Many did not see it coming. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — heir to one of the most enduring political dynasties in the country — has asked Congress to prioritize four landmark reform bills that, if passed, would curb dynasties, restrain corruption, and shake the foundations of Philippine politics.

For a president whose own name is inseparable from dynastic power, the move feels almost paradoxical. Yet he has moved to rebalance political power away from the ruling class and toward citizens through the Anti-Political Dynasty Bill, the Independent People’s Commission Act, reforms to the Party-List System, and the CADENA Act.

The proposed Independent People’s Commission would introduce a powerful new layer of oversight immune to political intimidation. For decades, corruption has thrived not because laws were absent, but because enforcement was weak, selective, or deliberately stalled. Under this framework, ghost projects and questionable fund releases would face immediate and public scrutiny. Subpoenas would follow paper trails. The culture of impunity that has protected wrongdoing would be forced into the open.

Equally consequential is the effort to clean up the party-list system, an institution originally designed to amplify marginalized voices but later captured by political clans and wealthy interests. Reforming it would restore its original purpose. Congressional seats would be occupied by genuine advocates for labor, agriculture, persons with disabilities, senior citizens, and other underrepresented sectors.

The proposed Citizen Access and Disclosure of Expenditures for National Accountability Act or CADENA Act, authored by Sen. Bam Aquino, “will mandate the full disclosure of all government transaction documents through a secure and tamper-proof digital public ledger system, enabling citizens to track how public funds are used.” Also known as the “Blockchain the Budget Act,” it will empower citizens to monitor government spending “down to the last centavo.”

Among these measures, the one on anti-dynasty is the most momentous, having been awaited for nearly four decades. It could end the practice of families monopolizing elective offices across generations and jurisdictions. Elections may no longer be foregone conclusions determined by genealogy. Farmers, teachers, community organizers, and young leaders who have been locked out by machinery and money would finally have a fighting chance to serve.

If finally enacted into an enabling law to implement Article 2, Section 26 of the Philippine Constitution, which provides that “The State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service, and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law,” it can be considered the greatest legacy of President Marcos Jr.

Many Filipinos are exasperated how political families have become more brazen in fielding more candidates. Political families enjoy enormous advantages in winning office because, aside from the traditional “three Gs” — guns, goons, and gold — another powerful factor operates in Philippine elections: bloodline. It provides the strongest grip on political power.

Indeed, the classic description of our political system as an “anarchy of families” still holds true, decades after the phrase was coined by US professor Alfred McCoy who wrote extensively on Philippine political history.

The seeming obsession of many political dynasties to remain in power, combined with the allure of authority after once it has been experienced, has even made it common for members of the same family to challenge one another for the same elective positions.

The issue of political dynasties is merely the tip of a disastrous iceberg that resurfaces in the national consciousness every election season. Beneath it lies the full extent of our electoral dysfunction: patronage politics, corruption, election-related violence, alliances of unprincipled opportunists, vote-buying, fraud, and a host of other ills afflicting our political spectrum.

The late Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago once remarked that of the millions of voters who troop to the polls, “the greater majority are not intelligent, they are not educated for voting, and the candidates they choose are not educated for serving.” If indeed most voters are “not educated” to make a right choice, then a law to implement the ban on dynasties could at least narrow the margin of error in choosing leaders.

Although some political dynasties are perceived to be “benevolent, productive, and nurturing a legacy” and have flourished since American colonial times, most carry a negative connotation among enlightened voters who see them as perpetrators of a vicious cycle whereby power begets wealth and vice versa. Ill-gotten political power begets ill-gotten economic wealth, to put it bluntly.

The best-selling book Why Nations Fail, authored by James Robinson and Daren Acemoglu and endorsed by several Nobel Laureates in economics argues that prosperity requires “inclusive pluralistic political institutions” in which political power is scattered “broadly in society and subject to constraints” on the exercise of such power. In contrast, “extractive political institutions” are doomed to fail because they “concentrate power in the hands of a narrow elite and place few constraints on the exercise of this power.”

Thus, making a fundamental change in our country’s political landscape, through the enactment of the enabling law to curb dynasties and bring about prosperity, could become the greatest legacy of President Marcos Jr. ([email protected])