people’s assemblies lang where people raise their hands when asked who wants rice, ehe, who likes the new saligang batas?
and then of course we have to factor in duterte’s health problem — he ain’t looking or sounding good — that, if taken with his expressed complaints about how hard the job is, and how he’s willing to give it all up right now, just say the word, puts the succession question squarely on the table. read raissa robles’s IF DUTERTE IS TOO ILL TO LEAD THE PHILIPPINES, WHO IS NEXT IN LINE FOR POWER?
Among those positioning themselves for leadership are Vice-President Leni Robredo, the opposition Liberal Party which she now heads, and members of the Magdalo Group as well as moderate left-wing Akbayan and civil society groups.
Second is former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr and his mother, Congresswoman Imelda Marcos, and sister, Ilocos Sur Governor Imee Marcos.
Next comes the Davao group, headed by Duterte’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, and other Duterte loyalists. These include retired military officers, sitting public officials and diehard civilian Duterte supporters.
Fourth is House Speaker and former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her political allies, while fifth is the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front and its above-ground organisations.
vp robredo is next in the line of succession, no ifs or buts. ang problema, duterte won’t step down kung si leni ang papalit sa kanya. duterte wants someone like bongbong, like chiz? who will guarantee that he won’t go to jail for any crimes he might have committed while president. thus this impasse that seems to be headed for a breaking point, with some prodding, it would seem, from hello gloria. under her proposed charter, she can run again for any office she wants, though she says she won’t, she’ll be writing her memoir, but who knows, maybe she’s lying as usual.
and then, again, maybe she’ll get her wish to write a book, maybe her chacha won’t fly, too outrageous. or maybe the case against her majority floor leader rolando andaya filed sa ombudsman by DDS commissioner greco belgica is just the first of many such SALN-related cases.
“Marami siyang hindi na-declare na baril, mga sasakyan, mga properties, lahat po ‘yun. We saw na hindi na-declare na maayos,” Belgica said, referring to Andaya’s SALN for 2016 and 2017.
reminds me of a congressman caught on video welcoming newly elected ones to congress with the line, “this is the life, guys!” or something to that effect. if memory serves, nakagalitan siya, at napahiya, tried to take back his words. sino na nga ‘yon?
the gloves are off. labo-labo na.