Makabayan: Pending antidynasty bill merely regulates relatives in office

MANILA, Philippines — The Makabayan bloc has warned that the version of the proposed antidynasty bill pending in Congress does not abide by the Supreme Court directive to prohibit relatives from holding public office simultaneously.

While it welcomed the Supreme Court ruling that compelled the legislature to pass an enabling law that would finally put a blanket ban on political dynasties, Makabayan expressed alarm that the current version of the bill does not prohibit, but merely aims to regulate, if not legitimize.

“A measure that merely limits the number of family members who may simultaneously hold office does not dismantle dynastic rule—it institutionalizes it under a veneer of reform. Regulation is not prohibition, and no amount of legislative wordplay can make it so,” it said in a statement.

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READ: House approves anti-dynasty bill on third and final reading

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The bloc, composed of ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Sarah Elago and Kabataan Rep. Renee Louise Co, stressed that a “genuine enabling law” must ban political dynasties outright “without loopholes that allow powerful families to rotate seats among relatives.”

“The Filipino people did not wait four decades for a law that formalizes the very evil the Constitution sought to eliminate,” it added.

The high court, in its unanimous decision this week, ruled that Congress has an obligation under the 1987 Constitution to ensure equal opportunities for public service through legislation that would prohibit political dynasties.

READ: Hontiveros wants anti-dynasty bill tackled despite chairmanship change

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The Congress, it noted, has committed “grave abuse of discretion and manifest injustice” in failing to perform its constitutional duty.

On June 3 this year, the House of Representatives passed on third and final reading a bill barring spouses and relatives of up to a second degree of consanguinity and affinity from holding elective posts at the same time. This version was transmitted to the Senate five days later.

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Its counterpart bill in the Senate has remained pending on second reading.

Proposed measures outlawing dynasties in the past have failed to gain traction as Congress has consistently been dominated by political families and clans.

President Marcos, whose sister is a sitting senator and who comes from a wide political family, said he supports the Supreme Court order for Congress to pass an anti-dynasty bill, which has been one of his priority bills.

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Marcos had said he wants the bill to be passed by June 2027, or before his sixth and last State of the Nation Address (Sona). /cb