WVSU Journal for Law Advocacy is featuring its third chapter written by Clyde Gacayan entitled “No Time Runs Against Families?: Gains and losses in regulating political dynasties in the Philippines”. In this chapter, Gacayan reviews previous bills that have attempted to define political dynasties passed from the 13th to the 18th Congress of the Philippines, and notes that from at least forty-five (45) bills passed in the last seventeen (17) years, not one have passed third reading. Moreso, majority of these bills are left pending in appropriate committees where they were assigned to.
Gacayan argues that while there is sustained interest on the part of the House of Representatives and the Senate to fulfill their constitutional mandate to define and prohibit political dynasties, there is strong indication that both houses are seemingly adamant and tentative in their legislative position to pass the bill into law. Gacayan illustrates that the victory of the Marcos-Duterte tandem in the recent polls is an epitome of the continuing dominance of political dynasties – where dynasties are not only deeply entrenched but also capable of self-perpetuation admist good goverance reforms.
He echoes what other political scientists claim that political dynasties themselves are not only electoral concerns but are wicked problems that has undermined the quality of democracy linked to deeper poverry and underdevelopment. Gacayan concludes that while it seems that no time runs against families in the last thiry-five (35) years, there is a silver lining if one is able to look at the progress made in progressive legislation, judicial activism, and by further educating the electorate.
JLA is an academic journal committed to development of legal scholarship for and from the Visayas Region and Southern Philippines. The chapter is included in the Journal’s Inaugural Issue which carries the theme “Electoral Laws and the 2022 Philippine Election” containing seven carefully selected chapters that provide important legal analyses of electoral issues that limit, if not hostage, the conduct of free and fair elections in the Philippines. In preparation of the Journal’s official launch by September 23rd 2022, advanced online copies of stand alone chapters will be shared to the reading public every Monday of the week.
A total of four more papers tackling the party-list system, election-related offenses and rules on substitution will be released online in the next 4 weeks. Thereafter, a print copy of the Journal will be made available for distribution. For inquiries, please email the Journal’s Executive Editor Clyde Gacayan at [email protected] .
