David was Afraid of Goliath

I was extremely disappointed to learn that my favorite Inquirer columnist Professor Randy David has backed out of the congressional race in Pampanga's second district leaving the field wide open to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Professor David explained that he was withdrawing because he was “heeding the counsel of family, friends and colleagues from academe who are concerned that my taking on a political role as a candidate would undermine the authority I have carefully cultivated as a social analyst and public intellectual.”

Well all I can say is Randy David, in my book, just lost whatever credibility and "authority" he claims to have as a "social analyst and public intellectual." He of all people should know Edmund Burke's famous adage "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." With his sudden withdrawal, GMA will now run virtually unopposed and her continued reign in the House of Representatives is practically assured.

I have mentioned before in this blog that it is easy for civil society types to criticize politicians and to complain about almost everything in government but they themselves are unwilling to put themselves on the line. They complain about rampant graft and corruption, sneer at our semi-literate, mal-educated congressmen and pretend that they know all the solutions to our country's problems but the sad fact is that they themselves don't have the stomach for politics.

As I have been saying here for so long, the tragedy of the Filipino middle class is that they know what and how to solve our country's ills but they refuse to put their names on a ballot and instead hide behind their comfortable homes. Or worse, they migrate to milder shores.

Philippine Politics at its Worst

The way I see it, the Maguindanao Massacre was a "massacre waiting to happen." It was bound to happen because practically every household in Maguindanao has a gun and every political clan has their own private armed group. Even before last week's gruesome murders, politicians in Maguindanao have been killing each other for several decades. No one notices it because they kill singly or in small numbers. People generally are not interested if one politician or one mediaman or one human rights lawyer is killed, especially so if it happened in far-away Mindanao. But if say an entire village got razed or, like in the Maguindanao Massacre, 50 persons got killed, then it merits front-page treatment. If it bleeds, it leads.

Pundits are quick to blame the country's supposed "culture of impunity," or Maguindanao's "gun culture" or "culture of violence" as the problem. My favorite Inquirer columnist Randy David also wrote a very thoughtful article along the "Philippines-is-a-weak-state-therefore-families-rule" line. They are in a sense correct but to me the root cause of the problem lies with our system of "political dynastyism."

The framers of the Constitution believed that power concentrated in the hands of a few is intrinsically evil and accordingly included a provision calling for a ban to political dynasties. The problem is Congress has been unable to pass an enabling law for this provision so dynasties continue to proliferate today. In fact, political dynastyism is more the rule rather than the exception in Philippine politics nowadays.

Personally, I believe there are "good" dynasties and there are "bad." Dynasties exist not only in politics: in showbiz there are also dynasties (i.e. KC Concepcion, Richard Gutierrez), in business you have the Ayalas, Gokongweis and Ortigases, even the armed forces has its traditional military families like the Brawners. One example of a "good" dynasty to me is the Roxas clan of Capiz province. Members of the clan (President Manuel Roxas, Senator Gerry Roxas, Congressman Dinggoy Roxas and now, vice presidentiable Mar Roxas) all served with competence and integrity and because of their admirable personal attributes (above-average intellect, diligence in their work, good looks, wealth and political savvy), almost every Roxas during his time has been considered "presidential timber." At the other end of the spectrum are the Ampatuans - their clan patriarch Datu Andal Sr. is semi-literate (he only finished Grade 4), they all look chubby, etc. In fact the only thing they have that could be considered an "asset" in politics is their reputation for explosive violence (this is because in politics and in life in general no one will mess with you if you are known to have a capacity for violence). So if the Roxas clan represent one end of the spectrum and the Ampatuans the worst, I would say that most of the political dynasties fall somewhere in between of the spectrum.

Political power is not only corruptive, it is also very addictive. And a family who has been in power for so long would cling to power much like a drug addict who would beg, steal and kill just to get his fix. The Ampatuans have been so addicted to power that the mere thought of losing it have sent them into a fit of murderous rage.

