Talk of the Town: Solid case against political dynasties

Comments on “Solid case against political dynasties,” (Editorial, 10/25/24) via https://opinion.inquirer.net:

I think those who wrote the 1987 Constitution, those who are still alive, should explain why the political climate is in such a sorry state to include political dynasties.

mario favila

The Nobel-winning authors of “Why Nations Fail” singled out political dynasties as one major cause of poverty in a locality. Look at Makati, Davao, and Taguig, most residents there are poor which the three clans suck up to. The Binays, the Dutertes, and the Cayetanos keep them poor and unschooled to keep them in power.

banqs

Cause and effect leading to disaster: Dynasty causes corruption, corruption causes large budget deficit, large deficit causes inflation and peso devaluation, inflation and devaluation cause economic collapse and misery of people. Economic collapse causes chaos, chaos causes rebellion, rebellion causes death to families of dynasties.

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Elections and quality of life

John Sitiritit

As quoted in the editorial, the Constitution states “ and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.” The word used is “may” not “shall.” Hence, it is not even mandatory to have a law passed by Congress to prohibit political dynasties. The Constitution is a law and in fact it is the highest law of the land. Public officials especially the judges, Comelec officials, and even professionals take oaths to protect and uphold the Constitution. All that is needed is a person especially Comelec official with a sense of history to disqualify candidates because they are parts of political dynasties. Let the disqualified candidate appeal to the court and hopefully the Supreme Court will exercise judicial activism, as it has done on environmental cases. The group of lawyers who filed a case in the Supreme Court to force Congress to pass an anti-dynasty law has forgotten that separation of powers and that our judicial system is adversarial in nature. Disqualifying even one candidate will create a test case. Hopefully, the disqualified candidate has also a sense of history by letting the case move on its own merit.

magulo