Osmeña says House won’t pass antidynasty bill even if Senate does

Sen. Sergio Osmeña III

The Senate, even with dynastic members, could conceivably approve an antidynasty bill but it will only be stopped dead at the even more dynast-ridden House of Representatives, according to Sen. Sergio Osmeña III.

Osmeña, a member of a political family himself, said it would be futile for the Senate, which is deliberating on an anti-dynasty bill filed by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, to pass the bill, only for the House to sit on it until Congress adjourns.

“Get it passed in the House first.  It will pass the Senate,” he said.

The senator recalled how in 1995, the Senate was about to tackle a committee report on an antidynasty bill when a House leader let it be known that the measure would not get past the lower chamber.

‘Don’t bother’

According to Osmeña, then Sen. Orlando Mercado, whose committee was about to file a report on the bill, called his House counterpart and asked the latter: Would you pass this measure?

“[The House member] said, ‘don’t bother to send us that bill, it will never pass the House.’  So nothing came of it.  The bill was junked and archived,” he said.

Osmeña said the reason why the House would never pass such a measure is “because at the local level, they (House members) let their wives run.”

Conversely, a Senate dominated by a few family names would pass an anti-dynasty bill “because the Senate cannot be considered a dynasty,” he argued.

“Unless you want to stretch it that if you are related you cannot serve at the same time in the Senate,” Osmeña said.

For instance, the senator said that if his cousin, former senator John Osmeña, were to decide to run again for senator and wins, their terms would overlap, but it would not be a dynasty.

No Osmeña dynasty

“That’s not a dynasty because he’s elected on his own and I have no control over the entire Philippines that I can get him elected,” Osmeña said.

Dynasticism would only come in if there is influence on the voters by the incumbent, he argued.

Osmeña recalled that in the 1995 antidynasty bill, political dynasty was defined as involving the influence wielded by one family over a particular area.

He explained that if a member of a family was the governor in a province and another wanted to run for mayor in one of the province’s towns, the situation would fall under the definition of a political dynasty.

By contrast, if the brother of an incumbent governor of one province runs for governor in another, that would not be a political dynasty, he said, as there would be no undue influence by the incumbent governor over the voters of the province where the brother would run for governor.

At the national level, “if I’m President and my cousin wants to run for senator, that would be a dynasty,” he said.