Last week, the House of Representatives approved on second reading an anti-dynasty bill that critics say will end up legalizing—rather than penalizing—political dynasties. It was silent on the party-list, meaning that political clan members can continue to be elected to party-list seats, taking their place in the House alongside their relatives serving in Congress and local government posts.

PCIJ examined the backgrounds, legislative records, campaign finance reports, corporate filings, government procurement records, and other public documents linked to 32 party-list representatives with dynastic ties. They comprise more than half of the 64 party list representatives in the 20th Congress. 

We found that rather than broaden spaces for representation, the party-list system has become a safe haven for privileged elites, some of whom are facing serious graft charges. Rather than democratizing political power by providing marginalized sectors representation in Congress, the party list system has become a pillar of dynastic politics. 

Edwin Gardiola is a prime example. Elected to Congress in 2022 to represent the Construction Workers Solidarity Party, he is not a construction worker. Far from it. He is a top flood control contractor and his family runs a construction empire. 

Since 2016, companies owned by his brother Elmer, his wife Judy, and other relatives have secured around ₱40 billion worth of public works contracts. The Commission on Audit has since cited several of these firms for anomalous and overpriced projects in Davao.

More recently, Gardiola was reported to own three California properties worth around ₱1 billion.The Office of the Ombudsman is already conducting lifestyle checks on him even as  he is expanding his political base in his native Batangas, where, in the 2025 elections, his sister Ellery and brother Earel won the mayoral and vice mayoral posts in the town of Mataasnakahoy.

Gardiola is not unique among party-list representatives. Here are our findings.

1. One in four party-list representatives have relatives in either or both houses of Congress.

At least 17 party-list seats in the 20th Congress are in the hands of families whose members are already in the House or the Senate. 

Three of these representatives have family members in both chambers. Rep. Jocelyn Tulfo has a House seat representing the ACT-CIS party while  her husband Raffy  and brother-in-law Erwin are senators. 

Senator Villanueva’s father, religious leader Eddie Villanueva, represents the CIBAC party-list in the House. At the same time, Senator Rodante Marcoleta’s son Paolo has a House seat as representative of the SAGIP party, a position the older Marcoleta held in the previous Congress. 

Joel Villanueva, Rodante Marcoleta, and Erwin Tulfo had all previously served as party-list representatives before moving on to the Senate. 

In the House, Ako Ilocano Ako Rep. Richelle Singson serves with her brother, Ilocos Sur 1st District Rep. Ronald Singson, while her second cousin, Rep. Kristine Singson-Meehan, represents the province’s 2nd District. The Singson clan–often described as a “super-obese” dynasty– has more than 10 members in elective office, including the governorship of Ilocos Sur and the Vigan mayoralty.

In Misamis Occidental, Asenso Pinoy Party-list Rep. Henry Oaminal Jr. sits alongside his brother, 2nd District Rep. Sancho Fernando Oaminal, while their father Henry Oaminal Sr. is provincial governor.

2. Party list representatives extend the power of political families into the third or even fourth generation.

For at least nine party-list representatives, the party-list system served as a launch pad for political dynasties looking to extend their grip on power into three or even four generations.

Kusug Tausug Party-list Rep. Aiman Tan and Kapuso PM Party-list Rep. Munir Arbison Jr. are respectively the fourth- and third-generation politicians from families that have long dominated Sulu politics.

In Davao, the Duterte clan expanded its political reach in the 2025 elections with the entry of  another member from the third generation: PPP Party-list Rep. Harold Duterte, nephew of former President Rodrigo Duterte. The family’s roots in the region stretch back to Vicente Duterte–the ex-president’s father–who served as Davao governor in the 1960s.

Other third-generation Dutertes include Vice President Sara Duterte, Davao City 1st District Rep. Paolo Duterte, 2nd District Rep. Omar Duterte and Mayor Sebastian Duterte.

