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By Maricel V.
Cruz and Francis Earl Cueto, Reporters
Continuation
Ambiguities must
be
removed from the
bills
– Villanueva
Party-list Rep.
Joel Villanueva of the Citizens Battle Against Corruption said the
problem with the proposed bills is their ambiguity.
The third regular
session of the Thirteenth Congress had tried to approve a
controversial proposal seeking to prohibit the establishment of
political dynasties amid the revival of discussions on the issue for
the May 14 election. But the Congress adjourned its session on
February 9 without having passed the measure.
House Bill 5925
or the proposed Antipolitical Dynasty Act had been endorsed for
plenary by the Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms headed by
Rep. Teodoro Locsin of Makati City. The bill was listed as one of
the priority measures that the chamber would consider before its
adjournment.
The measure
consolidates two bills principally authored by House senior deputy
majority leader Arthur Defensor and leftist party-list Reps. Satur
Ocampo, Teodoro Casiño and Joel Virador, all of Bayan Muna.
Locsin’s
committee had earlier said the antipolitical dynasty bill aims to
discourage the concentration of political power among individuals
related to each other in the same city or province, thereby making
ordinary Filipinos’ access to public service more equitable.
HB 5925 defines
“political dynasty” as the “concentration, consolidation or
perpetuation of public office and political power by persons related
to one another.”
It further
defines “political dynasty relationship” as the situation,
wherein a “person who is the spouse of an incumbent elective
official or a relative within the second civil degree of
consanguinity or affinity of an incumbent elective official holds or
runs for an elective office simultaneous with the incumbent elective
official within the same city and/or province or occupies the same
office immediately after the term of the office of the incumbent
elective official.”
It says a
political dynasty shall also be deemed to exist where “two or more
persons, who are spouses or are related within the second civil
degree of consanguinity or affinity run simultaneously for elective
public office within the same city and/or province, even if neither
is so related to the incumbent elective official.”
The proposal,
however, is silent on national elective positions, particularly the
Senate, where voters face the prospect of selecting candidates in
the May election from among political clans that already have
incumbent members of the chamber.
From the
opposition, for instance, Nacionalista Rep. Allan Peter Cayetano of
Taguig-Pateros, who happens to be the younger brother of Sen. Pia
Cayetano, will end up joining his sister in the Senate.
Aquilino Pimentel
3rd who is running under the opposition ticket for Senate, if he
wins will join his father, Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel
Jr.
The two Aquinos
former senator Teresa Aquino-Oreta and her nephew, Liberal Party
Rep. Benigno Aquino 3rd of Tarlac, are also running for the Senate.
If both win there will be two Aquino senators.
The
administration has also its own share of political dynasties.
Similarly,
majority of provinces and cities aligned with the administration are
also controlled by political leaders belonging to clans that have
wielded political power for decades now..
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