Amoral familism and dynasties
The Philippines has elevated impunity into an art form, aided by a weaponized legal system and an electorate acclimated to mediocrity.
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The Philippines has elevated impunity into an art form, aided by a weaponized legal system and an electorate acclimated to mediocrity.
Twenty-some years ago, I wrote a broadsheet piece titled Plato’s Revenge, premised on the sage’s warning that when the wise and good refuse to govern, they will be ruled by their inferiors.
That lament now reads less like prophecy than a post-mortem. Liberal democracy is on the ropes everywhere due to an electorate fueled by grievance, resentful of the learned. The masses are continually fed by dynastic populists who have realized that inequality is not a problem to solve but a resource to exploit.
In his 1958 book, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, Edward Banfield studied a Southern Italian town he called Montegrano and coined “Amoral Familism” — the habit of acting only for the immediate material interest of the nuclear family/tribe while distrusting institutions beyond it.
Banfield was fascinated by why the populace trusted the local mafia more than the government.
Civic duty was stillborn not because people lacked intelligence, but because everyone assumed no one — not even the leaders — would act beyond feudal kinship.
The latest SWS survey, where 52 percent of respondents said they felt powerless to stamp out corruption, captures the same fatalism. The recent act of the Supreme Court returning the anti-dynasty bill, continuing the 39-year two-step, merely reinforces it.
I have argued that institutions do not simply fail; they are co-opted through the ballot box by forces that have mastered systemic predation.
In my own jaundiced view, Vietnam and Indonesia are no paragons — both have corruption, oligarchs and bureaucratic capture. Yet Vietnam has managed to embed discipline into state capacity and is merciless toward abusive players.
Indonesia, despite Suharto’s long shadow, decentralized without fully dissolving the state. Their elites may be entrenched, but power is organized around infrastructure, investment and is seemingly guided by insular patriotism.
Meanwhile, the Philippines has elevated impunity into an art form, aided by a weaponized legal system and an electorate acclimated to mediocrity. Elections without renewal, reform without enforcement with accountability optional. An anarchy of families.
The electorate are turned into mendicants and entertained just enough to be forgiving. This is not ignorance alone; it is dependency fossilized into political culture, learned helplessness codified by patronage, drama and show business.
Buffoonery becomes normalized and dignified governance crumbles into decay. When stewardship decays into generational brigandage, hereditary politics become the ticket to plunder.
The Supreme Court’s order compelling Congress to act on political dynasties is necessary, but comical for the tragedy it exposes. The legislature will not dare to legislate its own extinction. This has to be forced somehow.
Banfield warned that when moral obligation ends at the edge of the family’s feudal network, the state becomes an abstraction, or worse, becomes the vassal.
We must admit that we are not alone. Let’s not be naïve, as even developed nations have dynastic politics. Ethical governance is a recent institutional phenomenon, pushed into the mainstream only after two world wars. Eighty years later, humanity is once again regressing toward the mean.
There may be surprises in store for 2028, but the recent surveys belie our ideals. Very little has changed since Pilate asked the mob to choose between Jesus and Barabbas. Two thousand years is a blip in human evolution. Digital fragmentation continues to deepen the divide, and the collective psyche has not caught up with technology.
This is not lamentation; it is a statement of fact. The task falls on those in government and civil society who still claim lucid discretion. A holistic effort is required to chip away at this systemic dysfunction.
Impunity is the oxygen of the crooked political dynasties. It should be suffocated.
