Game of Villar(ds)

(Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the October 28, 2024, issue of The Daily Tribune and is reprinted here with the author’s permission).

BILLIARDS is a game where the ultimate objective is to “pocket” all the balls assigned to you, and then sink the eight-ball. This requires skill, strength or finesse as the case may be, and forward planning.

So, it is in politics. And one of the most skillful in this regard is the Villar dynasty. Parlaying their fiefdom in Las Piñas City — where they started acquiring the basis of their wealth, which is land — into a nationwide empire, the family learned early on that business and political power augment each other quite well.

For well over half a century, they had a lock on the local government of Las Piñas. And as their wealth and power grew, so did their territory: the House of Representatives (where Manny Sr. became Speaker), the Senate (where he became Senate President), even Cabinet positions.

There was even a strong bid for the presidency in 2010, which was almost won; Manny Sr., riding the crest of an extremely well-oiled campaign, was leading in the surveys until Cory Aquino died and sympathy votes catapulted her strange duck of a son into Malacañang.

Of course, the dynasty did not — could not — end there. There were business interests to protect, real estate developments to be built.

The matriarch, Cynthia, had to take Manny’s place and, like well-placed balls on a billiard table, Mark Villar (who is also in the Senate) had to have a say in public works. You know, raw land, unearned increments due to major roads passing through your property, subdivisions, humongous profits. Verily a no-brainer.

But, of course, the city of their birth could not be neglected. After all, all politics, as they say, is local, and so is business, especially if land development is your forte. So not only was the stranglehold on the Las Piñas-Parañaque area essential, but also on the regulatory agencies. By this we mean primarily the Protected Areas Management Board (PAMB) where, as critics claim, the Villars are “heavily represented.” Talk about regulatory capture.

So it was that Cynthia filed a suit before the Supreme Court (SC) to stop a rival development ostensibly on environmental concerns (but which some claim was because the project posed a threat to the Villar “empire”).

After the case was eventually thrown out, the Villars are now purportedly using their clout to have the PAMB step into the fray — faster than you can say “regulatory capture” — and throw a monkey-wrench into a project that the SC had already greenlighted.

Wow! There is an old saying to the effect that from the judgment of the SC, there is no appeal except to God. As it turns out, the Villars can thwart an SC judgment, and to that extent they are playing God.

The next player to break the rack (so to speak in billiards) is Camille, a young congresswoman with no outstanding achievement but to have bagged Efren Genuino’s handsome lawyer son.

She is now running for the Senate, to continue the rent-seeking tradition in that chamber as it pertains to certain powerful families and intergenerational dynasties.

When billions are involved, one cannot be without influence, as hundreds of businessmen-politicians have come to realize, to hell with the aspirations of the people — expressed in the Constitution — against political dynasties and public office being a public trust.

Beginning in 2025, Cynthia can concentrate on her bitching publicly about a host of mundane matters, providing us with endless entertainment on TikTok.

After that, she may opt to join her daughter (if Camille wins) in the Upper Chamber. Why not? Having next of kin in the Senate is nothing new in this country.

No wonder that when it comes to political and economic development, the Philippines has always been stuck behind the eight ball.