JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Made with the Sigil Creator.

We didn’t want to interrupt our obsessing with Game of Thrones to write a column on current events, so we did both. Sigil first, column coming up at InterAksyon.com.

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Politics in the Philippines is a family business, emphasis on ‘business’. People take it up as a career, ostensibly because they want to serve their country, but what really happens is, they get rich. Which is not to imply that they got into politics for the money, but there it is. Hell, we’re not even saying that the newly-elected senators are lousy because face it, we have insufficient data to generate a conclusion. This doesn’t mean we think highly of them, either, but it would be great if they could prove us wrong.

So the politicians get rich, and we’ll assume that they acquire their wealth through honest means besides their comparatively low salaries. Anything with such a high rate of return, be it food preparation, art or optometry, will become a business, and in our culture business is best done with family. Politics is no different. Of course you want your children to go into the business, it worked so well for you. In retro-feudal democracies like ours, that’s the reason you have children: to carry on the family name business.

Take the Lannisters in Game of Thrones, the addictive HBO series based on George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy cycle, A Song of Ice and Fire. The Lannisters are the wealthiest, most powerful family in Westeros. In the era preceding the TV series, the patriarch Tywin Lannister is the Hand of the King (like the prime minister) to Aerys II of the Targaryen dynasty…

Read our column at InterAksyon.