A family who has been in politics for so long will eventually amass enemies. Thus, dynasties need arms to protect them from people who carry a grudge against them and usually have a string of bodyguards to deter would-be assassins. The so-called "gun culture" exists not only in Maguindanao and muslims are not the only people noted for their love of guns. Ilonggos for one also love to play with guns and most Ilonggo politicians also have a stable of armed bodyguards like the Ampatuans. The only difference is the scale: whereas most politicians here only have a squad-sized or even a platoon-sized group, the Ampatuans have a mind-boggling 300 men under arms which is about the size of a battalion! The sad thing about all this is that even if government incarcerates all the Ampatuans the politics of violence in Maguindanao will not change. The gun culture and dynastyism are so ingrained that it is unrealistic to expect the people to change overnight. Even if the Ampatuans are somehow erased in Maguindanao's political landscape some other warlord will just step in to fill the power vacuum. Ultimately, it is the people of Maguindanao who should be blamed for allowing themselves to be cowed by the guns and wowed by the gold of their politicians.

I have written before here that the only way to put an end to political dynasties is to amend the Constitution limiting to only one term all elective positions. Each term could be changed to four years or six years or even twelve years, but after that, the elected person can no longer seek reelection or run for any other higher (or lower) post again. In this way political dynasties will simply run out of sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, cousins and wives which they could field as candidates and I predict that 20 years after this amendment, all dynasties will be just a memory. The political field will then be dominated by temporary, "short-term" politicians, not the dynasts who in a sense we could describe as "long-term" political professionals.

But the question is: do the people want it? I believe not.

The Filipino is not a democrat or a republican. You can see and sense it in the very hierarchical and stratified relationship structure of our society. And I am talking here not only about the usual "rich-and-poor" hierarchy because even in squatter areas there exists subtle ranks or pecking orders among individuals. While our textbooks tell us all men are created equal, our society teaches us that some men are more equal than others. Deep inside the Filipino is an aristocrat. Why else, for all our society's inequalities, injustices and impoverishment, have the Communists and other so-called reformers failed to get the masses to rise up, riot and revolt?

Aside from an "aristocratic" streak, the Filipino also want political dynasties to stay because he benefits from them. Filipinos expect politicians to solve their problems for them (and in most cases this means their personal problems). One of the reasons why political dynasties are so dominant today is because they are often more willing to go to great lengths to help their constituents than the "short-term" politician. This is because political dynasties think long term: a politician who has no intention of putting up a dynasty only thinks of the next election while a political patriarch thinks about how to secure the election victory of his still teen-aged son. Thus, he is more willing to spend resources in organizing his supporters, quicker to help needy constituents in order to chalk up life-long debts of gratitude, and more careful to commit political mistakes.

Of course, "going to great lengths" is very relative and it could mean a lot of things to a lot of people. It could mean working harder than most, being more accommodating and friendlier than most and so forth. For Ninoy Aquino "going to great lengths" meant offering himself as the proverbial sacrificial lamb so that our people can be rid of a tyrant while in the case of the Ampatuans, "going the extra mile" meant massacreing their political opponents. By offering his life for his country Ninoy Aquino (wittingly or unwittingly) created an unassailable political dynasty while by killing their political opponents in a most gruesome and shocking way the Ampatuans effectively committed political hara kiri. Today, even their powerful friends are powerless to protect them in the face of intense media glare and public pressure.

It's All About Who Gets What

Earlier I wrote in this blog that the 2010 elections in Iloilo City will be fought along Liberal vs. Lakas Party lines. I always presumed that Mayor Jerry Trenas and Vice Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog after their break-up with the Gonzalezes will unite and run under the Liberal Party because both have ties to former Senate President and LP Chair Franklin Drilon, the acknowledged LP stalwart in Iloilo City. Jed is said to be a distant relative of Drilon, Trenas at one time worked with Drilon at the ACCRA law office, and all three are from Molo. I was dead wrong.