Meanwhile, the Abalos, Romualdez, and Revilla dynasties sustained their presence in national politics as their third-generation members secured seats through the party-list system. 

3. Lawmaking has become a family affair, with some party list representatives co-authoring bills with relatives who are also in Congress.

Some party-list reps are adept at filing bills, but PCIJ found that nearly all of them were co-written and co-filed with their relatives in the House.

For instance, ABAMIN Party-list Rep. Maximo Rodriguez filed 523 bills and resolutions, more than any other party-list member of the House  – but he wrote 98% of them with his brother, Rep. Rufus Rodriguez. Likewise, Ako Bisaya Rep. Sonny Lagon shared authorship with his wife Rep. Daphne Lagon in 60% of the 27 bills he filed since July last year. 

Some political families appear to use their positions across both party-list and district seats to ease younger relatives into national politics and expand their legislative clout. 

Newcomer Tingog Party-list Rep. Andrew Romualdez filed more than 270 bills and resolutions since July. However, 97% of those measures listed him alongside his parents, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez and Rep. Yedda Romualdez, as principal authors.

This was also the case for Agimat Party-list Rep. Bryan Revilla, many of whose 155 bills were jointly authored with relatives, including his mother, Cavite 2nd District Rep. Lani Mercado-Revilla, and his brother, Cavite 1st District Rep. Jolo Revilla.

None of this breaks the law. But it’s one indication of how the party-list system failed in its promise to accommodate a wider range of causes and voices.

4. Some party-lists rely heavily on votes delivered by family political machines rather than broad-based sectoral constituencies.

The party-list system was built on a simple idea: that Filipinos with the same interests, wherever they live, could unite behind a common cause. But in the 2025 elections, several party-list groups secured House seats by leaning on the local or regional political and patronage machines of dynasties, not their advocacy of causes or sectors.

Galing sa Puso Party-list, for instance, bagged 310,172 votes in Nueva Ecija alone–accounting for 85% of its national vote total–enough to deliver a seat for Rep. Jan Rurik Padiernos, son of the province’s former Vice Governor Jose Gay Padiernos.

Abono Party-list likewise drew overwhelming support from Pangasinan, where about 90% of its votes came from the political base of Rep. Estrella’s family. In Sulu, Kusug Tausug Party-list Rep. Aiman Tan obtained 78% of his party’s votes in the province where his relatives hold key posts, including governor and vice governor.

Similarly, Ako Bisaya Party-list was propelled by powerful political networks in Cebu. Rep. Sonny Lagon’s wife holds the province’s 6th district seat, while the party’s 2nd nominee, Carissa Garcia, is the daughter of former Governor Gwendolyn Garcia. The party gained 73% of its total votes from Cebu, helping secure its entry into the Batasan.

Some party-list groups also appeared to expand their reach by tapping political networks in more than one province.

CWS Party-list secured the bulk of its votes from two provinces—Batangas, the bailiwick of Rep. Gardiola, and Surigao del Sur, the home province of second nominee Melanie Joy Guno, whose father is 1st District Rep. Romeo Momo Sr.

Nanay Party-list followed a similar path. Although Rep. Florabel Yatco-Co received only around 7,000 votes in her home turf of Laguna, the party amassed roughly 200,000 votes in Pampanga alone. The party’s third nominee, Yolanda Miranda Pineda, is the wife of Pampanga Vice Governor Dennis Pineda.

5. Some spend so much on their campaigns, crowding out other party lists who are not as well financed.

On average, party-lists with dynastic ties spent P30.1 million, or about P0.43 per voter during the 2025 election campaign. By contrast, groups without links to political dynasties spent less than half this amount, averaging P13.9 million, or roughly P0.20 per voter.

This financial advantage was also evident among the top campaign spenders: eight of the 10 party-list groups with the largest expenditures were affiliated with political dynasties.

