Yeah, like that’s going to end well.
Political marriages in the Philippines tend to end well for the marriage-makers, but poorly for the country at large.
When Ferdinand Marcos shrewdly married a pliant beauty queen to bolster his run for the presidency, nobody suspected that she harbored a burning ambition of her own beneath those pretty butterfly dresses.
When Gloria Macapagal accepted Mike Arroyo’s marriage proposal, love may have played a part but it would be naïve to assume that political considerations didn’t enter into the arrangement - she a daughter of the foremost Filipino politician at the time, he a scion of a rich and storied Chinese-Filipino family.
So let’s play best-case scenario and assume that a) the upcoming Sanchez-Roxas nuptials were arranged with an eye on the elections, and b) it works as planned. Korina Sanchez helps Mar Roxas gets to the Presidency. Leaving Mar Roxas not only married, but incredibly indebted, to a woman of legendary ambition and ruthlessness.
Not that I’m cynical, but that’s going to end well, how?
Take a look at history: after entering Malacañang, Imelda Marcos built her own independent power base, while Mike Arroyo already had one ready-made. Mrs. Roxas beats them both - she has a viewership which she can couple to a platform as First Lady, which gives her incredible power with little accountability. I’m not seeing how this is going to be a good thing, considering that historically, Presidential Spouses with independent power bases have ended up abusing them.
(If I were superstitious, I’d also add that announcing your engagement on a show with a proven record of killing its viewers isn’t a good sign.)
The motivation behind the engagement makes me suspicious. The possible consequences make me really afraid for the future.
I second the motion!!!
am sure you enjoyed it when Presidentiable cried on stage, and First Lady-wannabe wiped away the tears on his face…
This is probably one of the best cases for a shift towards the Westminster Parliamentary System.
Being a system where the Prime Minister/Chancellor/Premier is not meant to be a personality-based position, the history of countries using the Parliamentary System has often shown that the spouse of the Head of Government, also known as the “chief executive” (the Prime Minister/Chancellor/Premier) hardly ever gets any media airtime nor does that spouse ever get to play any official roles in relation to the office held by the spouse in power.
Inherently, the Presidential System implies and often requires that the “President” (who is both head of government and head of state) be the “face of the country”, together with his/her family, as that family is supposed to represent the country in question. As such, spouses of Presidents (in countries using the Presidential System) have always been given special titles and have almost always been required to play official roles.
In contrast, in a Parliamentary System, the person who provides a “personality” or a “face” representing the country is the Head of State, be that a ceremonial President (often elected) or a ceremonial Monarch. While the Head of State and his/her spouse both have official ceremonial roles to play, they hold no real power.
The office of the Head of Government (Prime Minister/Chancellor/Premier) is quite often, a purely professional position which almost always denies giving any media attention to the spouse of a country’s head of government.
We always hear about the First Lady of the USA, but do we ever hear about the spouses of the Prime Ministers of the UK, Australia, Malaysia, etc?
Might a shift to to the Parliamentary System, perhaps, cure us of “conjugal dictatorships?”
(And I don’t mean anything like Marcos’ so-called shift to what was still essentially a Presidential System)