A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

Yesterday, being a semi-functional human being, I had a thought.

You see these days, when I have a thought it’s a pretty amazing event. My head is usually filled with bills, deadlines, what to eat for lunch, if I’m starting to smell already and other mundane and banal things.

And then an epiphany:

Political pundits, armchair political scientists and columnists say that power (simply as ability to do things) and influence (ability to have things done for you) in the Philippines remain in the 10% of the population.

What if, for the benefit of the younger generation who will be voting in 2004, you can illustrate it, if not prove it. Show how these presidentiables are connected to one another in some weird way.

Thus born Traposter. It’s a spoof of the Friendster set-up: it’s a visual map of how each presidential politico or personality are connected to each other. I grabbed a piece of scratch paper and started doodling: at the center of it is Ferdinand Marcos (why? because I was born during his rule).

What I got was a sad little diagram with almost all of the presidentiables there. It maybe simplistic but it proves I think the point: Power seems to move in very tight circles in the Philippines.

Six presidents in a cluster. Time to break orbit?

Part of it goes like this, in the simplest of terms: Marcos defeated Diosdado Macapagal in the latter’s bid for re-election. Diosdado Macapagal is of course the father of President Gloria, who served as vice-president under Erap.

Marcos’ nemesis was Ninoy Aquino. Raul Roco served as part of Ninoy’s legal staff (and played Ninoy in a movie!). He also served as Secretary of Education under President Gloria. Ninoy is the husband of Cory who became president in 1986 after the Edsa Revolution. After Cory was Fidel Ramos who, along with Juan Ponce Enrile, had a pivotal role in the 1986 Edsa Revolution. Ramos and JPE of course served under the Marcos cabinet (the former as Constabulary Chief and the latter as Secretary of Defense).

Ramos’ vice-president is a chap named Erap Estrada, who became mayor of San Juan during Marcos’ time. Erap of course became president and in which we saw Ping Lacson rise to prominence. Erap of course is good buddies with FPJ and Danding. Danding was also closely associated with Marcos.

Ok here goes the showbiz component: Erap has a son named Jinggoy. Jinggoy did a movie called Ang Panday (based on an FPJ character) with Kris Aquino, Ninoy and Cory’s daughter. Kris is one of the talents of the Lopez owned broadcasting giant ABS-CBN. Kris works with Korina Sanchez, who has been identified with Kris’ brother, Noynoy. Korina worked with Ted Failon, in Hoy Gising. He’s now a congressman representing Leyte. They worked in the News & Current affairs of ABS-CBN along with now senators and vice-presidential hopefuls Noli de Castro and Loren Legarda. Another Lopez-Estrada connection is the Beaver Lopez-Jackie Ejercito marriage.

That’s it so far. I’ll translate that doodle into a jpeg and upload it some time. Maybe I should call it Six Degrees of Aggravation.

Bangungot ng Bayan.