An antidynasty law that permits dynasties

(First of two parts)

Thirty-eight years. That is how long Congress sat on Article II, Section 26 of the 1987 Constitution, which directed it to prohibit political dynasties “as may be defined by law.” The framers wrote it expecting action within a legislature or two. Instead, every Congress found reasons to defer—committee referrals that went nowhere, substitute bills that died on second reading, and the quiet solidarity of incumbents who understood, without saying so, that the status quo served them well.

I wrote in “Enabling the Anti-Dynasty Mandate,” Inquirer, Dec. 27, 2025, that the numbers explain why. Studies consistently show that 75 percent of district representatives, 85 percent of governors and nearly 67 percent of mayors are dynastic, with dynastic candidates winning by larger margins than nondynastic counterparts.

Article continues after this advertisement

From 1988 to 2019, the share of families controlling multiple positions simultaneously rose from 19 percent to 29 percent, with roughly 170 positions added per election year. A legislature so constituted has limited institutional incentive to legislate itself out of existence.

FEATURED STORIES

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

House Bill No. 8389 finally breaks that silence. Approved by the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms last March 9, it carries over a hundred authors, consolidates 17 predecessor bills and bears the formal title “An Act Prohibiting Political Dynasties in National and Local Elective Offices.” On paper, it is the antidynasty law that the Constitution has been waiting for since 1987.

However, on closer reading, it functions less as a barrier to political dynasties and more as a regulatory framework for their management.

The operative rule of the bill is simultaneity. It prohibits spouses and relatives within the second civil degree of consanguinity or affinity from concurrently holding elective office at the same level of government. A husband and wife may not both sit in the Senate at the same time. Two siblings may not simultaneously hold positions in the same provincial government. The logic is clean; the coverage is nationwide from barangay to Senate; and the definition of dynasty—second-degree relatives, legitimate or illegitimate, full or half-blood—is precise enough to survive a constitutional challenge.

So far, so good. The problem is what the simultaneity rule does not reach.

Article continues after this advertisement

The classic Philippine political dynasty does not operate through simultaneous holding. It operates through rotation. A patriarch serves three terms as governor, then steps aside for his wife, who serves her three terms, then yields to a son or daughter. Nobody holds office at the same time.

‘Family never leaves’

The succession does not violate HB 8389. But the family never leaves. This scenario is a description of how power has actually been transmitted across decades in many local government units. The constitutional directive was written precisely to address this pattern. A law that leaves it untouched is a law that has defined the problem narrowly enough to avoid solving it.

Article continues after this advertisement

The drafters were not unaware of this. Regulating successive holding—penalizing a candidate because of what a family member did in a prior term—raises harder equal protection questions. A candidate is an individual. Disqualifying her because her husband was governor 10 years ago requires a constitutional justification that courts have not yet been asked to provide. The simultaneity approach is the more defensible legislative choice. It is also the more limited one.

There is a second gap that must receive equal, if not more, attention. HB 8389 allows relatives to hold office simultaneously across different levels of government within the same territory. A congressman and a governor from the same family, representing the same province, are not prohibited. The restriction of the bill is level-specific: No two relatives in the same provincial government, but a relative in the provincial capitol and another in the congressional district it overlaps—that is permitted.

The concentration of influence is real, but the prohibition does not apply.

These are not drafting oversights. They reflect the outer boundary of what a legislature composed significantly of political families was willing to enact. That boundary deserves to be clearly defined and delineated. INQ

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.

Your subscription has been successful.

(To be continued.)

The author is a member of Governance Committee of the Management Association of the Philippines. He is a lawyer, industrial engineer and the president of the Justice Reform Initiative. He previously served as chair of the Institute of Corporate Directors and National Renewable Energy Board, and is a senior policy adviser to the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities and chair Emeritus of the Energy Lawyers Association of the Philippines. Feedback at [email protected] and [email protected].