In The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama described the Philippines as “masks [by] enormous disparities in wealth, prestige, status, and power, which these elites can use to control the democratic process.” The region’s political and socioeconomic inequalities had given birth to political slavery where political dynasty gestated and, in exceptional cases, political warlordism evolved. In this system, open political participation is systematically eliminated denying the possibility of equal access to public office in order to institutionalize political monopoly. It is a process of selection among members of the family instead of free election. It is based on ones’ influence in the family rather than platform of government. Qualification, competency and character play no role. Public accountability succumbs to bloodline loyalty.

Patronage politics thrived because of the political symbiotic-dependency between the politicians and the poverty-stricken majority. The former provide for basic human subsistence in exchange of the latter’s continued patronage. Supporters will be in a three-year payroll that would somehow satisfy basic human needs for job, food and health. Being of limited choice, one has no sufficient freedom to break the bond. Freedom and liberty are elusive to men with empty stomachs whose faculties are too infirm to exercise freewill. A different scenario however exists in the case of political warlordism where fear and reign of terror is employed to assure political submission; the leverage of money-politics plays a minimal role. The will of the people is snatched by the barrel of the gun.

Family kinship contributes to the perpetuation of warlordism where family members serve as foot soldiers. More often than not, the history of rido (clan feud) among the candidates fuels electoral violence. This is the underlying cause on the failure of election in the 13 municipalities in Lanao del Sur on May 14, 2007. Likewise, the technical aspect of the election aids dynasty and warlordism in preserving their political domination. Instead of modern electronic voting which is free from human intervention what is used is the Jurassic process of paper voting on the sheets of ballots, election returns, statement of votes, and certificate of canvass which can be physically hijacked and doctored. The current process gives election staff a wider latitude of discretion making it susceptible to bribery and intimidated.

In terms of representation, political opportunities are reserved for the few elites. Philippines is “a society dominated by social elite, most often by large landowners, who are neither tolerant of other classes nor efficient entrepreneurs,” according to Francis Fukuyama. This is a bitter fact but its degree of impact is twice as worst in the ARMM.

More than three quarters of the members of the House of Representative belong to a political dynasty; the Senate is not an exception. While the Lower House is equalized by geographical representation, Senate’s (including the Senators-elect) balance of power is iniquitously tilted toward imperial Manila where half come from NCR (12 percent of national population) and each provinces of Cavite, Sorsogon, Iloilo, and Zambales have two. The ARMM which has 10 percent of the population has yet to have its Senator for a decade and without Sen. Pimentel, Mindanao would not have any representation.

It may be argued that this unequal representation is tempered by the creation of ARMM. This is far from truth. The Office of the Regional Governor has yet to be freely elected. At present, it is filled up through Malacañang anointment. Since its creation, elections were postponed eight times; and there were eight instances where ARMM officials’ term of offices were extended by the Congress without election. Apart from this, the Southern Philippines Development Authority was inactivated by virtue of Executive Order No. 149 for almost five years, it was activated only few months ago.

Root causes of fraud and violence

It seemed that the root causes of the fraud and violence are not appealing to politicians as well as the media that it rarely gets their equal attention. The region gets that extraordinary interest only when there is blood-letting during elections and armed conflict. In this election, issues concerning the problems of the Moro people and inequalities have been hardly taken seriously. What was underscored in the media is the issue of who will control Congress rather than what Congress can do to the failing region. This political timidity is not surprising. Congress is dominated by northern politics, it members’ approach and perception to the region’s inequity is subjective rather than structural. “Dominant groups tend to be unaware of social inequalities… [they] tended to see person-related causes of war [in this case political violence], while non-dominant Muslims prioritized structural causes of the conflict.” (Montiel, C.J. and Macapagal, E.J., Effects of Social Position on Societal Attributions of an Asymmetric Conflict, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2006, pp. 219-227).

When job, health care, education, food and water, and physical security are wanting people are shut off from their choices. The hapless marginalized people become vulnerable and exposed to exploitation aggravated by government’s impotence to guarantee human security. Nobel laureate W.A. Lewis in his Theory of Economics pointed out that increase in per capita income “gives a man greater control of his environment, and thereby increases his freedom.” But the State has failed to create a condition in which human development and security can be realized; where people choices and opportunities are much wider and where they could have greater control of their environment. Today’s politics however is not that encouraging: it is built on a high wall of intense and uncompromising political antagonism where constructive political cooperation is jettisoned.

It is Congress’ constitutional duty to dismantle dynasties. Unfortunately conflicts of interest exist, Congress itself is ruled by different species of political dynasties. Legislative measures to make IRA and Pork Barrel spending more accountable and transparent are far from its agenda. International development agencies, who are pouring billions of pesos in ARMM, are not that helpful in making the country and other institutions more accountable to the funds they received to alleviate the region’s inequality. It is disturbing how the visible political warlords exist in a society claiming to be governed by rule of law. It will not require a legislation to disarm private armies, the military might of the State is sufficient to destroy their existence. With these bleak scenarios and the political oblivion on the issues concerning the Bangsamoro, the ruling dynasties and warlords, therefore, will flourish while the cycle of electoral fraud, violence, and vending will persist.

Be it stressed here that the region’s human development’s figures is not statistically improbable. It confirmed that Bangsamoro, for decades, has been cheated and rigged of their right to live with human dignity. Contributed to (Bulatlat.com)

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