A tired adage suggests that the more things change, the more they stay the same. This is the case for political dynasties in the Philippines, which have become an ugly legacy of our political system’s backwardedness and its incompetence and corruption in equitably distributing power to those worthy of political office but are otherwise marginalized because of structural flaws of Philippine politics. Despite the 1987 Constitution explicitly prohibiting these dynasties, a lack of legislation enabling this provision signals how much lawmakers in Congress are unwilling to loosen their grasp on power, and, as many political thinkers put it, to shoot themselves in the foot.
Worse is that decent political families are becoming a blatant justification for their persistence. To give credit where it is due, political dynasties have adapted well to the changing milieu of the country’s politics. Now, it is becoming more evident that have found a new area that they can exploit so as to perpetuate themselves in power: the party-list system.
The party-list system was born out of good intention: The framers of the 1987 Constitution had wanted to provide formal, political recognition to the country’s marginalized and underrepresented sectors. For a time, the law served its purpose — workers’ unions and youth leaders, women’s rights advocates, and the urban poor. However, with a 2013 Supreme Court decision opening the party-list system to groups other than those marginalized and underrepresented, political dynasties saw another opportunity to exploit the system.
In February, elections watchdog Kontra Daya flagged 86 out of 156 official party-lists running for the 2025 elections for not aligning with the goal of party-lists, which is to promote representation to those at the fringes of society. Making matters worse, 40 of these flagged party-lists are represented by scions from political dynasties. Sensing another opportunity to exploit the fractures in Philippine politics, these dynasties have latched onto a new host — draining away whatever potential benefits it once promised. Their hijacking of this mechanism exposes the deep-seated limitations of the country’s political institutions in correcting their own defects.
A mortal sin probably of the constitutional framers was to expect that the legislature — already drunk in power — would pass a law banning the monopolistic affairs of certain families in power. Moreover, the shift of dynasties to the party-list realm is a clear disservice to the people. Some party-lists are created to advocate for those abused by people in power, yet they are represented by dynastic politicians, who are also committing abuse in power by allotting electoral seats all by themselves.
Some party-lists are trying to represent normal, everyday workers, when they themselves have no similarity to the plight of the people they aim to stand in for. This outright hypocrisy should wake everyone and amplify the calls to end the normalization of these brazen tactics.
Partly, the electorate also has the key to free themselves from the cyclical patterns of abusive and corrupt leadership they experience. A wicked electoral system would only meet its demise through a well-informed electorate. Now more than ever is the time that voters have the upper hand over these aspirants, and if we lay our demands well, if we speak of change through our votes, we can be an inch closer to dynasty-free politics, where representation is aimed toward people, and not for any prominent political family.
Public service is an avenue to serve people, and not to exploit them for one’s own sake, as the late Thomasian human rights lawyer and senator Jose Diokno put it. As public office is a public trust, people should be more vigilant as to whom they entrust not only their votes, but the future of this nation. With some academics linking political dynasties to poverty, a vote for these wicked politicians is a vote not only for the persistence of poverty, but also a vote against progress. Our nation’s aspiration for better representation ends when votes for political dynasties disappear, and what we deem as alternative candidates rise from this shadow. What remains to be the challenge at present is who among the lawmakers of today is willing enough to take the shots, and once and for all, pen the long-awaited anti-dynasty bill. For when all available measures are already exhausted, a lifetime of suffering only awaits the upcoming generation of Filipinos looking up to old names as their so-called leaders.
