The Constitutional Provision That Prohibits Political Dynasties Has Awaited Enabling Legislation for Thirty-Nine Years
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
The Anti-Dynasty Law: Thirty-Nine Years of Enabling Legislation, Coming Soon
MANILA — The 1987 Philippine Constitution includes a provision stating that “the State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.” The critical phrase is “as may be defined by law.” The law defining what constitutes a political dynasty and prohibiting it has been pending for thirty-nine years. Various versions have been filed in successive Congresses, referred to committees, debated, and not passed. The current Congress is once again debating an anti-dynasty bill. Progress, by the standard of the previous thirty-eight years of debate, is being made in the sense that the debate is occurring.
The specific challenge of passing an anti-dynasty law in the Philippine Congress is that the Philippine Congress is composed predominantly of members of political dynasties who would be affected by such a law. This is a structural problem that constitutional scholars call a “self-referential constraint” and that ordinary observers call “the people who need to vote for the law are the people the law is against.” The Marcoses, the Dutertes, the Estradas, the Binays, the Villars, and the dozens of provincial dynasties that collectively dominate Philippine legislative bodies are the constituency whose cooperation is required to pass legislation that would limit them.
The Recent Innovation
Recent proposals have included phased implementation that would limit dynasty expansion rather than dissolving existing dynasties, which is a politically easier version of the same constraint but which produces incremental progress rather than the fundamental reform the constitutional provision envisions. The question of whether incremental progress on a thirty-nine-year-old provision is progress or sophisticated deferral is one that different analysts answer differently. Official processes for things that don’t quite work persist in most political systems; managing constitutional provisions through enabling legislation that benefits the legislators who pass it is the specific Philippine dynamic. The debate continues. Thirty-nine years. Progress is being made. The law remains pending.