An Anarchy of Families

What is the primordial purpose of a public servant?

A public office is a repository of public trust and confidence. Therefore, the public servant’s primordial duty is to deliver public service for the comfort and convenience of the community.

However, analyzing the Political history of the Philippines Alfred McCoy noted that the nobility of being a public servant has been distorted and become a self-serving power for acquiring wealth. He pointed out that both educated and uneducated politicians have the same agenda in the political arena. The irony in Philippine history is that those who had legal education were the very ones maneuvering the illegal means to be in office.

Can the trend in Philippine Politics be changed?

In the history of Philippine elections it was observed that there was consistency in the strategies employed by the political candidates to ensure one’s victory. The following strategies are bilateral kinship, patron-client relations, rent-seeking activities and coercion and violence.

Improving Philippine politics is possible through the conscious efforts of the electorate in truly assessing the credibility and performance efficiency of the political candidates in ruling the nations as public servants.

However, Alfred McCoy claims that there were changes in the current trend of the political leadership. The electorate chose its candidate based on their skills and no longer on bilateral kinship or patronage- client relations. It was stressed that old politicians can leave their good name, money, political machineries and reputation to their respective successors. The skills and charisma remains to be the individual uniqueness of the older politicians and it cannot be totally inherited by their younger generation.

Therefore, it is important to consider the qualifications of the new political leaders who are members of anarchy of politicians. This is to ensure improvement on the quality public service among our new generations of Philippine leaders.

Can Philippine election be possible without political violence?

In the recent 2007 national and provincial elections there were reported instances of coercion and political violence. However, with the use of modern technology in reportage, transparency in the counting of election were somehow assured. This was achieve through the assistance of the media, intensive involvement of the civic society and civilian awareness in reporting anomalies. This was, to some extent, acted upon by the Commission on Election in identifying and isolating election results of Maguindanao which were tainted with fraud, violence and coercion. The Filipino people were encouraged to take active part in assisting the government to ensure that 2007 election is clean and honest, without much risk in the life security of the populace.

In this scenario I believe that the Philippine electorate is now moving towards maturity in electing public officials and they are not totally helpless nor influenced by the whims and caprices of the anarchy of families whose only interest in public office is their personal protection and preservation.