ACT-CIS Party-list emerged as the biggest spender, pouring around P163 million into the campaign to secure the seats of Rep. Jocelyn Tulfo and former Rep. Edvic Yap. Following closely behind was former Rep. Zaldy Co’s Ako Bicol Party-list, which spent P141 million.

After facing allegations involving anomalous public works projects, Co resigned in September 2025 while Yap stepped down as ACT-CIS representative last February. 

Bicol Saro Party-list ranked third in campaign spending, shelling out roughly P117 million. Although Rep. Terry Ridon himself is not linked to a political dynasty, the party-list’s nominees include the wife and children of Camarines Sur Governor Luis Raymund Villafuerte.

FPJ Panday Bayanihan Party-list came next, reporting nearly P98 million in election expenses. The group is represented by Brian Poe-Llamanzares, son of former Sen. Grace Poe. Its second nominee, Mark Lester Patron, belongs to a Batangas political family and was identified as the authorized managing officer of V.R. Patron Builders & Developers Corp. in a 2021 DPWH contract.

Rounding up the top five is Tingog Party-list, with about P91 million in spending. Associated with the Romualdez political family, the group ultimately secured three congressional seats in the last elections.

6. Over time, families and their allies dominate party lists as well as district representatives, making the House of Representatives truly a House of Families.

Political dynasties seized Congress through a potent mix of business ties, command votes, and massive campaign war chests. These advantages helped political clans cement control to more than half of party-lists in the 20th Congress, up from less than one-third over a decade ago.

One way they do this is by passing on a party list seat from one family member to another after their term limits expire. For example, Abono party list representative Robert Estrella temporarily yielded his seat to his brother, current Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III in 2013, before returning to Congress in 2022 to represent Abono. In provinces with only a single congressional district, dynasties turn to party-lists to secure multiple seats in the House.

In Abra, Rep. Bernos won a party-list seat through Solid North party-list while her husband, JB Bernos, retained control of the province’s lone district seat. Similarly, House Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan represents the 4Ps party-list while his son-in-law, Rep. Christopher Sheen Projemo Gonzales, serves as Eastern Samar’s lone district representative.

7. Some party-list representatives have been charged with corruption, malversation and other financial crimes resulting from their involvement in business or politics.

Some party-list representatives have built careers clouded by alleged corruption, mishandling of funds, and other offenses that cast doubt on their integrity and claims of representing the underrepresented. 

In 2017, 4PS Rep. Marcelino Libanan was charged with graft by the Office of the Ombudsman over the alleged misuse of fertilizer funds. However, the Supreme Court granted Libanan’s petition to dismiss the case in 2022, ruling that the Ombudsman’s prolonged investigation violated his right to speedy disposition of cases. 

Libanan also allegedly diverted funds to bogus non-government organizations linked to convicted scam mastermind Jane Lim-Napoles, according to the records of whistleblower Benhur Luy. The lawmaker has represented 4Ps since 2022, a party whose mandate is to represent the poor.

Abono Party-list Rep. Robert Estrella was likewise implicated in the pork barrel scandal, with the lawmaker allegedly receiving kickbacks worth P23 million, according to the National Bureau of Investigation. Abono was supposedly formed to advocate for farmers.

Rep. Rolando Macasaet touted his experience in leading state pension institutions while campaigning for a House seat representing the SSS-GSIS Pensionado party. When he was head of the Social Security System, the Commission on Audit found that the SSS had procured tissue paper worth P13.9 million without sufficient planning and supporting documentation. 

Macasaet was also among the officials of the government-owned Philippine National Construction Corporation who were ordered by the Supreme Court to return excessive bonuses they had received from 2007 to 2010.

Meanwhile, Solid North Rep. Ching Bernos is facing vote-buying charges after an Abra resident alleged that she distributed tumblers with P3,000 in cash to education personnel at a DepEd summit during last year’s campaign.

Can Congress finally end elite capture of the party-list system?