As the last few weeks have shown, it is now apparent that the party higher ups are not willing (or are not able) to bankroll the campaign of LP candidates in Iloilo City. With Senator Mar Roxas out of the presidential race, the LP suddenly lost its most valuable campaign financier and since campaign contributions to Senator Noynoy Aquino’s campaign have yet to start pouring in, the LP’s finances are still uncertain. Since Iloilo City is touted to be his bailiwick, the responsibility of building up the LP rests in the hands of Drilon. The problem is Drilon is said to be tight-fisted (ku-om kamot) more so now because he needs to concentrate all his financial resources on his own Senate reelection bid. I have it from a good source that the reason why Mayor Trenas opted to join the Nacionalista Party instead of the LP was because Senator Manny Villar offered to give him P20 million to help his campaign while Drilon had nothing to offer but just the spectre of an Aquino presidency (and all the “perks” that goes with it). I guess Mayor Jerry’s answer to Drilon’s offer was: “your proposal is good Frank, but I need cash.” Mabilog for his part is said to be contemplating joining the NPC (Nationalist People’s Coalition) but I frankly do not know if he was promised anything by Danding Cojuangco. Undersecretary Larry Jamora, who is closely associated with Congressman Iggy Arroyo, is with Kampi and is lobbying the GMA administration to declare Iloilo City a “free zone.” While some pundits are predicting a possible Trenas-Jamora team-up (especially after the Trenas-Mabilog negotiations bogged down), I honestly cannot see it happening because Joe III Espinosa (Mayor Jerry’s bilas and vice mayoral candidate) has an axe to grind with Congressman Ignacio “Iggy” Arroyo because he is the person responsible for breaking the centuries-old stranglehold of the Espinosa family in the Muelle Loney Port.

Not many people realize this but I believe the root cause of all the party hopping and political free-for-all in Iloilo City can be traced to the failure of the redistricting bill to pass in the Senate. If the city was successfully split into two districts, the Trenas-Gonzalez alliance would still be intact because one party would not have to sacrifice his personal ambition for the other. The blame for the bill’s demise rests entirely on Senator Noynoy Aquino, the Chairman of the Committee on Local Government, and former Senator Drilon whom Secretary Raul Gonzalez pointed to as the one who convinced Aquino to stonewall the bill in the Senate. Senator Aquino has repeatedly said that Iloilo City is not yet qualified because its population has yet to reach 500,000 and he has refused to abide by the previous Supreme Court decision on the Makati redistricting case which clearly establishes that Iloilo City is entitled to another representative. Whatever the case, Noynoy can simply refuse to calendar the bill because that is his prerogative as Chairman of the Local Government Committee (which is precisely what he did). Since there was no hearing held, people will never know whether Iloilo City is indeed entitled to another congressman and we will just have to content ourselves with rhetorical and hypothetical discussions on the matter.

For years, Drilon has been plotting the demise of the Gonzalezes and has been aching to be acknowledged as the sole kingpin of Iloilo City. Recall that in 2007, Drilon attempted to run for congressman but seeing perhaps that the field has been totally dominated by the Gonzalez-Trenas group thought better of it. It must have been utterly humiliating for no less than the chairman of a party to have to admit to his partymates that he is not capable of winning in his own bailiwick and I heard that Drilon’s credibility within the Liberal Party suffered because of this. This may partly explain why DENR Secretary Lito Atienza and other party stalwarts questioned his leadership which led to the splitting up of the Liberal Party into an Atienza-wing and a Drilon-wing.

Of course, it should be noted that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Liberal Party plotting to defeat the administration Lakas-Kampi-CMD in Iloilo City. Putting Gonzalez out of commission is a perfectly valid and legitimate ambition on the part of Drilon. After all, that’s what politicians and parties are all about: the attainment and (ideally) the judicial use of political power.

