A VEXING feature of our politics is the tendency of politicians to invoke famous relations who have died.
President Benigno Aquino III constantly refers to his father, a senator who was assassinated in 1983. Truth to tell, the President won election in 2010 mainly on the strength of public sympathy over the death in 2009 of his mother, herself a former president.
On the campaign trail, some candidates regularly trot out their dead relatives as if they were part of their entourage.
Senator Grace Poe often invokes her own late father, a movie actor who failed to win election as president in 2004 and died of a stroke in the same year.
Camrines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo, the vice presidential candidate for the administration, often talks about her late husband, who was the Interior and Local Government secretary from 2010 until his death in 2012 in a plane crash.
The phenomenon—erroneously called necropolitics—is problematic not because the late relatives are unworthy, but because the qualities that made them notable—intelligence, courage, honesty, or concern for the poor, to name a few—were not automatically conferred to their living offspring or spouses.
When President Aquino speaks of the legacy of his parents, he implicitly associates himself with their intelligence, charisma and courage, even though his actions offer no basis for such an association.
When Senator Poe says she will continue her father’s struggle and fight for his cause, what does that mean? Her father, a show business celebrity all his life until he ran for president, had absolutely no track record in public service. Notwithstanding his charisma and his popularity among the common tao, he was never able to serve the poor in any official capacity because he had never been elected to office. He may have run on a platform of helping the poor—but promises are common currency in any political campaign—and not particularly valuable.
When congresswoman Robredo says she had never aspired for public office but felt obliged to when her husband died, we are compelled to ask why. Does she believe that she is the only one qualified to do as he did in government?
Invoking their memory of a dead relative is a political shortcut that short circuits thinking and tugs instead at our emotions, which certainly should not be the only criterion for choosing a leader.
Politicians who invoke the name of dead relatives do so, not only because it is convenient, but also because they believe that voters do not know any better. We need to prove them wrong.