POLITICAL DYNASTY: When Public Service Becomes a Family Business

Political dynasty isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it hides behind “hard work.” In this post, I respond to a follower who defended the Romualdez family with the usual line: “At least they’re working.” But when public office starts looking like a family enterprise—and we start treating basic job performance as a free pass—we need to step back and ask: Does doing the work really justify dynastic power?

After I posted that piece on Facebook warning about political dynasties, a follower messaged me. She wasn’t hostile. In fact, she was respectful and sincere. She said, “Sir, the Romualdezes are different. They’re the working kind. I’d take them over Pulong, Harold, or Omar any day.” Then she sent me some documents—legislative records, proof that they’ve been doing the work. She also pointed out, in a very kind way, that maybe I missed a few things.

But here’s what I think we both need to be clear about.

That post wasn’t a takedown of the Romualdezes. I wasn’t criticizing their work ethic. It was a warning about what happens when we keep excusing political dynasties just because “they’re doing their jobs.” That’s the same argument Cynthia Villar gave when she defended her own family’s stronghold in government. It’s also the same tired reasoning people use when they say, “Eh okay lang naman magnakaw, basta may ginagawa.”

I didn’t miss anything. Because that post wasn’t written to praise or condemn the Romualdezes. It was written to show how dangerous it is when we let “productivity” blur the real issue: power being passed down like a family business.

So now I’m asking the bigger question:
If they’re really “working,” let’s look at what that work is. Let’s examine the Tingog party-list, the three Romualdezes in Congress, and their legislative track record.

Let’s see what the data actually tells us.

The ₱11.2 Million Family Setup

Let’s talk about the setup first.

Right now, three members of the Romualdez family are sitting in Congress—Martin as Speaker and district rep, Yedda as a Tingog party-list rep (again), and their 25-year-old son Andrew Julian as Tingog’s first nominee. All holding power at the same time.

You might be thinking: Okay, so what? They’re elected anyway.

But here’s what that arrangement costs us: ₱11.2 million per year in salaries alone—that’s not counting allowances, staff, office budgets, and everything else that comes with those seats. Martin, as Speaker, gets over ₱347,000 a month. Yedda and Andrew each get over ₱293,000.

Now compare that to how most Filipino families live. The average household income? Just over ₱353,000 a year. That means what we pay the Romualdez family in Congress could support more than 30 average families for an entire year.

And this isn’t some random job. This is public service. Paid for by taxpayers. That means every time you buy rice, gas up, or pay a VAT-charged bill, part of that money goes to funding a setup that’s starting to look less like representation and more like a family enterprise.

No family should be allowed to turn Congress into a family business—with us as the silent shareholders.

The “Basic Expectation” Reality Check

Here’s the part people don’t like hearing: writing laws is what they’re supposed to be doing. That’s literally the job.

A House rep earns ₱293,191 a month. The Speaker takes home ₱347,888. These aren’t small paychecks. These are top-tier government salaries—funded by people who earn a fraction of that.

Now, step outside the halls of Congress for a second. The average Filipino family brings in about ₱29,000 a month. A minimum wage worker in Metro Manila earns ₱645 a day, which adds up to around ₱16,900 a month—assuming they don’t miss a single day of work.

For someone earning minimum wage, it would take more than 17 months just to match what a congressman gets in one. And to match the Speaker’s monthly pay? You’d need 20 months of full-time, no-day-off labor.

So when people defend lawmakers with lines like, “At least they’re working,” that’s not a defense—it’s a distraction. That’s what they’re being paid to do. We’re not talking about public service out of personal sacrifice here. We’re talking about high-paying, high-power jobs. Basic job performance isn’t something to be celebrated—it’s something to be expected.

And if we’re out here clapping every time a lawmaker shows up and files a bill, then maybe the bar has fallen lower than we thought.

When “Productivity” Becomes a Smokescreen

This is where the defense usually shifts.

People start citing numbers: how many bills were passed, how many laws enacted, how high the “success rate” is in Congress. They treat it like a scoreboard.

Martin Romualdez is often praised for leading the 19th Congress to pass 287 laws, with a 96.4% approval rate on priority measures. Yedda authored 59 bills and co-authored 43 others in her previous term. Even Andrew Julian—fresh from college—has already co-authored five bills.

On paper, that sounds busy.

But this kind of productivity talk hides a bigger problem. It makes it seem like output alone justifies staying in power—as if the number of bills you pass erases the fact that you’re turning public office into family property.

People forget: passing laws is the baseline. That’s what we pay them for. It’s not proof of greatness—it’s proof of employment.

The real questions don’t show up in bill counts. They show up in the things we rarely ask:

  • Is democracy working when the same names keep winning?

  • Can ordinary people still run for office and win fairly?

  • Are we getting better public service—or just better branding?

Productivity isn’t the issue. Monopoly is.

The Constitutional Contradiction

The 1987 Constitution doesn’t mince words. It says:
“The State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.”

Sounds clear enough. But after 37 years, Congress—conveniently packed with political dynasties—has never passed the enabling law to define what a dynasty actually is.

So what we’re left with is a contradiction we all just live with:
We pay these people millions to serve the public. But at the same time, we let them build family empires right inside the halls of government.

And the Romualdez setup is a textbook example. Three people from the same family, all holding office, all collecting salaries from the same public pool.