But what I find objectionable is Drilon’s “sneaky” manner of attaining political dominance via the “divide and conquer” method of recruiting an enemy to conquer their enemy. “Divide and conquer” as a tactic is as old as politics itself and is usually employed by parties who face a very formidable opponent (the Spaniards and the Americans used it with much success on us Filipinos). The LP in the past has tried and failed to dominate Iloilo City and it is obvious that the only way they can win is by driving a wedge between Mayor Trenas and the Gonzalezes. By blocking the passage of the redistricting bill, the LP effectively created a scenario where Trenas had to choose between his loyalty to the Gonzalezes and his loyalty to himself. Drilon the political animal probably knew Trenas well enough to guess that the latter would certainly choose himself. What Drilon failed to see was that Trenas the political pragmatist would choose Manny Villar’s money rather than his appeal to his sense of delicadeza and debt of gratitude to Cory Aquino (it was Cory, after all, who gave Trenas his first big break in politics by appointing him OIC councillor in 1986). But if Trenas could overlook his debt to Gonzalez (who resuscitated his moribund political career in the mid-1990s), I could not see why he would have any residual loyalty to Cory Aquino’s son Noynoy because it seems that Mayor Trenas’s sense of gratitude does not extend to the sons of his “debtors.”

In the coming weeks, we can expect the candidates to regale us with their plans and lofty reform programs. But let’s not kid ourselves. At the end of the day, it’s all about who gets to wield the power and enjoy the perks of government.

Debt and Gratitude: How Gonzalez Jumpstarted the Political Career of Trenas

As a small boy my father taught me never to get caught in a situation where I will find myself indebted to another person. My late father was an extremely proud man and as a child he often admonished me whenever I took something or accepted a favour from someone. “Indi ka mag-molestiya” I remember were the words that he repeatedly drilled into us his children which to him means not only getting into financial debt but also includes paying your own way, earning your keep, advancing thru your own merit and not being a burden to others. But as I became older I found out that it is virtually impossible not to get into someone else’s debt in one way or another. "No man is an island" and as we go thru life we indubitably accumulate debts of gratitude along the way. Thus, life is not so much about learning how to avoid but how to honor your debts.

I got into thinking about this subject of debt and gratitude because people in Iloilo City are currently talking about how Mayor Jerry Trenas is a big ingrate who does not know how to pay his debt of gratitude to the Gonzalezes. Mayor Trenas himself admitted during his press conference that he “owes a lot” to the Gonzalezes and this got me curious enough to investigate how exactly did he get himself indebted to them. Here is the inside story:

Even at a young age, Buenaventura Geronimo “Jerry” Perez Trenas already displayed above-average intelligence and leadership qualities that seemed to pre-destine him to a life in politics. After placing 11th during the 1982 bar examinations, he joined the prestigious ACCRA law office of Senators Edgardo Angara and Franklin Drilon in Makati City. He then went back to Iloilo City to manage the law firm founded by his grandfather, the Trenas, Trenas & Rubias Law Office. Since his father and grandfather have been lawyering for the Iloilo’s landed and merchant families since the time of President Manuel Quezon, Trenas easily established a name in local circles. He made a good living out of his law practice because he inherited not only his father’s and grandfather’s law office but most of their “old rich” clients as well. Aside from that, Trenas also married well: his wife Rosalie belongs to the Sarabia clan which owns a chain of optical shops, pawnshops and other business interests in Iloilo and Manila.

In 1986, Jerry Trenas made a very auspicious start in local politics when Cory Aquino appointed him councilor of Iloilo City (along with Mayor Tita Caram) in gratitude for his efforts during the anti-Marcos struggle. Because of his impressive credentials, was earmarked early on as a “mayorable.” But after such a promising start, things began to slowly unravel for the boyish-looking politician from Mandurriao. When he first ran for mayor he was defeated by the populist and popular politician from Molo, Mansueto “Mansing” Malabor. I remember this clearly because my clan supported his candidacy by virtue of my uncle being his law partner. I also remember that the reason he lost was because the people perceived him to be “elitist” due to his being a senator’s grandson, his being an Atenean, his being married into one of the richest families in Iloilo City and his aloof demeanour which Ilonggos tended to misinterpret as arrogance or snobbishness.

