By Rico V. Domingo

YOU DO NOT NEED a lawyer to grasp the command. Article II, Section 26 of the 1987 Constitution orders the State to guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service and to prohibit political dynasties as defined by law. The framers wrote it as a duty, not a suggestion. Congress received the assignment on day one. Congress refused to finish it.

Thirty-eight years later, the damage sits in plain sight. Dynastic politics did not pause while lawmakers delayed. It expanded, adapted, and hardened into the operating system of elections. A recent report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) shows that at least 18 “obese dynasties” hold between five and 19 elective posts each in a single election cycle. Separate data shows that roughly eight in 10 district representatives belong to political families. These figures describe consolidation. The same surnames occupy Congress, provincial capitols, and city halls at the same time. The ballot begins to resemble inheritance rather than competition.

Then comes the twist that should alarm anyone who still takes constitutional language seriously. Congress now claims progress through a substitute anti-political dynasty bill approved at the committee level. The headline sells movement. The text sells retreat: the measure does not prohibit dynasties. It regulates them.

And once regulation enters the conversation, lax enforcement follows close behind. A regulatory bill narrows a constitutional ban into technical guardrails. It does not break dynastic control. It manages it. Relatives stay eligible in many configurations. Families can rotate posts across districts, shift to allied local positions, or time their runs to fill gaps. The structure survives because the law treats dynastic power as a fact to be administered rather than a problem to be eliminated.

At this point, a larger question arises. What carries the greater disgrace, decades of inaction or deliberate action designed to weaken the Constitution while pretending to comply with it? For 38 years, Congress ignored a direct constitutional command. Now lawmakers appear ready to replace that silence with a law crafted in ways that preserve the very dynasties the Constitution sought to dismantle. In that choice lies the deeper insult.

The backlash in the House shows lawmakers recognizing the problem themselves. Several legislators withdrew support after reviewing what they described as a weak substitute bill. Their objection rests on a simple constitutional point. Article II, Section 26 does not say “regulate.” It says “prohibit.”

The politics behind the draft deepens the distrust. The substitute version traces back to bills filed by Speaker Bojie Dy and Majority Leader Sandro Marcos. The symbolism is difficult to miss. Dy rose from the Dy political clan of Isabela, a family that has held key provincial positions across decades. Marcos belongs to the country’s most entrenched political dynasty. When dynastic leadership authors the anti-dynasty script, the public has reason to read the fine print with suspicion.

Members of the Makabayan bloc refused to participate in the exercise and withdrew support for the substitute bill. Their position rests on the same constitutional line. An enabling law that merely regulates dynasties mocks a mandate to prohibit them. Nearly four decades of congressional inaction have already violated the Constitution through neglect. Passing a diluted measure would deepen that violation by disguising noncompliance as reform. The substitute bill, they argue, carries the fingerprints of dynasties themselves, drafted in ways that protect entrenched families rather than the electorate.

The Senate debate reveals the same disease in another form. Once lawmakers choose regulation over prohibition, the fight shifts from power to definitions. And definitions breed loopholes. Senators now debate whether extramarital partners or mistresses should count in determining dynastic links. The discussion illustrates the trap. Once legislation revolves around technical classifications of family relationships, the law becomes a maze instead of a clear rule. Each refinement opens another path for evasion.

That is the core weakness of the current proposals circulating in both chambers. The drafts contain multiple gaps. Whether intentional or accidental, those gaps create room for maneuvering. Political families possess the resources, lawyers, and networks needed to navigate technical restrictions. Regulation invites circumvention.

Observers already warn about the next stage of dilution. The measure may weaken further during bicameral negotiations between the House and Senate. Others expect a familiar legislative tactic. The bill could stall indefinitely while dynastic interests protect their ground.

This outcome should surprise no one. The deeper problem lies in the institutional design created in 1987. The framers recognized the threat posed by dynastic politics and inserted a prohibition against it into the Constitution. Yet they delegated the task of defining and enforcing the prohibition to Congress itself. Lawmakers who benefit from dynastic structures, therefore, acquired the authority to regulate them.

Four decades later, the consequences stand in full view. Dynasties shape legislative priorities. They influence local economies. They control candidate selection. In many provinces, elections resemble internal family arrangements rather than democratic contests.

The lesson is straightforward. Regulation does not dismantle dynasties. Regulation accepts their permanence and rearranges technical boundaries around them. Prohibition addresses the constitutional command.

Stronger anti-dynasty proposals exist in Congress. These measures aim to implement the Constitution without dilution and to open political space for leaders outside entrenched family networks. Yet political reality keeps them stalled inside the legislative mill.

Passing a genuine Anti-Political Dynasty Law demands political courage. Corruption flourishes where political power concentrates. Dynastic concentration creates exactly that environment. Breaking the cycle requires dismantling the structure itself. Dislodging dynasties strikes at the root of the problem. Once eradicated, electoral competition expands. Oversight strengthens. Public office returns to the principle envisioned by the Constitution.

A weak law filled with exemptions would achieve the opposite. It would legitimize dynasties under a legal framework while claiming reform. Congress has already violated the Constitution through decades of delay. Passing a paper tiger that pretends to comply would go further. It would signal that even a constitutional command can be negotiated down to a loophole.

The Constitution spoke with clarity in 1987: Prohibit political dynasties. The instruction remains unfulfilled. Each attempt to dilute that mandate does not merely delay reform; it undermines it. It bastardizes the Constitution itself.

Atty. Rico V. Domingo is the founding chair of the Movement Against Disinformation or MAD, a former president of the Philippine Bar Association, and lead convenor of ULAP or the Ugnayan ng mga Lumalaban sa Airport Privatization.