The consolidated anti-dynasty bill, House Bill 8389, which is up for final approval, has been criticized for doing the opposite of its stated purpose— rather than limiting dynasties, it “legalized”  them by allowing family members to hold national and local offices simultaneously.

At both the House and the Senate, anti-dynasty bills now ban only relatives within the second degree—parents, children, siblings and grandparents. The House narrowed its original fourth-degree scope, which would have included first cousins, aunts, and uncles. Party-lists were not mentioned in the House version of the bill at all.

While the Senate’s SB 1901 keeps the second degree limit, it also includes more restrictions on relatives running for the party list, as shown in the table below: 

House minority Reps. Edgar Erice, Leila De Lima and the Makabayan block have withdrawn their support for HB 8389 and progressive groups are floating a People’s Initiative to push for a stronger anti-dynasty law. 

“If we push for a realistic version of it [anti-dynasty law], we might end up sacrificing the effectiveness of the law,” said Atty. Izah Reyes of election watchdog Legal Network for Truthful Elections. “If it is not going to be effective then why pass a law?”

At least 12 bills in Congress propose extending the ban specifically to party-lists. Senator Risa Hontiveros’s SB 1656 would disqualify any party-list nominee related within the fourth degree to an incumbent official, another nominee, or any candidate in the same election. It also bars relatives from inheriting a party-list seat and prohibits government contractors from becoming nominees—a clause that appears in at least eight other reform bills.

Both tracks remain under review. The closest past attempt, in the 16th Congress, faltered before reaching a vote, and the Marcos administration has yet to signal whether it will spend political capital to overcome dynastic resistance this time.—With research from Guinevere Latoza, John Josua Jusi, Job Lozada, and Marty Apuhin

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Eighty percent of the House of Representatives did—257 lawmakers in favor and only 25 against and nine abstaining—making the Vice President the only official to be impeached twice in Philippine history. This resounding vote is way above the 52% of legislators who backed the impeachment of then President Joseph Estrada in 2000.

Last year, 240 congressmen endorsed the vice president’s impeachment but this year’s numbers were boosted by Luzon legislators and party-list groups. Lawmakers from Mindanao, the Duterte bailiwick, maintained strong support for the move. But the vote also showed the strength of Marcos influence in the House, where members of the president’s coalition voted to impeach. 

The public hearings conducted by the House justice panel may have tipped the votes. The hearings scrutinized the evidence supporting the allegations against the vice president: the Anti-Money Laundering Council revealed that Duterte’s flagged bank transactions from 2006 to 2025 had amounted to P6.7 billion. Questions were also raised about the VP’s wealth.

Some key findings based on official tally released by the House:

1) The Marcos influence remains mostly solid in the family’s home turf, the llocos region, with all district representatives backing the VP’s impeachment bid except for the Singsons of Ilocos Sur. This, despite presidential sister Sen. Imee Marcos backing the vice president.

The Singsons cracked the “Solid North.” Last year, all the Singsons backed impeachment but the dynasty’s patriarch Luis “Chavit” Singson has since turned against the President and been vocal in his support of the Duterte presidential bid. His relatives Ilocos Sur Reps. Ronald Singson and Kristine Singson-Meehan did not participate in the vote. His daughter Ako Ilocano Rep. Richelle Singson was the only one who voted against. 

2) Mindanao maintained support for the impeachment, with 41 of the 61 Mindanao district lawmakers voting to impeach the daughter of the country’s first president from the south. This is a slight decrease from last year’s 43.

Most significant is a shift in Davao region, the Dutertes’ bailiwick, where five out of the 11 district lawmakers voted to impeach the vice president. Davao del Sur Rep. John Tracy Cagas was the only district lawmaker from the region who backed the move last year.

Equally significant and an indication of the softening support for the Dutertes is that 12 Mindanao Congress members either abstained or did not participate in the vote, including the presiding officer South Cotabato Rep. Ferdinand Hernandez.

