Dynastic families overwhelm gov’t

The absence of legislation to enforce the Constitution’s prohibition on political dynasties is difficult to separate from the political reality it was supposed to change: A Congress in which political families have remained deeply entrenched.

For 39 years, Congress failed to enact the law required under Article II, Section 26 of the Constitution. On 16 September, the Supreme Court finally ordered lawmakers to fulfill their mandatory duty “at the earliest opportunity,” ruling that their prolonged inaction constituted a grave abuse of discretion.

The Court noted that numerous anti-dynasty bills had been filed but left unacted upon since the ratification of the 1987 Constitution.

It said Congress has the discretion to define and prohibit political dynasties, but not to enact the law.

The irony is difficult to miss: the institution expected to dismantle a system that concentrates political power within families has spent nearly four decades failing to do so.

The Supreme Court has made clear that the constitutional command is not optional. What remains is whether Congress will finally act on a prohibition that, for 39 years, has been written in the Constitution but is largely absent from the political system.

Grown fat

Bobby Tuazon, director for policy studies of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), said the political families have grown “cumulatively in recent years.”

Political dynasties today dominate a vast majority of elected positions, CenPEG said.

The political families, often called “fat dynasties,” where multiple relatives hold public office at the same time, grew from 19 percent to 29 percent of Congress’s total membership between 1988 and 2019.

The distribution of dynasties, based on the CenPEG report, included 83 percent, or 20 out of 24 senators in the Senate; eight of every 10 district representatives in the House; 71 out of 82 governors, or 87 percent, in the provinces; and 113 of 149 mayors, or 75 percent, in cities.

Tuazon said 55 percent of all local elective posts across provincial, district, and municipal levels were held by members of political clans.

Economic dominance at root

“The country’s semi-feudal society gives birth to and perpetuates political families because it intertwines monopolistic land ownership with local state power, allowing elite clans to convert economic dominance into political hegemony,” Tuazon noted.

He said that to protect and expand these private interests, the elites occupy government positions, turning public offices into family enterprises, especially in rural areas where political families become warlords.

In a political dynasty, a single family controls government positions over many years.

The Marcos dynasty is one example, having produced two presidents, while Marcos Jr.’s son currently exerts influence in the House of Representatives.

Previous reports showed “fat dynasties” grew from 19 percent in 1988 to nearly 30 percent in later election cycles.

More relatives run for office together, rather than just one member replacing another. Political families do not stay in their hometowns; they win seats in other provinces and swap high offices among themselves.

Several of the country’s most dominant “fat dynasties” and prominent political families have held power for 50 to 100 years or longer.

Political dynasties have created weak or virtually non-existent accountability because power stays within the same family network, which breaks the system of checks and balances, which is a strong reason for the failure to pass a credible Anti-Dynasty Law.

In its landmark 26 August 2026 ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously declared that this constitutional provision is not merely aspirational but imposes a mandatory duty on Congress to enact an anti-political dynasty law.

“Studies correlate heavy dynastic control — especially in resource-rich provinces outside Luzon — with higher poverty rates and skewed wealth distribution,” according to CenPEG.