Supporters gather outside the Manila Hotel on the first day of filing of certificates of candidacy for senators and certificates of nomination of acceptance for partylists on October 1, 2024. Mark Demayo, ABS-CBN NewsMANILA (UPDATED) — The Philippines this week kicked off the 2025 election season with parades of supporters, horse-drawn kalesas, freebies, and other gimmicks that are traditional in the country’s at times festive and at times frenzied polls.

Also returning for the election season — although met with less enthusiasm on social media, comment sections online, and in media — are political dynasties, which Dennis Coronacion of the University of Santo Tomas Department of Political Science said have become increasingly normalized.

“It has become a norm, tanggap na ng ating lipunan (society has learned to accept it),” Coronacion said on Teleradyo Serbisyo on Saturday of families dominating local and national politics. 

“Mas talamak siya, mas marami this time. Wala nang inhibitions,” he also said.

(It is more prevalent, there are more of them this time)

READ: Reelectionists, returnees banner Marcos Jr senatorial slate

More than half of the senatorial candidates of the administration’s Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas, which is composed of the country’s major political parties, are from political families — with four having relatives at the upper chamber.

'NO LAW AGAINST IT'

Speaking of the potential concentration of dynasts at the chamber that he leads, Senate President Francis Escudero said that there is nothing illegal about it and that it is part of democracy.

"Sa dulo, wala naman tayong batas na pumipigil kung sinong nais tumakbo. Wala rin namang limitasyon kung sino ang puwedeng iboto o bawal iboto ng ating mga kababayan sa isang demokrasya, majority always wins," Escudero said this week.

(In the end, we don't have a law preventing anyone from running. There are also no limitations on who our fellow citizens can or cannot vote for in a democracy, where the majority always wins.)

Passing that law was a task assigned to Congress by the 1987 Constitution, which bans political dynasties but left it to legislators to define what they are.

Without that law and despite term limits meant to reform Philippine politics, “dynasties appear to have grown not simply in number (more political clans) but also in heft (many clans have expanded by fielding more family members),” researchers led by former Ateneo School of Government dean Ronald Mendoza wrote in the Asia-Pacific Social Science Review in 2020.

RELATED: Political dynasties banned in BARMM parliament polls

Members of political families have argued that nobody should be barred from running for having relatives in public office because that deprives voters of a full array of choices.

But, Coronacion said, “actually it’s the other way around, since sila nagdo-dominate ng political landscape natin, sila ang nagde-deprive sa mga tao ng choices.”

(Since they dominate the political landscape, it is them who are depriving the people of choices)

Proposals over the years to curb political dynasties have included strengthening political parties by punishing party switching, by making candidate selection more democratic, and by making parties put up programs to train potential leaders who may not have political connections. 

Quizzed on ANC’s Dateline Philippines on the administration slate’s candidates, Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco, the alliance’s campaign manager, said they were picked for their support of the administration’s legislative agenda.

“‘Yung bago is yung Bagong Pilipinas… Magandang kinabukasan na walang naiiwan, so yun yung bago. ‘Yung taong magpapatupad nito o tutulong sa mga programa, hindi naman kailangan bago, 'di ba?” he also said.

(What is ‘new’ is the ‘New Philippines’… A bright future where nobody is left behind. That is what’s new. The people who will implement this or who will help the program, they don’t have to be new faces, right?)

The minority Liberal Party is fielding former Sen. Kiko Pangilinan while former Sen. Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino IV is running under fledgling party Katipunan ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte's Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino is backing Sens. Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa, Christopher "Bong" Go, former actor Philip Salvador and former Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. executive Jimmy Bondoc, who is also a lawyer and singer.

READ: Erwin Tulfo among senatorial candidates on 6th day of COC filing

INFLUENCERS, VLOGGERS AND 'REGULAR FILIPINOS'

The Certificates of Candidacy filing also saw online content creators — including former Duterte official and vlogger Mocha Uson, who is running for Manila city council — seeking election and hoping to leverage online following into votes.

READ: TikTokers, vloggers capitalize on clout, common touch in venture into politics

"Di pa ba tayo sawa sa klase ng politikang meron tayo ngayon?” TikTok political commentator Eli San Fernando said.

(Aren't we all tired of the politics that we have been accustomed to?)

San Fernando, who is a nominee of Kamanggagawa party-list, said current politicians do not know the plight of most Filipinos.  

"Paano natin aasahan na magkakaroon ng makabuluhan, maayos na mga batas at polisiya kung yung mga namumuno sa atin ay hindi naman danas yung buhay ng isang ordinaryong Piilpino," he added.

(How do we expect them to make meaningful laws for us when they don't even experience our hardships?)

Also among the 'ordinary' Filipinos joining politics, although as a substitute nominee for a vendors' party-list, is Diwata, a viral sensation and pares eatery owner whose real name is Deo Balbuena.

At the candidacy filing, Diwata talked about issues faced by street vendors who struggle to raise capital and to lease business spaces to avoid the risk of being caught up in sidewalk-clearing operations.

Diwata's filing of was cheered on by supporters at the Quirino Grandstand, among them Lucila Lacuna Damscao, president of Mutya ng Pasig Mega Market Vendors Federation Inc.

"Supporter po ako kasi vendor ako. Vendors kami sa Pasig. Naiintindihan ko na layunin ng Vendors [party-list] na maunawaan ang problema ng mga vendors," she said.

"Siyempre 'yung mga iligal, kasama rin namin 'yan,” she added, referring to vendors in the informal economy who cannot afford to register and rent their own stalls.

She said she hopes the party-list will be able to help them with their small businesses.

RELATED: Multimillionaire vlogger Rosmar Tan files COC for Manila councilor

PARTY-LIST RACE GETS TIGHTER

But political analyst Edmund Tayao told ANC's Dateline Philippines that the party-list system — put up for sectoral representation at the House — is no longer a venue just for civil society and non-governmental organizations that it used to be.

"Many of the new party-lists are creations of incumbent local political leaders," he said, adding some groups are "out and out creations of local political leaders to expand their hold on elected positions."

As the party-list race also gets tighter, progressive organizations like Akbayan — proclaimed a winning party-list in the 2022 elections only last month — and the party-lists of the Makabayan coalition will jostle for seats alongside the LP's new Mamamayang Liberal party-list while also looking for ways to work together in a political landscape dominated by the administration.

RELATED: Duterte says he has no personal rift with Marcos Jr.,but stresses importance of opposition

In a departure from past attempts at national races, Makabayan is also endorsing an 11-member Senate slate that it says aims to put "taumbayan sa Senado", or the people in the Senate, by having nominees from its sectoral groups run for the Senate as an alternative to what it says are politics dominated by and that cater to the elite. — from reporting by RG Cruz, Jose Miguel Dumaual, and Jauhn Etienne Villaruel, ABS-CBN News