Politician Cherry Santos-Akbar talks to Reuters, while telling her campaign staff to deliver posters and campaign materials of her family, in Isabela city, Basilan province, southern Philippines April 20, 2007. Santos-Akbar is running for mayor in Basilan province’s capital city, while her husband, Wahab, wanted to be congressman. Her husband’s two other wives and seven relatives were also seeking public office, including the gubernatorial position. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco (PHILIPPINES)

ISABELA CITY, Philippines - When Cherry Santos-Akbar campaigns for election in the Philippines, she asks voters to write her surname over and over again on the ballot slips — for herself, her husband and their extended family.

Running for mayor of Isabela City, the capital of the southern island of Basilan, Cherry is also campaigning for others in the Akbar clan, a family of Muslim politicians contending the country’s congressional and local elections set for May 14.

Her husband, Wahab, a three-term governor, is running for a congressional seat. Jum, Wahab’s first wife, hopes to replace him as governor, and Cherry and his third wife are running for mayor of the two biggest towns on the island. Five nephews and a niece are seeking re-election as mayors in six smaller towns on Basilan.

“We’re not trying to build a political dynasty,” Santos-Akbar told Reuters at her campaign headquarters in Isabela City. “We just want to serve the people of Basilan and we could do it better if our family is elected into office.”

The situation in Basilan is not unique in the Philippines. Political families have long dominated local politics and are at the forefront of those likely to win at this year’s hustings.

President Arroyo herself belongs to a political dynasty. Her father was a congressman and a vice president who was elected president in 1961. Her half-sister was a former vice governor in her home province Pampanga.

Her son, Juan Miguel, a former vice-governor in Pampanga, is seeking re-election as congressman. Another son, Diosdado, is running for a seat in Congess in the central Bicol region. Her brother-in-law, Ignacio, is also running for Congress in the central island of Negros.

Inherited powers

“Our politicians seemed to have attached patents on positions they were holding and they want to pass them on to their children, like an heirloom,” Earl Parreno, a political analyst at the Institute of Political and Electoral Reforms, told Reuters.

“Many of them have started thinking they have proprietary rights over public office, treating them just like shares of stocks or a piece of land that can be inherited by their spouses, children and grandchildren.”

Satur Ocampo, a leftist lawmaker, said his group Bayan Muna (Nation First) attempted to legislate a law to end political dynasties in 2004, but the measure never got off the ground because an estimated 60 percent of sitting congressmen belonged to traditional political families.

“It’s like shooting the moon,” Ocampo told Reuters, vowing to keep on filing the bill to remind lawmakers that the 1987 Constitution clearly states that there should be equal access to public service and dynasties are prohibited “as defined by law.”

“That’s why we needed to pass an enabling law to prevent a few families from monopolizing political power and public resources.”

Family affair

So much political and economic power is at stake in these elections that feuds have erupted between and sometimes within political families.

Supporters of two rival families in Maguindanao province on the southern island of Mindanao exchanged gunfire this month, forcing thousands of villagers to flee their homes.

In a northern Philippine mountain town, a woman running for mayor had accused her estranged husband, the incumbent mayor, of trying to ambush her convoy during a political rally last month.

In Camiguin island, a famous diving destination on Mindanao, a father and son are contesting the lone congressional seat of the province.

One of the most famous dynasties in the Philippines is that of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos. There were strong rumors that his widow Imelda Marcos would run for mayor of Manila, but she called it off at the last minute.

However, her nephew is running for governor in Leyte province, a position his father and elder brother had held during the Marcos years from the 1970s to 1986.

Imelda’s own son is running for congress from the late dictator’s home province Ilocos.

“Dynasties are not necessarily evil,” Santos-Akbar said, adding her husband’s track record as governor for nine years would make people in Basilan support her and her family.

“My husband had worked hard for his position and we will do the same. If we deserve to win, so be it.”

By Manny Mogato - Reuters