Still, eight Mindanao lawmakers voted against the impeachment, including Duterte’s family members and most vocal allies in the House. They said the impeachment is politically motivated and accused the House leadership of threatening congressmen with budget cuts to their district if they vote against the impeachment.

3) In the Visayas, 42 district lawmakers out of 50 —the same number as last year—endorsed the impeachment.

4) The impeachment highlighted dynastic power in the House, with several representatives abstaining from the vote because they have relatives in the Senate, where the impeachment trial will be held and the senators will sit as judges.

Bukidon Rep. Audrey Zubiri, wife of Sen. Miguel Zubiri, abstained from the impeachment vote so as not to “prejudice” her husband’s judgment once the trial begins. CIBAC Rep. Eddie Villanueva, father of Sen. Joel Villanueva, and Sorsogon Rep. Bernadette Escudero, sister of Sen. Francis Escudero, did not participate in the vote.

Sen. Loren Legarda’s brother Antique Rep. Antonio Legarda Jr. was silent on the vote, too. But her son Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste objected to the impeachment bid on the House floor. SAGIP Rep. Paolo Marcoleta, son of Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, also voted against it.

Relatives of Sens. Erwin and Raffy Tulfo in the lower house, Quezon City Rep. Ralph Tulfo and ACT-CIS Rep. Jocelyn Tulfo, retained their votes in favor of the impeachment. The two House lawmakers backed the move last year.

The Senate, now led by a Duterte-allied majority, has initially slated the trial to begin on July 6. Duterte’s lawyers have said that they are “fully prepared to defend” the vice president.

Duterte is facing allegations of confidential funds misuse, unexplained wealth, bribery, and assassination threats against President Marcos. A conviction by the Senate would disqualify the vice president from running for public office.

In June last year, in the aftermath of the first impeachment of Duterte, a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations found that six out of 10 Filipinos want the vice president to address allegations against her at the Senate.

But no trial happened in 2025 because the Senate returned the articles of impeachment to the House. The Supreme Court also struck down its validity due to technical issues.—with research from Christian Chua.

Editor’s Note: We corrected the relations of former Ilocos Sur Governor Luis “Chavit” Singson with the Singsons who are currently House members.

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On Baguio’s steep roads, the exhaust is at its worst on the climb. Lawrence Raymundo, 32, knows this well enough that he distances himself from the vehicle in front of him.

Raymundo has spent a decade behind the wheel in the highland city. First as a company driver, then a taxi driver, a delivery truck driver, and just this year, as a jeepney driver.

He said he developed asthma after moving to Baguio from La Union.

“Ang ginagawa na lang minsan… ‘yung tatakip na lang ng ilong kasi lumalala ‘yung asthma ko. (What I do sometimes is I just cover my nose because my asthma might be triggered),” Raymundo said.

He tries to ease the strain by driving slowly uphill, but the smoke still seeps in.

“Dinadahan-dahan ko na lang lalo na po ‘pag akyatan [para] hindi mapunta sa akin ‘yung usok. At saka lalong-lalo na doon sa mga pasahero rin. Nakukulong dito sa loob ng jeep iyong usok,” Raymundo said.

(I just drive slowly, especially when climbing steep roads, so that the exhaust does not reach me and, especially, my passengers as well. The smoke could get trapped inside the jeep.)

Raymundo is one of the 2,000 jeepney drivers regularly exposed to Baguio’s air pollution. In the first part of this investigation, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism showed that Baguio’s air repeatedly reaches unhealthy levels, falling short of global health standards even as the city markets itself as a health sanctuary.

In this second part, PCIJ finds that the people among the most exposed—the drivers who keep the city moving—are left to manage that risk on their own.

Everyone points to the same answer: cleaner emissions. 

The environment department sets the standards that lag behind what the World Health Organization considers safe, the transportation agencies run a modernization program that drivers still cannot afford to join, and the city government tries to patch what it can.

