Ferdinand Marcos Jr, president of the reactionary government in the Philippines, is surprisingly pushing for an anti-dynasty bill in Congress. He himself comes from a long established political dynasty. In the country’s rotten bureaucrat capitalist political system, family members take turns or hold elective positions at the same time, enabling families to control power for too long, preventing new politicians to enter the system.

The present government’s 1987 Constitution expressly directed Congress to pass an enabling law to prevent political dynasties. Many bills have been proposed by lawmakers over the years but none ever got passed into law for the very simple reason that both the Senate and the House of Representatives have been packed with political dynasties.

In the current Senate or upper chamber, nine out of 24 members belong to political families, including four pairs of sibling-senators. In the lower chamber, 67% of House members are dynasty.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr urged Congress to pass his version of the anti-dynasty law through House of Representatives Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander Marcos, his son, and House Speaker Faustino Dy III who filed the bill. The younger Marcos and Speaker Dy each have at least 16 other relatives in various elected posts.

Renato Reyes, president of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) a large federation of progressive sectoral organizations, point out that Marcos Jr is trying hard to deflect the waves of corruption charges against him on flood control and other projects that sent his approval rating down to a historic low of 21%. Pushed against the wall, he has to put out new initiatives to show, “I started this. I will finish this.”

The controversy comes as the political dynasties in both houses of Congress have been blamed by civil society groups and lawmakers for massive losses of public funds linked to anomalous flood control projects. The ensuing series of massive demonstrations led to the most serious political crisis of the Marcos administration to date.

Critics slammed the proposal, saying it will legitimize and entrench dynasties. While it aims to bar members of a family from running in the same jurisdiction or entity, it would still allow them to hold power across different levels of government and areas.

In this latest move, Marcos Jr.  let himself be pushed further to the wall, and worsened the political crisis of the elite, according to Reyes. Marcos still does not realize that he and the corrupt dynasties of the reactionary factions, is the problem. Only the powerful movement of the people can solve this.