Category: dynasty

Honesty, lies and Sara Duterte

[this was first published in march 2019 @inquirerdotnet, when the mayor was campaigning for her senatorial bets. now that she seems to be on the verge of running for president sa 2022, time to double up. the marcoses are not nag-iisa.]

RACHEL A.G. REYES

We are not naïve, stupid or gullible. We know and even accept that in politics and in public life, white lies, untruths, evasions, dissimulation, feigning, pretense and bullshit are at times necessary, even required for political wheeling and dealing.

At the same time, truth and honesty are universally valued and cherished in social and private lives. We categorically believe that lying is wrong. Lies rebound on the liar, and we know how a single lie can wreck lives and destroy reputations. Plato was unequivocal. He said lies were evil and poisoned the soul of the person who uttered them. The French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne concurred. “In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice,” he said. “We have no tie upon one another, other than the reliability of our word.”

We can be similarly uncompromising. We demand truthfulness and honesty from our elected public servants and from our colleagues and friends. We teach our children to be truthful and honest and regard as treacherous the lover, husband or wife who is found to be untruthful and dishonest.

That said, I have been trying to fathom Sara Duterte’s thinking. The President’s daughter has recently been saying a lot about lying and honesty. But given the nature of politicking in this country, the talk has spiraled out of the realms of reason.

Sara’s thinking

As far as one can gather, her argument can be unpacked as follows: (a) all politicians lie, everybody lies; (b) honesty should not be an electoral issue; (c) there is no legal requirement for senatorial contenders to be honest, truthful and of good moral character. Neither are academic qualifications necessary. Philippine citizenship and being able to read and write would suffice.

One could take the view that championing lying, as Sara does, is hard-as-nails pragmatism. Lies can decrease conflict, promote harmony, forge compromise. In this way, one is able to justify lies, accept the utility and necessity of telling lies, if the outcome is beneficial—if more good than harm can come from falsehood. The unbounded pessimist Friedrich Nietzsche went further. He said: “That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.”

Yet, society cannot possibly function if, as Sara contends, we accept that everybody lies all the time. Society, writes the British philosopher Anthony Grayling, operates on probity and integrity. “For the ordinary transactions of daily life, we have to believe that most people are telling the truth most of the time.”

But public office is a public trust

Those who penned the Philippine Constitution would agree. Section 27, Article II is explicit: “The State shall maintain honesty and integrity in the public service and take positive and effective measures against graft and corruption.”

Moreover, Section 1 of Article XI states: “Public office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice, and lead modest lives.”

I can’t see how these passages can be read as anything but a stern rebuke of Sara’s legal justification for lying and dishonesty in public life.

Sara is mayor of Davao City and running for reelection. She has been doing no campaigning of her own. This seems to be because she is very busy being the campaign manager and spokesperson for senatorial candidates running under her regional party Hugpong ng Pagbabago. Clearly, she is confident of winning the Davao mayoralty without too much effort on her part.

She’s loud ad she swaggers

Loud and swaggering, Sara has enormous presence. She is not a senatorial contender but acts like one. Those who think that she has her eye firmly on the presidency and aims to succeed her father are probably right. Which is precisely the reason why we should listen to her carefully. She is amassing power before our very eyes.

Sara advocates lying and dishonesty as acceptable for those in public life. Why should this be so troubling? Because, as Grayling writes: “To tell a lie you have to know the truth but deliberately intend to communicate its very opposite to your audience. You thus commit a double crime: of knowing but concealing truth, a precious possession; and of purposefully leading others away from it.”

Would Sara apply this standard on her children? Would she allow her husband to deceive her with lies and dishonesty?

Rachel A.G. Reyes (rachelagreyes@gmail.com) is a historian of Southeast Asia and writes commentary pieces on science, gender and politics.

 

between kris and duterte . . .

. . . we are being forced to confront the dementor ways of dynasty.

duterte is a stand-up comic-tragic figure whose mission as president in midterm is to distract us from his failure to deliver on the BIG CHANGES he promised — hindi pala niya kaya, ang hirap pala, akala ay madadaan sa kamachohan, takutan, but how do you make takot the entrenched oligarchy (heavily represented in the cabinet) into changing their ways and moderating their greed for the sake of nation, what do they care about nation  —  and so deliberately he distracts us from the higher prices, harder times, under his watch, and of course he can blame the price of oil only so much, and so he resorts to his favorite pasttime, talking dirty, talking sex, best seller forever, the dirtier the more shocking the better, and boy has he amped it up, nasa bedtime pornography na, for general patronage even.  i hate to imagine what next.  such a low way to go.  meanwhile, the country continues to go to the dogs.  soon there will be nothing left.

kris aquino is only a little less disturbing.  in her latest, current war, this time vs former business manager nicko falcis who has denied her charges of “qualified theft” — woman scorned nga ba? — falcis has  accused kris of seriously threatening his life, “PAPAPATAY KA NG PAMILYA KO  … DARE TO STEP IN THIS COUNTRY, AND YOU WILL BE DEAD.”  totoo ba ito?  bakit hindi dine-deny ni kris?  dahil walang nagtatanong?  bayarán ba ng reyna ang lahat ng media?  totoo bang the queen is  “guarded & sacrificed for above & beyond all costs. No Kris Aquino, no contracts, and no millions. Do not think I won’t go in all directions.” — did she really say this in one of her final messages to falcis?

“PAPAPATAY KA NG PAMILYA KO  … DARE TO STEP IN THIS COUNTRY, AND YOU WILL BE DEAD.”  sounds like duterte.  and sounds like alice in wonderland’s queen of hearts: OFF WITH HIS HEAD!   if true, she threatened falcis, and if she spoke sincerely, what does it say of the family culture of the aquino-cojuango clan, the political dynasty she proudly belongs to?  which could be why she’s distracting us with her health woes, invoking ninoy and cory to boot, tugging at heartstrings grown brittle, bored stiff by her paawa dramatics.  what a waste of ninoy’s DNA.

kris fancies herself a queen — megalomania much?  digong is himself a kingpin, the patriarch who dares break all the rules of civilized society.  kumusta naman kaya ang ibang dynasties diyan?  nakakabaliw ba, nakaka-adik ba, ang sobrang yaman at kapangyarihan?

we should do them all, and nation, a favor by not voting for any of them, or their ilk.

The deleterious effects of political dynasties

Benjamin R. Punongbayan

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.

Read on…

binay vs. binay-campos (the abby road)

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.