Zoom out a bit and it gets worse. Political dynasties don’t just dominate Congress.

  • 80% of provincial governors

  • 67% of House reps

  • Over half of all mayors
     come from political families.

In some places, they even run unopposed—because who’s going to go up against a name that’s already sitting on money, machinery, and multiple terms’ worth of influence?

This isn’t democracy. It’s gatekeeping. And the longer we tolerate it, the harder it gets to undo.

The Tingog Deception: Party-List as Family Vehicle

This is where it gets even messier.

The Romualdez family didn’t just stop at district representation. They took control of a party-list too—Tingog—which was supposed to be for marginalized sectors. That’s the original idea behind party-lists: give voice to those who usually don’t get heard in Congress.

But Tingog isn’t that. It’s not even pretending anymore.

It was founded by Martin Romualdez in 2012 as Tingog Leytehon. He was its first chairman. Fast forward to today, his wife Yedda and son Andrew Julian are the ones sitting in Congress under the Tingog banner.

In the 2025 elections, Tingog landed three seats. Andrew took the first nominee slot, replacing his mother. Then—conveniently—two other nominees “resigned,” which made room for Yedda to slide back in as the third nominee.

What does that mean?

It means that a party-list claiming to represent Eastern Visayans now has three Romualdezes sitting in Congress.

This isn’t sectoral representation. This is a family playbook. The party-list system was never meant to be a backdoor for dynasties to grab extra seats. But that’s exactly what it’s become—a loophole used and abused by the same people it was supposed to keep in check.

At this point, it’s not even subtle. It’s calculated.

The Broader Democratic Costs

Every time we excuse dynasties by saying “at least they’re working,” we ignore what this setup is doing to the rest of the country.

Areas controlled by political families tend to have higher poverty rates, weaker local institutions, and fewer chances for new leaders to emerge. That’s not theory—that’s what the data shows.

When one family holds all the cards, these things happen:

  • Good people don’t run: Not because they’re not qualified, but because they can’t compete with the name recall, the money, or the machinery dynasties already have in place.

  • Patronage replaces policy: People vote out of loyalty or survival, not because of vision or platform. Voters become clients. Politicians become gatekeepers.

  • Checks and balances disappear: When the mayor, the congressman, and even the judge all belong to the same clan—or owe them favors—who’s left to say no?

  • Resources don’t go where they’re needed: They go where the family is strong. Where the votes are locked in. Development becomes selective, not strategic.

Some dynastic mayors even outspend others, but studies show that it doesn’t lead to real growth or lower poverty. It just means more money is moving around—not necessarily being used well.

The real damage isn’t always loud. It creeps in slowly, until we forget that politics is supposed to be competitive, and leadership is supposed to be earned.

The International Embarrassment

Globally, the Philippines is an outlier. Most functioning democracies have laws in place to stop this kind of dynastic control. Ours has it written in the Constitution—but with no teeth. No enforcement. Just empty words.

Other countries didn’t just talk about it. They acted.
Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan—places that also had strong political families in the past—managed to break the cycle. They passed laws. They fixed their institutions. They cleaned house.

Here, we did the opposite.
We let the same surnames multiply, expand, and anchor themselves deeper into every level of government. And now we’re at a point where nearly 250 families control all 82 provinces. That number isn’t shrinking—it’s growing.

International groups that monitor democracy and governance have noticed. The Philippines keeps showing up in reports about weak political competition and elite capture. And honestly, what else would you expect when almost every major office in this country feels like it’s been handed down, not earned?

This isn’t just embarrassing. It’s dangerous. Because the longer we call this normal, the harder it’ll be to remember what real representation is supposed to look like.

The Maharlika Fund: A Case Study in Dynasty Overreach

If you still think “working hard” is enough to justify keeping dynasties in power, look at how the Maharlika Investment Fund was pushed through.

Martin Romualdez was one of its principal authors. The same Speaker who praises “record productivity” helped fast-track one of the most questioned laws in recent memory. From filing to committee approval, the timeline took just a few days. No serious deliberation. No time for the public to catch up. Just a full-speed sprint to the finish.

The bill was filed at 8 a.m. on November 28, 2022, and by December 1, it was already out of committee. That’s not legislation. That’s bulldozing.

Critics weren’t quiet about it either.
Retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio called it out for being unconstitutional—especially the part where they planned to dip into pension funds for risky investments. Legal experts pointed to flaws, conflicts of interest, and the eerie similarities to Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal.

But none of that stopped it.

And that’s the real problem. When one family controls too much—when their reach extends from legislation to party-lists to leadership positions—they don’t just pass laws. They start to shape the system itself, in their image, with little resistance.

Maharlika isn’t just about money. It’s about power. And how quickly things can move when that power goes unchecked.

What Now?

The next time someone praises a political dynasty by saying “At least they’re working,” ask them this:

Are they working for the country—or just for their name?

Because we’re not paying them for extraordinary service.
We’re paying them to do their jobs.
And doing your job doesn’t give you the right to monopolize power for your family.

That’s the real morning coffee reality about dynasties in the Philippines.

It’s not enough to spot who's doing the work. We need to ask why the same families keep getting all the chances. And more importantly, we need to stop treating family rule as the price we pay for basic governance.

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