After his electoral fiasco, Jerry Trenas was in a political limbo. He was bitter, suffering from depression and he lost all his enthusiasm for politics. Seeing its damaging effects to him both psychologically and financially, his family swore that they will never again allow him to run for any public office. Most of his supporters have also abandoned him, thinking he is a “has-been.” Disheartened and disillusioned - this was the mental state of Jerry Trenas when Raul Gonzalez, Sr. (who was then a congressman) found him quite by accident eating at the foodcourt of MaryMart Mall sometime in 2000. At that time, Raul Senior was scouting around for a candidate to replace Malabor who was then serving his third and last term as mayor in 2001. Previously, Gonzalez had invited Congressman Paeng Lopez-Vito and Vice Mayor Guilling dela Llana to run for mayor under his ticket but both turned down his offer. With the 2001 elections fast approaching and still no mayoral candidate in sight, Gonzalez on impulse offered the slot to Trenas right there and then in the middle of MaryMart Mall. Trenas initially was non-committal (he did not refuse but he did not accept either) to the offer. He said that he had lost his appetite for politics and that he had already promised his loved ones that he will retire from politics. He also added that he was practically insolvent having spent all his money on his two previous attempts. But after several more meetings and subsequent negotiations, Trenas was eventually prevailed upon by the elder Gonzalez to run but only on the condition that they will share campaign expenses 25%-75% (that is, 25% Trenas, 75% Gonzalez). The elder Gonzalez agreed and the rest, as they say, is history. With his political base (mainly the Ilonggo middle-class) plus the Gonzalez machinery vote, Trenas handily won as mayor in 2001, then in 2004 and overwhelmingly in 2007.

I am sure that Gonzalez presently is ruing the day he made that decision to invite Trenas to his camp because, by resuscitating his moribund political career, he unwittingly bred a serious opponent for his son. Gonzalez Senior did everything to support Mayor Trenas and did absolutely nothing to antagonize him. He treated him with due respect, used his national influence to assist him in running Iloilo City, shouldered most of the political bills and even attempted to create a new congressional district for him when his term as mayor was up. So it would be perfectly natural for the Gonzalez camp to feel bad and call him an ingrate. Civil society (NGOs, Catholic Church, middle class groups, etc.) has a hoity toity word to describe this behaviour of politicians who don’t know how to pay their debts of gratitude and who abandon long-time allies for their personal advancement. I believe the term they use is “political opportunism.”

In hindsight, I still think Raul Senior did not err in choosing him because Trenas proved himself more than equal to the task of running Iloilo City. Trenas “raised the bar” so to speak for all the succeeding mayors to surpass and I think the people after having “tasted” his brand of leadership would not stand for another “Malabor-like” politician (i.e. someone from Molo again) to head City Hall. Ultimately, the people of Iloilo City benefited from Raul Senior’s fateful decision back in 2000 to revive the sputtering career of Jerry Trenas. And if Mayor Jerry became too big for his shoes, well that’s par for the course in the great game that is politics. Still, Gonzalez Senior did not deserve the treatment that he got from Mayor Trenas after all the things he had done for him.

Ilonggos innately do not like people who do not know how to pay their debts. In Iloilo City, individuals who have a “sense of entitlement” and “debt amnesia” are treated like pariahs, shunned and avoided by people. I am told that Mayor Trenas in the last couple of weeks has been trying to “collect” from his barangay captains, reminding them of past favors and the innumerable assistance he extended them and even threatening to fire their casuals in City Hall. To his chagrin, most of the barangay captains refused to honor their debts of gratitude to him. In effect, Trenas is currently getting a dose of his own medicine for how can he expect to “collect” when he himself doesn’t know how to pay back his own debt to the Gonzalezes. Failing to pay your debt makes it easy for people in turn not to pay their debts to you. Ilonggos do not like ingrates and come election day, I believe the voters will demonstrate what they really think about persons who do not know how to honor their debts of gratitude.