But no one owns the problem, and the drivers are left to breathe polluted air.

Inhaling toxic fumes as ‘part of the job’

Wilson Bumay-et Jr., a jeepney driver and operator and the president of the Baguio-Benguet Jeepney Federation, said that exposure to air pollution barely registers as a concern for jeepney drivers. Survival does.

“Kasi ang driver natin, wala ‘yon sa kaisipan nila eh. Basta ang sa kanila, mag-drive and then ‘yong kikitain. ‘Yun ang iniisip nila,” Bumay-et said. (Because our drivers, they do not think about air pollution. For them, what matters is driving and earning.)

Some drivers, he said, have become accustomed to wearing surgical face masks because of the pandemic.

“‘Yung sa usok, mapapansin lang nila pag naka-face mask sila and then pag-uuwi na sila ng gabi, ‘Bakit ang itim ng face mask?’ Doon lang sila naba-bother,” said Bumay-et, who added he experienced it firsthand as well.

(For the smoke, they will only notice that when they wear a face mask and come home at night, and ask, “Why is my face mask tinted black?” That’s the only time it bothers them.)

As president of a jeepney federation, Bumay-et said that he reminds the drivers to wear face masks when they can, sometimes handing out surgical masks himself.

“Sa aming mga drivers, parang nakasanayan na namin na parang kahit mausok ‘yon, malanghap na mabahong usok ng sasakyan. Kasi ‘yun nga ang trabaho—talagang parte ng trabaho. Para maiwasan, gumamit na lang tayo ng face mask.” 

(For us drivers, we are used to inhaling exhaust from vehicles. Because that is the job—it’s really part of the job. So to avoid it, let’s just wear face masks.”

Epidemiologist Dr. John Wong said, however, that the burden should not fall on the drivers. In occupational health, hazards are addressed in this order: first by engineering them out, then through administrative controls like reducing exposure hours or improving terminal ventilation. Masks come last.

But Wong acknowledged that it is difficult to reduce drivers’ hours on the road as their earnings depend on them.

“If you use PPE (personal protective equipment), use it only as a last resort—and temporarily—until you can fix the engineering. Also, it can be expensive if every day they (jeepney drivers) have to buy, considering their very small margins,” Wong said.

“So if it helps them, they should be encouraged to use it. But we shouldn’t put the burden on them,” he added.

The city’s response: ‘Reverse Baguio’s urban decay’

At its worst, Baguio was the country’s most polluted city, but by 2023, it recorded lower fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels than most Metro Manila cities. Behind that turnaround was a years-long effort by the city government to reverse what it calls “urban decay.” 

When a 2019 study confirmed Baguio had already breached its urban carrying capacity—its roads, water, and other systems overwhelmed by decades of unchecked growth—the city government began taking action.

The Department of Economy, Planning, and Development study came at a time when former president Rodrigo Duterte had just closed down Boracay Island for six months due to what he referred to as “cesspool” conditions. Baguio was among the top tourism sites that the environmental department said needed rehabilitation next.

Unlike Boracay, Baguio would be impossible to close as it is a government center, an education hub, and the gateway to the Cordilleras.

Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong took office that year with air quality among the city’s stated environmental concerns.

“Wag tayong masaktan ‘pag sinasabi nila na ang Baguio, nag-urban decay. Aminin natin. Kasi doon ka pa lang makakagawa ng tunay na solusyon kung inaamin mo ‘yung problem,” said Rhenan Diwas, Baguio City Environment and Parks Management Office head.

(Let’s not be hurt when they say that Baguio is undergoing urban decay. Let’s admit it. Because once you admit that there is a problem, that’s when you will be able to work on a solution.)

The city expanded roadside emissions inspections and tightened enforcement of zoning rules. It introduced pedestrian-priority streets and began developing satellite parks in outlying barangays to ease pressure on the city center.

