For instance in a miting de avance in San Isidro village, Dinalupihan, during the 1992 electoral campaign, Payumo asked the crowd to vote for his team of candidates para tuloy-tuloy ang daloy ng biyaya mula sa itaas hanggang sa baba (so that grace will flow freely from high above to down below). “Biyaya” is a Tagalog term used in both official and popular religion to refer to grace as a gift or help from God, who is usually pictured as dwelling in the heavens above it. It is also widely believed that the gift or help reaches the recipient through a mediator like a patron saint. Payumo also referred to Lucy, his sister-in-law, then the mayor running for re-election, as a mother not only to her children, but to her constituents as well.

In general, the cultural tendency of the masses to seek mediators, patrons, Reform-oriented citizens who are not members of political clans find the pursuit of an elective office difficult, distasteful, and demoralizingand parent-like authority figures is understood better by traditional politicians and members of political dynasties than by reform-minded citizens out to challenge them. Similarly, according to Rocamora, “those who exploit the peasantry are more adept at the rituals and the languages of peasant communities than those who would defend them.”

A sufficient grasp of popular culture, which is part of the intangible heritage passed on within a political dynasty, helps ensure electoral victory, besides the considerable resources of the dynasty to maintain a patronage system. As they are raised and socialized, the offspring of political clans become familiar with the language and practices of the prevalent political culture, and they “get used to a retinue of followers and to entertaining ward leaders and favor seekers.”

In some locales, dynasties allocate resources for bribing election personnel and hiring goons to intimidate voters and inflict violence on opponents. Perhaps unlike the phenomenon of warlords or brutish bosses among some some governors and mayors, the PCIJ study on legislators says: “the so-called warlords in Congress, politicians who keep armed goons and terrorize their constituents, have largely died out.” For example, the descendants of Ramon Durano Sr. of Danao City in Cebu, and Ali Dimaporo of the Lanao provinces, specifically Tourism Secretary Joseph Felix Durano and Lanao del Norte Rep. Abdullah Dimaporo, have cosmopolitan manners and high educational credentials and have gone beyond the crude coercive ways of their fathers. “In part, this is because they did not have to muscle their way to power as their fathers and grandfathers did. The descendants inherited the political base and the electoral machine put in place by their fathers.”

While congressional warlords are mostly gone, the reality of political dynasties is not on the verge of dying out, as this description from the same PCIJ Study shows:

In the Eighth Congress, the first post-Marcos legislature, 61 percent or 122 of 198 representatives were from political clans...In the 12th Congress, which was elected in 2001, 61 percent or 140 of 228 representatives came from political clans. In the 11th House, it was 62 percent. If the percentages are computed without the party list representatives, however, the numbers increase to 65 percent for the 11th House and 66 percent for the 12th.

Dynasties can spend so much to keep themselves in power. According to PCIJ: “A congressional campaign in 2004, according to campaign insiders, can cost up to P30 million in Metro Manila. In rural areas, the price tag is much less: P10 million on average, although campaigns can be run for P3 million or less in smaller districts where the competition is not too intense.” In this light, reform-oriented citizens who are not members of political clans find the pursuit of an elective office difficult, distasteful, and demoralizing: thus, many of them become cynical about Philippine elections, politics, and democracy, and surrender electoral politics to traditional politicians by defaul.

Elite Democracy

“Progressive” analysts describe democracy in the Philippines as elitist because most of the elective officials represent and defend primarily the interests of political clans and elite groups rather than the interests of the great majority of the lower classes who elected them. Elite democracy has propagated covert or crypto-colonialism and provided insufficient participation of the citizenry in governance and decision-making. It makes the rise of a “benevolent” or populist dictator a welcome development for the poor who have “not objectively felt” or concretely experienced what sociologist Randolf David describes as “the presumed advantages of democracy.”

Elite democracy is unsustainable in a country where economic polarization keeps on increasing, while more and more families remain poor from generation to generation. The result has been described as a “social volcano” whose eruption has been delayed partly by the escape provided by overseas or migrant work. Thus, without democratizing the system, it is unlikely for democracy itself to survive for long.