Rise of the new royalty is not the title of a sequel franchise movie theme (“Rise of the Machines” of the Terminator franchise, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” of the Planet of the Apes franchise, “Rise of the Dark Knight” of the Batman franchise, “Rise of the Cobra” of the G.I. Joe franchise, “Rise of the Lycans” of the Underworld franchise) – it is how i sum up the results of the 2013 Philippine elections.
They are daughters and sons of, concededly, self-made traditional politicians/ national figures (self-made in the beginning), who accumulated wealth thru socially allowed (not convicted, except one) bribes and commissions (except one, FPJ) by which they amassed a largesse, or political capital, formidable enough to build future careers for their children by sending them to the universities (this new royalty is educated) and passing on political power to them.
Daughter Grace Poe of FPJ, winning on her Dad’s name except that as a bonus she’s topping the tally probably because she did nothing wrong and is a good daughter; sons Alan and Chiz except that, they made names for themselves in the campaign to oust Gloria thru their wit and quick limerick; but they got to the House on their Dad’s bailiwick, rising to the Senate — to be fair — on their own kick…
(geez… i couldn’t help it)
Daughter Nancy Binay: i indented this in a separate paragraph because of the phenomenon of tweet-bashing unprecedented in any senatorial run that the material deserves to be studied and made a thesis unto its own. To be fair, she is in the same category as any daughter and son who inherited his/her dad’s mantle but she got more than her share of character assassination in the internet because she made the mistake of putting in her CV, as her only professional accomplishment: personal assistant… of her parents. Other daughters and sons employed by their families would put: executive officer of abc foundation for the poor, or administrative officer of xyz livelihood; but she had to put — “personal assistant”… of her mom and dad, giving rise to the supposedly trending hashtag #OJTparinsiNancyBinay. Plus, she was not workshopped sufficiently and is not as articulate as the others. The internet bashing however did not affect ballots that came her way in the millions maybe because … the supposedly thousands of netizens were a handful multiplied over and over: a PR company is capable of creating one thousand trolls for a fee, and two or three PR agencies can deluge the web to create a “trending” phenomenon when the repeating tweets may be coming from one campaign bureau. News media organizations were quick to report is as “trending” without investigating.
Some smart propaganda strategist managed to turn it around by tweet-“insulting” her brown skin (we’re all brown) by comparing her to Barack Obama, repeatedly. That’s not an insult, it’s a compliment, and a way of turning around the black propaganda. The clueless trolls picked it up and turned a valid criticismof her lack of professional experience and refusal to join electoral debates, into bullying based on looks and skin color – it backfired, and Nancy Binay reaped the benefits. See? Worth a case study isn’t it?
Sons Sonny Angara, Bam Aquino (nephew), Koko Pimentel (but he was a victim of cheating, and had to fight, so you could say he earned his spurs), JV Ejercito, are good sons of their fathers — if they were Sonny de la Cruz, Bam Santos, Koko Cruz, JV Reyes, they’d be ordinary company employees or lawyers/ business executives now sweating it out in the midweek rush hour battling traffic jams on EDSA.
To be fair, the daughters and sons are not spoiled — maybe because dad and mom knew what it was like to be struggling middle classes in the beginning and made sure their children knew the value of doing their homework and finishing their college degrees. And for this, I did not use the word “dynasty” or “dynastic” yet to describe them or their origin, as individuals. (But wait till you see what the Senate looks like after June 30, with half of the Senate being divided up among three families; and wait till after the proclamation of the local candidates with majority of the posts going to : “Dynasty” the series.)
But make no mistake, they are royalty in the sense of being born into power and/ or wealth, albeit first generation. Potentially, they start the rise of new dynasties.
Let’s hope the rise of the new royalty is not just a sequel.
Movie franchises run up to Part V (part five) nowadays.
