[OPINION] Engaging political dynasties

It is now almost four decades since the 1987 Constitution decreed that political dynasties should be outlawed. Unfortunately, the legal measures and instrumentalities that are supposed to enable this are dead in the water even before they got a kick-start.

Sociologists will say that this is an example of the lack of supportive structures that will lend this move plausibility. A study has shown that about 80% of our Congress are descendants of power holders dating back to the Commonwealth and post-war era.

It may be necessary to first of all recognize that while we have borrowed such modern ideas and systems such as the “nation-state,” we are still, in our collective unconscious, an expanded collection of balangays, communities held together by kinship and a complex web of interrelated interests and loyalties.          

It took the West five centuries to evolve out of warring fiefdoms and consolidate into what we now call “nations.” Yet countries that have decolonized are expected to behave as nations over a period of 50 years. We declared ourselves a “republic” in Malolos, the first in Asia, but subsequent events tell us that we have yet to develop a national consciousness. We have all the hardware of what makes for “democracy,” but the software remains within that limited radius of familial loyalties that we call sakop and tends to overrun formal systems of governance.

We have been faulted for not having a sense of what the Europeans call the “commons.” In truth, what we do have is sakop, that circle of relationships that we acknowledge to be our sphere of responsibility and accountability. “Sakop kita,” we tell our friends and kin, meaning you belong to us and we shall stand by you no matter what.

This sense of responsibility for one’s people has been stunted by colonization, however. It remained within a small circle of clan or at most, regional ties. The sense of bayan has yet to expand to include the whole notion of bansa.       

I suspect that because we have had to live under uncongenial governments, from the colonial period to the present, our families grew strong as source of life and succor. We have had to bundle up our loyalties and expectations within the confines of our kinship network for lack of trust and identification with the centers of power.

Unlike the elaborate demands on governance that have given birth to the welfare systems of the West, we have no great expectations that the state shall take care of us. It is instead the family which serves as our social security system and employment agency, an “ever present help in time of trouble,” tipong ina ng laging saklolo, a safety net in the face of the uncertainties and precarious fortunes of this nation.

It is not a wonder that we resort to our connections to pull the right strings. We have been used to treating our families as a primary resource, a buttress against the distressing hardness of abusive governance.

Our history of repressive regimes has instilled in us the sense that government is a stupid monster that is better kept at bay. In places like England, one heaves a sigh of relief upon seeing a policeman while walking down a dark and lonely street. In this country, fear seizes you when you see a man in uniform coming towards you. We expect not protection nor fair dealing nor justice for all, but extortion, oppression, and other such forms of legalized criminal behavior.

Our public institutions do not inspire confidence at all. The most we expect from the state is to enable us to buy and sell in a level playing field and walk the streets in relative safety.

The instinct behind this is perhaps healthy. Our people sense, quite rightly, that government is at best a necessary encumbrance. The founding fathers of American democracy, having fled the religious persecution and the decaying monarchies of despotic Europe, felt similarly. They thought that least government is best government. The less we see of government, the better for all concerned.

The experience of bad governance is undoubtedly a factor in this. As well, there is the culture’s personalism, which makes people prefer face-to-face encounter with a personality rather than abstract discussions of large public issues. The marked inclination towards suasion by force of personality rather than platform is not peculiar to our people, however.

The mass of humankind, let’s face it, are bored with ideas that do not have direct bearing on the everyday business of survival. Politics thrives as much on the glamour of the characters in it as on the concepts they represent. Contrary to conventional wisdom, truly great minds are also exercised not by ideas, but by the most complex, most engaging of all creatures on earth — people.

Our culture’s curiosity about people is not something to be embarrassed about. Celebrities are interesting, particularly to those who live rather dreary and colorless lives. And to those who think that politics ought to be a matter of grave seriousness, it is worth mulling over, that a cause or an idea needs personalities that people can relate to, concrete symbols and embodiments of the kind of social reality that we would like to see.

Gandhi was one such symbol, an unflinching image in loincloth of India’s nationalist aspirations and spiritual intransigence against Britain’s failing nerve and tottering empire.

The likes of Erap is also a symbol, even if only in reel, of the down-and-out regular guy who gets to be a hero for taking on powerful forces that oppress the poor. Quite strangely, his unconscionably lavish lifestyle and gross legal and moral transgressions have not tarnished the image of his old movie persona. His spectacular fall from power has even tapped into archetypal sympathies for the underdog.

This capacity to tug at the heartstrings and connect with the people’s social imaginary is part of the charisma of showbiz personalities that have turned into politicians.

It is a trait that the upcoming crop of promising leaders need to grow into. Politics in this country requires that they shed off political theories learned elsewhere and begin to have a feel for the gut-level issues that truly move our poor.

It seems that the dysfunctions of our political system have to do not only with poverty but with the cultural divide that separates our people from sections of the elite that seek to change them.

Experience shows that rhetoric about democracy and citizenship has little traction among those at the bottom of the cultural divide. Poverty makes political rights meaningless to the poor voter who sees elections as a circus show that earns him a few pesos. He will vote for a politician who holds out the promise that he can squat on a piece of land a little bit more.

Adding to this is the cultural cluelessness of those who think they can change the system merely by legislation and tinkering with the electoral machine. For as long as there are imbalances in the social system, the masses of our people will continue to be prey to fake news and vote buying.

As well, reforms in the formal aspects of the system may be in place, such as the constitutional ban on political dynasties or any number of laws regulating campaign finance and advertising. These, however, will remain inoperative if unsupported by the existing infraculture.

Because politics operates within a sociocultural context, there is need to attend to the more long-term task of seeing to it that our political processes are truly rooted in the culture. We need some genuinely scientific description of the way we do politics and the infraculture that makes it work.

How, for instance, do we actually negotiate access to power? How can “people power” be formalized into a system? What needs to be put in place so that the social trust that builds on the strength of our relational networks remains open to outside talent and is subject to institutional controls and accountability? How do we articulate larger, more abstract issues to an audience that demands, first of all, that we entertain?

It is not an accident that the late Juan Flavier, who was a proven public servant, was also popular with the masses. Unlike some wooden candidates known for serious politics, he was able to communicate and entertain. We need politicians like these who are able to both connect with our people and attend to the more substantial aspects of governance.

While building on what is there, we also need to challenge and press existing values to change. How, for instance, do we expand the loyalties of our Kamag-anak Inc. beyond the boundaries of family or region and move it towards a sense of national solidarity? How do we affirm the value put on the personal and at the same time see to it that bureaucracy is fair and serves all?

Our answer to these questions will determine the functionality and effectiveness of whatever electoral reforms we put in place. Traditional politics will not disappear until there is some culture-fit between our formal political systems and the way we actually practice politics. – Rappler.com

Melba Padilla Maggay, a social anthropologist, is president of the Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture (ISACC). Founded in 1978, ISACC is a nonprofit organization that aims for social transformation in Asia.