by Alecks P. Pabico

THEY STILL look more or less the same, although some of them have put on a bit more weight while the others seem a little more harassed. Yet there is something different about the so-called "Spice Boys," young legislators who were once the darling of Congress and whom, many had hoped, would initiate reforms in a political system crying out for change.

Today the Spice Boys are no longer in the opposition and are even holding important positions in Congress and in the Cabinet. They are firmly ensconced in power and seem to be enjoying the perks of the various posts they now hold.

Yet only a year ago, then-neophyte lawmakers Rolando Andaya Jr. (1st district, Camarines Sur), Robert Ace Barbers (2nd district, Surigao del Norte), Federico Sandoval II (Navotas-Malabon), and Juan Miguel Zubiri (3rd district, Bukidnon) were cooking up what seemed impossible schemes with two-termers Hernani Braganza (1st district, Pangasinan) and Michael Defensor (3rd district, Quezon City) to evict President Joseph 'Erap' Estrada from Malacañang. Little did they know that just several days into 2001, a morose Estrada would be on a boat floating down Pasig River, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would be the new Chief Executive, and that they themselves would be swept into power with her.

It's said that it was Arroyo's idea to have more young people in her government, seeing in their open-mindedness and swift resolve the right attitude for implementing the programs of her administration. Such presidential prerogative practically guaranteed the Spice Boys—all of them 30-somethings—juicy dividends for their hard work as opposition lawmakers, aside of course from being Arroyo's partymates and her staunchest allies in the Estrada impeachment trial and ouster campaign.

And so today, Defensor has a Cabinet rank as chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), overseeing the operations of government housing agencies. Braganza now heads the equally crucial Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). Three other Spice Boys have cornered some of the most powerful committee chairmanships in the Lower House: Andaya for appropriations, Barbers has accounts, and Zubiri heads legislative franchises. Sandoval, meanwhile, acts as senior vice chair to his three colleagues in their respective committees.

To be sure, the appointments of Defensor and Braganza to the Arroyo Cabinet were initially welcomed by many, among them civil-society organizations that saw the two as progressive-minded. Some political observers saw these appointments as proof of the new government's sincerity in pushing for sweeping institutional changes.

But that was then. Almost a year later, many say the Spice Boys were thrust too early into positions of responsibility, and that their youthful inexperience may just run roughshod on urgent reforms in the long haul.

Indeed, no sooner had Defensor and Braganza warmed their respective Cabinet seats than unsavory stories of various slips-up and charges of "unfitness for public office" and corruption began sprouting like fungi in the media.

As for the Spice Boys who have remained in Congress, supporters like Joel Rocamora, president of the party-list formation Akbayan, now say they don't relish how Andaya and company have become the main operators of Speaker Jose de Venecia in the Lower House. Says Rocamora: "De Venecia knows how much political capital he can derive from getting the Spice Boys to do his dirty work. At the very least, this helps freshen up, if not altogether revise, his quintessential trapo image."

Then again, it would seem that having the likes of de Venecia as a mentor in the politics of self-interest may not have posed much of a dilemma for the Spice Boys either. If truth be told, they were even among de Venecia's ardent supporters in his successful bid for the speakership.

This makes people like Rocamora have second thoughts about the erstwhile fair-haired boys of Pinoy politics.

Rocamora worries that, despite their youth and better education, junior politicians like the Spice Boys might be growing old fast in a political system where significant reforms remain absent. Such that three calendar years might correspond to 20 to 30 years of integration into the culture of traditional politics. And by "aging," Rocamora means becoming experts in the backroom dealmaking that characterizes old politics.

In the absence of any alternative political pole to which they could be attracted, Rocamora says the tendency will always be to take the path of least resistance, which is to succumb to the trapo ways of doing things.