Still not very representative – 2

FOLLOWING is a continuation of excerpts (edited for currency) from The Rulemakers written by Sheila S. Coronel, with updated tables incorporating data from the outgoing 13th House of Representatives.

POLITICS AS PROFESSION

THE majority of representatives are still trained in law, even if they no longer practice it. Since the 19th century, law has been the preferred profession of those who embark on a political career. The advantages of a legal profession are obvious: Legal training helps in preparing bills, taking part in debates, and in understanding the workings of government. Over time, lawyers also develop a clientele among the influentials in a community and among local folk seeking legal advice. These are networks that can be tapped in pursuit of a political career. In addition, lawyering, despite the sleaze and dealmaking it often entails, is a prestigious profession that can also be immensely lucrative, and lawyers have high social standing.

There are less obvious advantages. “In seeking the variables that account for the ability of politicians to capitalize upon the opportunities of office, one factor seems to stand out — legal skills,” writes U.S. historian Alfred McCoy (1994). “Although the Philippine states enforcement apparatus remains weak, its legal codes governing elections, commerce, and corporations are complex and comprehensive, enveloping the whole universe of politics and business with nominally strict regulations. Through legal education, politicians learn to manipulate these regulations in their quest for rents.”

The likes of Juan Ponce Enrile and Edgardo Angara, corporate lawyers who rose from modest beginnings to become famously wealthy and powerful senators and department secretaries, attest to what McCoy means. But the quintessential example was Ferdinand Marcos, a brilliant lawyer who amassed a legendary fortune from the time he was elected senator in the 1960s and who manipulated the law with such audacity when he became president.

Legal skills are useful not only for accumulating wealth but for the wheeling-dealing that are a necessary part of politics. They are also helpful in getting away with, well, murder. Says Fernando Campos, a lawyer and politician who was acting Cavite governor from 1986 to 1988: “You can’t be in politics in Cavite if you don’t have goons. Politicians are respected by the number of goons they have. When I was active in politics, I had firearms and a law firm, so I could defend the cases of my men” (Coronel 1995). He was not the only one. Campos’s archenemy, Juanito Remulla, who became a longtime Cavite governor, had a private army and a law firm as well.

FOR all these reasons, lawyers will continue to be a dominant presence in the legislature. Although the numbers are declining, the percentage of lawyers in the post-Marcos Congress is not far off from what it was in 1898. Although many of the lawyers do not actually practice law, or only practice it on the side (many are involved in corporations or are engaged in business themselves), law is still the preferred field of study, as shown in Table 4.

* The total number of the 12th House members used in these tables excludes the 20th party-list representative who was allowed to assume his seat only in December 2003.

Business and economics come second as the preferred field, attesting to the increasing numbers of representatives who are engaged in business. In the 13th House, nearly a quarter studied business and economics, but if the list is expanded to include the 18 representatives who studied business and law, then the proportion comes to more than one-fourth of Congress.

On the whole, despite the many changes that have swept Philippine society, there is still a premium on education as far as entry to the legislature is concerned. Over the years, legislators have tended to be better educated, reflective of the Filipino attitude toward education as an instrument of prestige and social mobility (Simbulan 1965, Seibert 1969).

* No data provided by eight House members

A college degree is a virtual requisite for membership in the House History is partly to blame: Until 1935, only propertied and educated males could vote and aspire for public office. Education is also correlated with wealth, as for the most part those who graduate from college come from the rich, middle, and lower-middle classes. At the same time, though, education provides an avenue for those who come from the less affluent social strata to move up the social ladder.

If anything, the higher educational degrees obtained by an increasing number of representatives in the post-Marcos House, about a quarter have postgraduate degrees — attests to the continuing importance of educational qualifications for those who embark on a career in public office. This does not necessarily mean, however, that the quality of debate in Congress has remarkably improved. In fact, many observers say the reverse is true. But then, there are many possible reasons for the declining quality of legislative discourse — a weak leadership, for one, and a tendency to settle differences through backroom dealmaking rather than floor debates.

Like the preponderance of lawyers, the remarkably high educational qualifications of legislators may be seen as another indication of the existence of professional politicians, individuals who embark on politics as a career and see that having multiple college degrees is an important qualification for pursuing their ambitions.

A POLITICIAN who is elected to Congress is made. He makes the leap from the backwaters of provincial politics to the mainstream. He is catapulted to the national stage, he is interviewed on national television, Cabinet secretaries and heads of government agencies are at his beck and call, especially during budget hearings. He wields considerable influence in government and can use this influence to enrich himself, his family, and his friends or to harass his rivals. A Congress post also opens up other possibilities — many legislators end up being in the cabinet or heading a government corporation. They are invited to be on the boards of private companies; if they are lawyers, their law firms are taken on retainer by the country’s richest corporations.

To get to Congress, however, a politician has to be elected. And for that to happen, he has to have built a political base and gone up the ranks of government service. The route to Congress, for the most part, is still via local government posts. Although recently, some have taken a shortcut, either through the media or the movies, or inherited their posts directly from a relative facing the three-term limit, the usual route is still for prospective legislators, even those who come from political families, to vie for “lesser” elective posts.

This trend was evident from the start. Political office in the Philippines has always been hierarchical: Aspiring politicians went up the political ladder from local to national office, from the House to the Senate, and from the Senate to the presidency. The upheavals caused by martial law disrupted this flow. The formula no longer works for those aspiring for the Senate and the presidency. But the path from local office to the House remains well trodden, although it has been fast-tracked for many because of the three-term limit.

Forty years ago, Simbulan (1965) listed 294 representatives who were in the House from 1946 to 1963. He found that 160 of them — 54 percent of the total — had previously held public office. One-third of these legislators were in the executive branch, and close to half had been elected to local government posts.

The percentages for the 13th House (2004-2007), like in the 12th House, are even bigger, attesting once again to the existence of a caste of professional politicians whose main career is not law or business but really politics. This was evident in the 1960s. As U.S. political scientist Stauffer (1966) wrote then: “The most common work experience of Philippine legislators, in contrast with their formal occupations, has been government service in one capacity or another.”

* No data provided by seven representatives

In the 13th House, 144 representatives — 58 percent — had been in public office prior to their first election to a post-Marcos House. As in the 12th House, fewer representatives now come from the executive branch. Most of them — 36 percent of all representatives or 78 percent of those who held public posts — had been elected to local office. (with additional research by Lala Ordenes-Cascolan and Isa Lorenzo)