Congress will obey the Court and change nothing

The ruling is real. After 39 years of silence on Article II, Section 26, the Supreme Court finally called it grave abuse of discretion. Associate Justice Ramon Paul L. Hernando spent 86 pages proving it using the Constitutional Commission record. People seem to expect compliance to be a struggle. It won’t be.

The Court refused to dictate the exact provisions of the required law. They didn’t need to. Congress already wrote one.

House Bill No. 8389 passed on third reading on June 3. It stops relatives within the second civil degree from holding elective office simultaneously at the same level of government. That gives politicians three conditions to navigate. A family only needs to bypass one to survive.

Look at succession. The bill ignores it entirely.

Janette Garin and her husband Richard have traded the 1st District since 2004. Kathryn Joyce Fermin-Gorriceta took the 2nd District unopposed to succeed her husband Michael. Binky Montesclaros Tupas won the 5th District with 145,283 votes. She succeeded her term-limited husband Raul after defeating his brother Niel “Junjun” Tupas Jr. In Iloilo City, term-limited mayor Jerry Treñas endorsed his daughter Raisa. She won.

Four handoffs. Spouse to spouse. Father to daughter. All perfectly legal because the bill only bans sitting in office at the exact same time.

Next is the same-level loophole. Rep. Lorenz Defensor is in Congress while his brother Arthur Jr. serves as governor. They govern simultaneously. But a congressman and a governor operate at different levels of government, so the law gives them a pass. The Birons are even blunter. Ferjenel Biron has passed the 4th District to a brother and a son since 2004, taking the seat back twice.

Parents sit in the city hall or capitol. Offspring sit in the House. Different levels every time.

That leaves the degree of relationship. Here, the bill actually has teeth. Raisa Treñas is mayor of Iloilo City. Her brother Miguel sits on the city council. Same family, same city, same term, second degree. HB 8389 flags this.

But notice the limit. Second degree, not fourth. Politicians are fighting bitterly over that ceiling. In Iloilo, expanding it would change almost nothing.

Here is the hard truth. Ronald Mendoza of the Ateneo School of Government built the strongest statistical case against dynasties. By 2016, 81% of governors and 78% of congressmen were dynastic. Yet his data found no governance penalty for thin dynasties. These are families that simply succeed one another. Only the fat dynasties track with poverty. Those are families with three or more members in office at once.

Most of Iloilo is thin. A law barring succession outright sweeps them up regardless. It would disqualify a physician who won her district without an opponent.

That is a necessary trade. Pedro Maniego Jr. of the Inquirer calls the current loophole “rotational dynasties.” Rotation is the entire Iloilo model.

Ask Speaker Faustino “Bojie” Dy III of Isabela. His family has held that province for decades. Does the Senate version bar succession or not?

Niel Tupas Sr. won the 5th District in 1987. The Garins took the 1st District in 1987. The Constitution took effect in 1987.

Iloilo voter turnout in May 2025 hit 86.10%. Nobody was kept from voting.

They simply had no one else to vote for.