Crashing out

Crashing out | Daily Tribune

“At some point, an adult has to step in and take the phone away,” wittily captures how some people have had enough of the antics of dynastic neophyte lawmaker Kiko Barzaga of Cavite.

The striking quip comes from a Facebook post by the DAILY TRIBUNE’S astute social media team last week, and it perfectly condenses a current cultural condition: the habitual heavy use of phones when meddling in our politics.

Broken down, the quip — which actually refers to the cyberlibel complaint of tycoon Ricky Razon against Barzaga — is the initial version of political old hands subsequently telling ambitious political teenagers: “Don’t delete anything on your phones. We’re coming back with questions.”

Now, I don’t know how much time Barzaga actually spends scrolling on his phone. But I’m betting he’s probably scrolling more than the average of six hours a day building his brand, deciding what political grievance to adopt and throwing out disposable opinions.

Otherwise, if he didn’t, his social media posturing wouldn’t have developed some loathsome “brain worm,” preoccupying a personage like political strategist and Deputy Speaker Ronnie Puno, who last week also filed a cyberlibel complaint against Barzaga.

At any rate, by Wednesday last week, news reports had it that peer-suspended Barzaga vowed to personally apologize to Razon for his accusations that the tycoon allegedly bribed his former party-mates at the National Unity Party (NUP) to support former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

If he does get to apologize, that means Barzaga climbed down from his flamboyant social media persona of the past months, a cringeworthy persona an anti-Marcos clique, together with their uncool “delulu” fandom, celebrated. Still, Barzaga’s claims and antics are very much like the modern fetish for canceling public figures without so much as a word from the accused.

But while Barzaga’s maximalist, though adolescent, strategy of pushing every political norm to its most elastic, even breaking point, did play well on social media, it’s about to be tested by how poorly it’s going to go with the court filings.

Meanwhile, another strikingly similar case of a young lawmaker undergoing hard scrutiny is that of Batangas lawmaker Leandro Leviste. Leviste, like Barzaga, is another “dynastic neophyte” who is now under the microscopes of his fellow lawmakers and government bureaucrats.

“Dynastic neophytes,” by the way, are defined as “new faces” who are in fact children or spouses of seasoned politicians, having no other role than allowing political dynasties to circumvent term limits while maintaining a “fresh” image for the dynasty.

Barzaga is the son of the late Cavite stalwart Elpidio Barzaga, while Leviste is the second son of Senator Loren Legarda.

Anyway, Leviste is in the sights of officials and the public after he supposedly got hold of the “Cabral files,” referring to the files of the late former DPWH Undersecretary Maria Catalina “Cathy” Cabral. Leviste publicized the files on Christmas Eve following Cabral’s death.

Cabral is said to be behind the mysterious formula for the allocation of public works projects for every congressional district.

Leviste is also the subject of intense scrutiny over his business dealings in the energy sector before becoming a lawmaker, particularly regarding his ownership of a solar power firm. Leviste’s real troubles, however, are still being sorted out.

Anyway, for the moment, what seems to be happening to Barzaga and Leviste is that both are clearly crashing out of the political game after hardened political mandarins threw sand into their gears.