Robin Padilla files bill vs. political dynasties

Senator Robin Padilla filed Monday a bill seeking to prohibit political dynasties in the Philippines.

Senate Bill 2730 seeks to provide an enabling law that would implement the 1987 Constitution's anti-dynasty provision.

"Looking at the political, social, and economic impact of political dynasties, it is undeniable that the framers of our Constitution missed the opportunity to define it and embody the same in our Constitution. To merely state our policy against political dynasties and leave it to Congress to pass an enacting law to breathe life into it is futile since members of the Legislature come from political dynasties," Padilla said in filing the measure.

"Given that this measure complies with the legislature's mandate to enact an anti-political dynasty law and is a step towards leveling the playing field in politics and governance, the passage thereof is earnestly sought," he added.

Padilla noted that calls to "stop the monopoly of political power" remain unyielding and stressed that it is time to "break the barriers preventing the best and the brightest from serving the Filipino people."

Under the measure, no spouse or person related within the fourth degree of consanguinity or affinity, whether legitimate or illegitimate, full or half blood, to an incumbent elective official seeking re-election, shall be allowed to hold or run for any elective office in the same city and/or province, or any party list in the same election

If the constituency of the incumbent elective official is national in character, the bill states that such relatives shall be disqualified from running only within the same province where the former is domiciled or in any, including the same, national position.

"In all cases, no person who has a political dynasty relationship to the incumbent shall immediately succeed to the position of the latter," the measure read.

SB 2730 proposed the filing of a sworn statement with the Commission on Elections stating that the candidate has no political dynasty relationship with any incumbent public official.

The measure also provides that candidates may face petition for disqualification before the Comelec on grounds of political dynasty.

In filing the bill, Padilla cited a 2011 study from Harvard Academy which emphasized how political dynasties become a product of the tendency of elites to persist and reproduce their power over time, undermining the effectiveness of institutional reforms in the process.

He also included a dataset of Philippine local elections from 1988 to 2019 which showed that the number of governors with at least one relative in office (dynasty) increased by almost 39 percentage points, from 41% in 1988 to 80% in 2019. The dynasty proportion of vice governors rose from 18% in 1988 to 68% in 2019.

The percentage of mayors in the dynasty increased gradually from 26% in 1988 to 53% in 2019.

A 2013 study by Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre was also mentioned in the filing of the measure, where it was found that congressional funds are higher in areas with more political dynasties, but these provinces also have higher rates of crime and poor governance, as well as lower spending on employment, infrastructure, and health care.

"Political dynasties, in effect, have exhausted resources to attain economic and political dominance while at the same time compromising political competition and undermining accountability," Padilla said.—AOL, GMA Integrated News