Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Wednesday said that dismantling oligarchy in the Philippines should involve banning political dynasties, and if President Rodrigo Duterte wanted to do it, he would be willing to sit down with the administration to help.
An oligarchy is “easy to achieve” in the Philippines due to the “lack of an anti-dynasty provision” and other anti-competition policies in the system, Drilon said.
“I am willing to sit down with [the] Duterte administration to examine laws we have and find out which laws should be amended that makes oligarchy possible,” he said. “One of those is the lack of the anti-dynasty law… They have made our national and local offices extensions of their household.”
Drilon emphasized that dynasties have wielded power for their own interests all over the nation.
“They wield power for their own benefit. It has gone so bad that these dynasties now hold simultaneous national and local positions,” he said.
Earlier this week, Duterte said in a speech before soldiers that he could die happy after dismantling an oligarchy that allegedly abused the system.
An unedited version of his speech showed that the President was referring to the Lopez family that owns ABS-CBN, whose franchise application was denied at the House of Representatives.
Drilon also reminded the President that identifying an oligarch should not be based on wealth alone, but their use of power to influence the political system.
“You are an oligarch if you use your power to promote through the political system your own interest,” he said.
Drilon has filed the anti-dynasty bill in several Congress sessions, but they have failed to pass the legislative process as most lawmakers are part of political dynasties.
Drilon believes that the chief executive’s pull in the Congress will help the Anti-Dynasty bill get traction.
