Families and clans have dominated Philippine politics for over a century, and positions of power and influence are handed down from generation to generation.
For instance, in La Union, the Ortega family has ruled the province and several towns since the turn of the 20th century.
There is only one name — Marcos — that has dominated Ilocos Norte since 1946 when the Philippines was liberated from the Japanese and granted independence by the United States.
The sitting president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is the only son of the late dictator and his namesake. Her elder sister is an incumbent senator, his son is a congressman, and his nephew is the governor.
The dictator began his political career as a congressman in 1948 and married into another political family, the Romualdezes.
Marcos’s first cousin is the leader of the lower house of Congress. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez’s wife is also a congresswoman and a brother of the mayor of Tacloban City in Leyte, the family’s political bailiwick.
In other parts of the country, it is the same story. Families control a province, a city, a town, and even the barangays.
The former president, Rodrigo Duterte, was a long-time mayor of Davao City. He was succeeded by her daughter, Sara, who is now the vice president. Two sons are also in local politics as mayor and congressman.
Nearly 70 million eligible voters will vote for more than 18,200 national and local positions next year.
This includes 12 senators, 254 district congressmen, 63 party-list organizations, 82 governors, and more than 1,600 mayors.
Familiar names have dominated these positions. Most have been in power since 1986 when the democratic space was restored after a popular uprising called the “EDSA People Power revolt.”
They include the Binays in Makati and Abalos in Mandaluyong. In some provinces and cities, families have been divided by infighting, with siblings and in-laws fighting over elective positions.
According to political analysts, political dynasties in the country have grown and expanded from a vertical succession in power to a horizontal one, as siblings and parent-children tandems now hold the same public offices.
Cynthia Villar is a two-term senator whose son joined him in the 2022 elections. Jinggoy Estrada and his half-brother, JV Ejercito, are both in the Senate, along with Alan Peter Cayetano and sister Pia.
In next year’s elections, Sen. Raffy Tulfo will likely be joined by his two brothers — Erwin and Ben.
Raffy’s wife is a party-list congresswoman, his son is a district congressman, and a daughter is running for Congress under another party-list group.
Politics in the Philippines is a family business.
However, political families face a new threat as social media platforms have become more popular than traditional and legacy news media.
Two popular vloggers — Rosmar Tan and Mark Gamboa — have decided to join the political circus.
Rosmar, who boasts of more than 20 million followers on Tiktok, has filed her certificate of candidacy as a councilor for Manila’s first district.
Gamboa, who has 100,000 social media followers on his political vlogs, wants to run for a Senate seat.
They believe they have enough followers to catapult them to political office. They are following the lead of popular broadcaster Raffy Tulfo, a social media star with millions of followers on YouTube.
Tulfo won a seat in the Senate in May 2022, placing second to movie star Robin Padilla, a testament to popularity and name recall as an ingredient in a successful political campaign.
Padilla was aided by a political organization and the endorsement of a popular leader, Rodrigo Duterte, in the 2022 balloting.
However, another social media sensation, Doc Willie Ong, failed twice in his bid to become a senator and vice president.
Once in power, these social media sensations could become political dynasties like the Tulfos.
It goes back to families and clans in Philippine politics.
MANUEL “MANNY” P. MOGATO is Editor-at-Large and opinion writer, writing under the column “In the Trenches.” As Reuters Manila correspondent, he and two other colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2018 for their coverage of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
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