FAT DYNASTIES, THIN DEMOCRACY

By Herman M. Lagon

The chart is blunt. You do not even need to read the footnotes to feel uneasy. Provinces with the highest share of what scholars call fat political dynasties are also places where poverty, weak institutions, and fragile public services have long felt familiar. The bars stretch longer where hope often feels shorter. This is not a moral sermon. It is an uncomfortable pattern drawn from years of data, not partisan opinion. And when patterns persist across decades, ignoring them becomes a choice.

The term fat (even obese) dynasty sounds provocative, even offensive, until one understands that it is not a slur but an analytic category used by the Ateneo School of Government to describe families that hold multiple elective positions at the same time. It is not about surnames alone. It is about concentration. When one household occupies the mayoralty, the vice mayoralty, a congressional seat, and often controls party machinery in the same locality, power stops circulating. It pools. Over time, it stagnates. Research led by Ronald Mendoza and colleagues shows that from 1988 to 2019, the share of fat dynasties among local officials rose from 19 percent to 29 percent, steadily expanding by about 170 positions per election cycle.

What makes this unsettling is not envy of political success, but the cost of excess. Mendoza’s work repeatedly finds that areas dominated by fat dynasties tend to be poorer, not richer. Checks and balances weaken when officials are related by blood instead of bound by oversight. Budgets begin to favor bailiwicks. Appointments become predictable. Opposition thins out, not because people agree, but because challengers see no path through a wall of shared surnames. Democracy becomes technically intact yet functionally tired.

This is where everyday Pinoy experience quietly confirms what the data shows. In many towns, people already know who will run before filing season begins. The only suspense is which cousin takes which post. The barangay captain’s niece prepares her tarpaulin early. The councilor’s brother suddenly discovers a calling for public service. None of this is illegal. That is precisely the problem. What feels normal has slowly become corrosive.

To be fair, not all dynasties are equal. Even the Ateneo research draws a careful distinction between thin and fat dynasties. Thin dynasties involve succession over time: one family member follows another, election after election. This still raises concerns about equal access, but it preserves at least some competition. Fat dynasties, on the other hand, crowd the ballot and the bureaucracy all at once. That simultaneity is what distorts governance. When siblings sit across each other in different offices, accountability becomes awkward. When parents oversee the work of children, discipline softens. Power begins to answer only to itself.

The irony is that the 1987 Constitution already recognized the danger. It mandates the prohibition of political dynasties “as may be defined by law.” Those last six words have done heavy lifting for nearly four decades. Congress never defined the line, largely because many of its members benefit from the blur. The result is a constitutional promise waiting patiently while elections come and go.

There was, however, one quiet experiment that worked. The Sangguniang Kabataan Reform Act barred close relatives from running simultaneously. The sky did not fall. Youth councils did not collapse. In fact, Ateneo estimates suggest that if similar rules applied across local government, as many as 25 percent of elective posts could open up to new leaders. Farmers, teachers, health workers, small entrepreneurs, and young professionals would no longer face a ballot already spoken for.

Some argue that capable families should not be punished for competence. It is a fair question. Our history does include public servants whose children or spouses also served well. But governance is not an inheritance test. It is a system designed to restrain even good intentions. The issue is not whether some dynasts are decent people. It is whether a democracy should rely on goodwill instead of guardrails. Experience suggests that power, when left unchecked, rarely remains modest for long.

There is also a deeper inequality at work. Mendoza’s later work shows that dynastic dominance often overlaps with economic oligarchy. Political power and economic advantage reinforce each other, especially in rent-heavy sectors like utilities and real estate. During crises, from typhoons to pandemics, these inequalities harden. Recovery favors those already positioned near decision-making tables. For ordinary families, the distance between voter and voice grows wider.

For us teachers, this reality is not abstract. We explain elections as exercises in choice, yet our students go home to communities where choices feel symbolic. We teach civic responsibility while children watch the same names rotate across posters every three years. Over time, idealism thins. Cynicism becomes practical wisdom. That quiet resignation may be the most damaging outcome of all.

Regulating fat dynasties is not about revenge or purity. It is about restoring circulation in public life. Power should move, not settle. Leadership should be renewable, not hereditary. The point is not to ban families from public service, but to prevent families from monopolizing it at the same time. Even good leaders benefit from limits. Especially good ones.

The chart, then, is not merely about numbers. It is a mirror. It asks whether we are comfortable treating public office like a family enterprise, or whether we still believe that service should make room for strangers with ideas, not just relatives with machinery. Democracies fail quietly when concentration becomes normal. They recover when citizens decide that fairness matters more than familiarity.

At some point, we must choose whether elections are meant to open doors or simply confirm who already holds the keys.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.