In provinces, political dynasties are a lot more prevalent. For example, the province of Albay has been fought over by the Gonzales and Bichara families for a long time. When Salceda came, progress appeared much faster than usual. Malls were built, roads were given the asphalt treatment, there was even a world record attempt. Particularly, my city is ruled by the Gonzales. The current mayor is the daughter. During her mother's reign, the only progress I've seen was the asphalting of the road in the mountains that lead to the port. That means, she gets the vote of everyone who lives there. T became crucial to her survival as a politician. But, because a mayor can only serve two terms, she had her daughter run for one term so she can take back the mayoralty and continue her reign. Her daughter hated that, (apparently) because when her term started, the progress went to the city proper. A mall was built and the city engineering office became busy with plans for subdivisions and new roads inside the city proper. There is also the case of the Villafuerte family of CamSur. The current governor of the province is the youngest governor in the Philippines. So what? What does a child know about politics? Apart from that, the father is currently in a feud with the sons over the division of CamSur as a province. Now, what do we gain from that? We can surmise that our officials don't really care about our welfare in itself. The money has to go to them, not the city, not the province. Sure, what you see on TV are people that showcase good governance (Salceda, Duterte, Marcos), but what about the other 96%? Absolutely worthless.
At 4 pm on Tuesday, the day police declared martial law, they were in the middle of another public relations maneuver. In a video uploaded to YouTube by the Philippine National Police, a group of police officers stood before a crowd of mostly school kids, giving a presentation about the Philippines' anti-drug campaign. One of these officers has a distinctive mustache, and one of them is the son of the deputy police chief of Quezon City, the city that hosted the first anti-drug operation in the new nation under martial law. As the children watched in awe, the officer in the middle stood up. “My name is Sonny Bonifacio,” he said. He then announced, with no little fanfare, that he would serve as the Philippine National Police (PNP) chief until March 31, 2017. This is Bonifacio's second stint as chief, and he is no stranger to controversy. Although he was.