(AI generated illustration using author’s prompt)

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

Preventing the concentration of political power in a few families is the top reason Filipinos support the anti-dynasty bill, according to the March 2026 Philippine Public Opinion Monitor released May 25 by WR Numero.

Among the 582 survey respondents who said they approve of the bill’s passage, 43% cited the need to block power monopolies as their primary motivation.

Strengthening electoral competition ranked second at 38%, followed by reducing government corruption at 35%, giving voters more choices during elections at 27%, opening opportunities for leaders outside political dynasties at 15%, and fulfilling the Constitution’s provision limiting dynasties at 14%. Six percent were unsure what the measure would achieve.

On the bill’s scope, 31% of supporters favor restricting relatives up to the first degree of consanguinity or affinity, while 20% prefer extending the ban to the fourth degree. Another 15% support a third-degree restriction, 14% back a second-degree limit, and 20% remain undecided.

A majority — 63% — want the law to ban both the simultaneous candidacy of relatives and their succession in public office.

Some 15% support restricting only simultaneous candidacies, while 11% favor limiting only succession. Twelve percent are undecided.

On coverage, 70% of bill supporters want the ban applied to all elective positions from barangay officials to president. Another 13% favor limiting the restriction to national offices, 8% support applying it only to local posts, and 10% are undecided.

The March 2026 nationwide survey was conducted from March 10 to 17 through face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,455 Filipinos. The margin of error is ±3% at the 95% confidence level nationally, ±7% for the National Capital Region, ±4% for the rest of Luzon, and ±6% each for the Visayas and Mindanao.

WHAT CONGRESS ACTUALLY PASSED

The survey lands at a pivotal legislative moment. The House of Representatives approved HB 8389, the proposed Anti-Political Dynasty Act, on third and final reading on May 26 — the first time in 40 years that such a bill has cleared any chamber of Congress.

The measure — principally authored by Speaker Faustino “Bojie” Dy III and Majority Leader Sandro Marcos, with 173 co-authors — bans spouses and relatives within the second degree of consanguinity or affinity from simultaneously running for or holding elective posts in the same locality.

Candidates must submit a sworn statement to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) declaring that their candidacy will not result in a prohibited dynasty. Comelec is required to issue implementing rules within 90 days of the law’s effectivity.

The bill is a LEDAC priority and carries the endorsement of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. House data projects that over 5,000 elective positions could be vacated by dynasty members once the law takes effect.

An anti-dynasty bill was last sponsored in the House plenary in May 2014, under then-Capiz Rep. Fredenil Castro’s HB 3587. That version also used a second-degree consanguinity limit but lacked the “within the same area of jurisdiction” qualifier in the 2026 measure.

A ‘COMPROMISE’ BILL

The bill now moves to the Senate, where passage is not guaranteed. The Senate’s own version also uses a second-degree limit, but bicameral reconciliation is still required before the measure can be sent to Malacañang for signing.

Lawmakers and electoral reform advocates have stressed the urgency: the law must be enacted before 2027 to give Comelec sufficient time to draft implementing rules ahead of the 2028 elections. President Marcos Jr. has not yet certified HB 8389 as urgent, a step that would have allowed second and third readings on the same legislative day.

Even before HB 8389 passed, civil society groups lined up against it.

In a February 2026 joint statement, the Makati Business Club and allied organizations called the measure a “pro-dynasty” bill, arguing that it permits succession, switching, substitution, and rotation among relatives across positions and election cycles, effectively preserving family monopoly over political power in practice.

Akbayan party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña pointed out structural gaps in the bill’s coverage: a mayor whose uncle is vice mayor is not covered under the second-degree limit, and cousins serving as city councilors alongside a relative mayor are similarly exempt, since that relationship falls in the fourth degree.

“Parang lumalabas po, family group chat ang kanilang meeting,” Cendaña said. (Their meeting will look like a family group chat.)

Sponsor Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, who chairs the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms, defended the second-degree threshold as a “careful balance between reform and democratic principles.” He said the committee’s mandate was to produce a definition that is “constitutional, workable, and capable of withstanding scrutiny.”

Retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and civil society groups are now gathering signatures for a people’s initiative seeking a stronger anti-dynasty law.

PCIJ DATA: THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM

The legislative push comes against a backdrop of documented dynasty expansion. Data from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) shows political dynasties controlled 87% of provinces, 83% of legislative districts, and 75% of cities in 2025.

PCIJ research further found that dynasties have grown from “thin” to “fat” and “obese” over four decades, expanding by at least 1% or about 170 elective positions every election period. The mechanisms are familiar: families seek higher positions, swap roles with relatives, establish residency in new jurisdictions, and increasingly use the party-list system.

In the current 20th Congress, half of the 64 party-list representatives come from political clans whose members simultaneously hold national and local office — or held those posts immediately before them. This includes relatives of both the president and the vice president, marking the first time in Philippine electoral history that kin of the country’s two highest officials simultaneously won party-list seats.

Marcos Jr.’s cousin-in-law Yedda Romualdez and her son Andrew Julian ran under Tingog Sinirangan, while Harold Duterte, a cousin of Vice President Sara Duterte, won a seat through Pwersa ng Pilipinong Pandagat.

PCIJ research further showed that nearly a third of party-list lawmakers are linked to companies that have been awarded government contracts, or have relatives who are government contractors. The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) described the system as “captured by political dynasties and economic elites.”

On May 25, PCIJ published a new report titled “7 reasons why the party-list system serves dynasties, not democracy” — released the same day as the WR Numero survey.

CIVIL SOCIETY: ‘DAPAT ISA LANG’

With confidence in the legislative process limited, several Catholic and civil society groups launched a campaign called “Dapat Isa Lang” (“There Should Only Be One”) to bypass Congress entirely through a people’s initiative. The movement must gather roughly 7 million signatures by October to advance a version of the law that would more strictly limit a family’s ability to hold multiple elective offices simultaneously.

The WR Numero data points to a growing mismatch between what Filipino voters want and what their legislators have been willing to pass.

The 63% of supporters who want the ban to cover both simultaneous candidacy and succession will find no succession provision in HB 8389. The 70% who want coverage extended down to barangay level will find barangays are excluded from the bill’s scope as enacted.

And the 43% who cited power monopoly prevention as their top motivation — the dominant reason in the survey — are precisely the voters whom critics say the bill fails most directly, given the loopholes that allow rotation and family-network arrangements to continue under different titles.

Whether the Senate closes those gaps, or enacts the same compromise, will determine whether HB 8389 lives up to the mandate its own supporters are demanding.

engr carlos v cornejo

All Columns