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Do we now see a repudiation of dynasties, referencing the loss of the Garcias in Cebu, the Velascos in Marinduque, or the Jalosjos family in Dapitan City?
How soon we can repudiate dynasties depends on how fast we can outpace the birth of new dynasties.
Not only that. As we blinked, enlisting more family members to their cause of self-preservation and self-enrichment fattened their existing dynasties.
For instance, the very antiseptic and soundless Grace Poe is now a dynast. Using a Senate press release paid for by taxpayers, she announced in October 2024 that her son Brian Poe Llamanzares’s “time has come.” The son was first nominee for the Poe family’s new party list FPJ Panday Bayanihan after her late father, actor Fernando Poe Jr.
In the final party list ranking released by Comelec last Friday, the Poe family party list landed 15th place with 1.28% of the votes. Brian Llamanzares may inherit his mother’s place in national politics. Poe graduated from the last Senate and was term-limited for another reelection. How long will she rest? Term-limited senators, by practice, return to politics after a three-year hiatus of evading term limits.
In the May 2019 midterm elections, Loren Legarda was term-limited to run again for the Senate. She went home to her maternal grandmother’s province of Antique to run for its lone congressional district. In the May 2022 national elections, she went back to the Senate and won. In place of her Antique seat in the House, she fielded her brother Agapito Antonio “AA” Legarda who won.
The brother’s run was scripted in the traditional political way. His name on the ballot was listed as “Legarda, AA Inday Loren.” Salvador Ungsod, a resident of Bugasong, Antique saw through the trick and petitioned the Comelec to declare AA Legarda as a nuisance candidate. But of course, nothing came out of it. The power of dynasts cannot be underestimated.
Then Loren fattened her new dynasty. For the May 2025 election, she fielded her son Leandro Legarda Leviste for representative of the 1st District of Batangas Province. The brother AA, meanwhile, ran for his second term as congressman and won over his opponent, the former Antique governor Rhodora Cadiao, by over 110,000 votes.
The Loren Legarda dynasty is now a fat dynasty with three members sitting simultaneously. As it savors its new dynastic influence that spans two provinces and the Senate, it may slowly vie to become an obese dynasty (five sitting members). Leandro Leviste himself is a wealthy young entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of the renewable energy company, Solar Philippines. He won his first election by 268,764 votes over Eric Buhain’s 91,588 votes. At 32, he is probably the youngest politician oligarch of the country.
Rich men do not need to join politics. Oligarchs, however, do to protect their fortunes and assets. Tremendous wealth and political influence are perfect partners in an immature democracy like ours. The Villars, five family members in power simultaneously at one time, are an obvious example.
Also as we blinked, a new dynasty was born in the city of Manila. Comebacking mayor Isko Moreno, in case you did not notice, fielded his son Joaquin Andre Domagoso to run for city councilor in Manila’s 1st District. Joaquin topped the race among the 26 candidates in that district. Isko Moreno is now a dynast.
Local executives have a distinct advantage of naming their family successors because their incumbency benefits from the power of the LGU’s purse. Heritable successors often happen in the LGU because of this. That is how Iloilo city mayor Jerry Treñas chose whom to succeed him.
Treñas had long exposed his daughter Raisa Treñas Chu to the rigors of city mayor. She served her father as executive assistant. In the 2022 general elections, she was the second nominee in the Uswag Ilonggo party list. She joined the National Unity Party of tycoon Enrique Razon Jr. for the May 2025 midterm elections.
It was Raisa’s first foray into politics. The neophyte won and is now Iloilo City’s first elected mayor. The father Treñas said he is retiring from politics. How lucky he is that before retirement he got to name his successor. Dynasties are born from the public coffers.
As dynasties become obese, they shed off all semblance of shame by bannering the same surnames for mayor and vice mayor, or governor and vice governor. The more positions they occupy, the better for future games of musical chairs to circumvent term limits. Or they occupy all legislative districts even if they don’t reside there. Fictional residencies can be easily had.
Perhaps the most absurd dynasty-ridden province in the entire country is Masbate. The island province has three legislative districts. Exclusively the Kho family occupies all three.
The incumbent governor was the family patriarch Antonio. In the last elections, he swapped positions with his son Richard who was 1st District representative. Richard won as governor, while his father won unopposed as congressman. Antonio’s wife Olga won as representative of the 2nd District. The Khos are aligned with Speaker Martin Romualdez’s Lakas party.
Ara, the daughter, used to sit as 2nd District representative. She is now the new mayor of Masbate city. So who gets to sit in the 3rd District? That is the political portion given to the other son Wilton Kho. Wilton’s wife Kristine Kho is municipal mayor of Mandaon town.
If you have lost count so far, that makes six members sitting simultaneously. It is an obese dynasty.
If that is the kind of ruling family lording it over Masbate, how do the municipal mayors fare? They follow the leader naturally.
In Baleno town, the mayor is Marites dela Rosa of Lakas. The vice mayor is her husband, former municipal mayor Romeo dela Rosa. In the municipality of San Pascual in Burias island, the mayor is Saki Lazaro of Lakas (townsfolk call her Madam Saki). The vice mayor is Erika Lazaro Mendoza, also of Lakas. In Uson municipality, the mayor is Eping Sanchez. The first councilor is Deneb Ann Sanchez.
Clearly, these are paradigms of hereditary political rule. During elections, is there even a search for good leaders? Studies have shown that heritable political capital weakens election as an institution to select talented leaders. How are they disciplined if they get into administrative infractions while in public office? Dynasties render public office ambiguous.
In 2012, an economics study conducted by Ronald Mendoza at the Asian Institute of Management concluded that constituencies ruled by political dynasties tended to have more poverty and higher income inequality.
The same finding was subsequently corroborated in the study, “The Effect Of Political Dynasties on Effective Democratic Governance: Evidence From The Philippines,” by Rollin Tusalem and Jeffrey J. Pe-Aguirre. Provinces dominated by family clans were less likely to perform well in terms of infrastructure development, health spending, criminality, and employment.
In the final analysis, even without an anti-dynasty law, we will have to be confronted by the critical questions sooner than later:
Why limit the choice of voters?
Why limit the power of the people to exact accountability? Without rotation of power, it is accountability that is lost.Why dilute the essence of democracy? In dynastic politics, the equity of representation is totally ignored. Many Filipino dynasts say they are good dynasts. That is false, because ultimately it is not the people who decide but dynasts who decide by the power of their incumbency, their tremendous access to public funds, and the repetitiveness of their name recall. – Rappler.com
