Manila - The horrific massacre of 57 civilians this week in the southern Philippines was a grim reminder of the influence of political families in the country and the perils of breaking from their stranglehold. The main suspect in the November 23 gruesome murders belongs to one of more than 200 political clans that have dominated politics in the Philippines for decades.
Datu Andal Ampatuan Junior was supposed to succeed his father, who has been governor of Maguindanao province, 930 kilometres south of Manila, since 2001. He expected to run unopposed like his father had in previous elections.
But the rival Mangudadatu family, another prominent political clan in the southern Philippines, decided it was time to challenge the Ampatuans' reign in the impoverished province.
Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu, incumbent vice mayor of Buluan town in Maguindanao, sent his wife, two sisters and other female relatives and supporters to file his certificate of candidacy after receiving a threat on his life.
He and his family thought the women, accompanied by dozens of journalists, would not be harmed.
Everyone in the convoy ended up dead, brutally shot to death, some beheaded and mutilated, while the women were mercilessly shot in the genitals and even raped. Some bodies were dumped in mass graves together with crushed vehicles.
While violence has traditionally marred Philippine politics, the unimaginable scale of the massacre in Ampatuan town has raised concerns about the reality that too much power now rests on some political families.
"The shock that we all feel ... is also, and traumatically, the shock of recognition. We realized: This is what happens when power becomes absolute," an editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper said.
All over the Philippines, it is common to see husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and other relatives holding key elective and appointed positions in governments.
National officials and political parties often align themselves with prominent clans in the provinces to ensure local support, especially during elections when everyone turns to the big families to deliver votes.
According to the Center for People Empowerment in Governance, there are about 250 political dynasties active in politics in the Philippines. Many of these families have private armies or the support of armed groups to protect their interests.
"These are the same families who belong to the country's economic elite, some of them acting as rulemakers or patrons of politicians who conspire together to amass greater economic power," the center said in a 2007 study.
Often the families protect their political and economic power at all cost - even resorting to violence against anyone who threatens their position or diminish their influence.
Sometimes, even family members attack each other in their turfs. In 2006, a legislator was assassinated outside a Catholic church in Manila and his cousin, the incumbent governor in their province, was accused of ordering the hit.
While the Philippine constitution prohibits political dynasties, an enabling law that would implement the ban is still pending in Congress, and many of the country's lawmakers oppose it because they too come from political clans.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who herself is a product of an old political clan, as the daughter of late former president Diosdado Macapagal, has criticised the way politics is done in the Philippines.
"Over the years, our political system has degenerated to the extent that it is difficult for anyone to make any headway yet keep his hands clean," she has said. "Perhaps we have strained the present political system to its final limit."
Politicians from prominent clans often defend their continued rule, saying they take care of the people in their turfs.
But the Center for People Empowerment said the proliferation of political dynasties in the Philippines only highlights the "semi-feudal condition in the country, where wealth is accumulated and concentrated in a few families."
"Political dynasties are a product of a society riven by income inequalities and lack of opportunities for the social and economic uplift of the majority of the people," it added. "The more stagnant a rural society is the more entrenched the powers-that-be are."
