A constitutional provision that sat dormant for almost 40 years moved closer to reality on Wednesday, June 3, as the House of Representatives passed on third and final reading a bill defining and restricting political dynasties — the first time the chamber has cleared such a measure since the 1987 Constitution mandated it.
House Bill No. 8389 sets boundaries on which members of a political family may seek or hold elective office at the same time. The legislation prohibits spouses and relatives within the second degree of consanguinity or affinity from simultaneously running for or occupying posts within the same jurisdiction, spanning national, provincial, city, and municipal levels. Under that definition, the covered circle includes parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, and in-laws of equivalent closeness.
To enforce the limit, candidates would be required to file a sworn statement with the Commission on Elections declaring that their candidacy would not produce a prohibited dynastic arrangement. Where relatives do file conflicting candidacies, the bill lays out a path to resolve the overlap, allowing for voluntary withdrawal or, failing agreement, a drawing of lots to determine who may take the seat. The Comelec would have 90 days from the law’s effectivity to draft implementing rules.
A measure critics call toothless
Although it passed by a wide margin, the bill has drawn sharp criticism for the narrowness of its reach. Because the prohibition stops at the second degree, families can still field a roster of more distant relatives — uncles, cousins, nephews — across the same local government without running afoul of the law. The earlier draft had proposed extending the ban to the fourth degree, a version that would have swept in a far larger web of kin.
Akbayan party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña was among those who argued the scope leaves too many loopholes intact. Pointing to scenarios where a mayor’s uncle serves as vice mayor or where councilors are the mayor’s cousins, he warned that such bodies could effectively become family affairs: “Parang lumalabas po, family group chat ang kanilang meeting, or a family reunion,” Cendaña said.
Outside Congress, retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and several civil society organizations have been collecting signatures for a people’s initiative aimed at securing what they consider a genuine anti-dynasty law, a parallel push that underscores doubts about the measure’s strength.
Proponents defend the compromise
Lanao del Sur 1st District Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, who chairs the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms and sponsored the bill on the floor, framed the vote as the fulfillment of a duty Congress had dodged for a generation. “Today, we have the opportunity to make history. Today, we fulfill a long-standing constitutional mandate, 40 years in the making,” he said.
Responding to the loophole concerns, Adiong argued that not every relative who runs ends up winning and that the worst-case scenarios raised by critics remain hypothetical. He also tied the second-degree threshold to a practical constraint, citing the Comelec’s own position that a tighter scope keeps the law enforceable given the agency’s limited resources. As he put it, the bill gives the poll body “enough room to actually assess and review lineage and affiliations between individuals who are running for elective posts.”
The measure carries heavyweight authorship. Speaker Faustino “Bojie” Dy III and Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” Marcos stand as its principal authors, with 173 other lawmakers signing on as co-authors — a level of backing that reflects the priority status the proposal holds within the chamber’s legislative agenda.
The scale of the problem the bill seeks to address is considerable. Adiong has pointed to a League of Municipalities survey covering 1,493 municipalities, which found that 917 mayors — about 61 percent — govern in areas where they have immediate or extended relatives with a record of elective service, leaving only 39 percent without dynastic ties.
If signed into law, the measure would mark the first time since the Constitution’s ratification that the country has a statutory definition and prohibition of political dynasties on its books.
