Apr 20
The Golden Handcuff: Trading Power for a Peerage
For decades, I have watched the Philippines lock itself in a perpetual, exhausting game of political musical chairs (or, as we say, “Trip to Jerusalem”). Every election cycle, the same surnames rotate through the same offices—from mayor to governor, from congressman to senator, and back again. Despite the noble intent of the 1987 Constitution, which explicitly mandated the State to prohibit…