His office also formulated a forest management plan as part of a larger effort to create carbon sinks in the city, noting that pine trees are actually carbon contributors rather than absorbers.

Officials also rolled out traffic rerouting schemes that help reduce the strain on engines climbing steep roads, though Diwas said it is imperfect on Baguio’s winding terrain.

“Our goal is net zero [emissions]. Of course, what we’re doing right now will not entirely solve the problem, but at least we are able to mitigate it. One step at a time,” Diwas said.

The city is also trying to improve how it measures the problem. Smart poles installed across local roads now function as streetlights, CCTV cameras, and air quality monitors, feeding real-time data into a central command system. But these poles track overall air quality indices, not the more precise concentrations of PM2.5.

On the ground, the jeepney drivers PCIJ spoke with said the city has stepped up engagement, particularly to help them avoid fines. Some now clean their exhaust pipes before voluntary inspections to reduce visible soot, though “cleaner” smoke does not necessarily mean cleaner emissions.

Asked whether the city’s standards for the roadside inspections are enough, Diwas instead pointed to the modernization of public transport as one way to address the emissions problem.

In January, the city government signed a public-private partnership with Megawide Construction Corporation to build an integrated transport terminal for incoming vehicles. Megawide built and managed the Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange, the country’s first intermodal transport hub.

The Baguio City Integrated Terminal, which would sit four kilometers from the town proper and with a planned shuttle service into the city center, is aimed at reducing vehicle congestion.

Seven years after taking office, Magalong is in his penultimate year. Air pollution levels have not returned to their 2010 peak and 2023 figures are lower than pre-pandemic averages.

But Diwas says the timeline for meaningful change extends far beyond a single administration.

“If we don’t do anything by 2043, urban decay will become irreversible. All our efforts now are towards curbing that urban decay. So that by 2043, we will be a livable city,” said Diwas.

Public transport modernization and its limits 

In 2019, the “pursuit” of the public utility vehicle (PUV) modernization program was among the projects listed as solutions to fixing traffic in Baguio.

The program, pushed by the national government since 2017, requires public transport units to meet the cleaner Euro-4-compliant standards for public transport—a shift both Diwas and Environmental Management Bureau Regional Director Jean Borromeo say is necessary to significantly cut pollution.

The modernization program aims to replace PUVs older than 15 years to comply with environmental safety standards, though this has stalled given pushback from the sector. Modern jeepneys have a price tag of at least P2.8 million.

For Baguio drivers, the transition remains financially out of reach.

Bumay-et and Archie Loyosen, both jeepney federation presidents, said that if the government would give subsidies of at least P1 million (US$16,000) per driver, then it would make the shift workable.

“May kabutihan rin yung modernization actually eh. Kaso ‘yong pag-substitute ng units, ‘yon, doon tayo nagkakaproblema. (Modernization has its advantages, actually. But the substitution of units, that’s where we have a problem),” Bumay-et said.

The drivers are also proposing a different approach: retrofitting existing jeepneys with cleaner engines.

“Puwede namang i-remedy, palitan ng mga bagong makina kahit Euro-6.… ’Yon ang dapat na gawin o i-push ng LTFRB (Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board) na mangyari para mas maka-adopt,” Loyosen said.

(We can just remedy that by replacing it with new engines that are Euro-6-compliant. That’s what the LTFRB should do or push for so that more drivers can adopt.)

The idea has also been raised by advocates and industry players. Local jeepney manufacturer Sarao Motors said in January that retrofitting could be a more viable option and is studying its potential costs to present to transport authorities.

Full replacement requires loans and significantly higher daily earnings to pay for new units, which Bumay-et said is difficult to meet, especially for shorter routes earning less. He also pointed out that buying modern jeepneys is even more impossible for most drivers right now amid elevated fuel costs.

Loyosen said that while their group has bought modern units, its drivers, even operators, could not afford to follow.

It remains unclear whether regulators would allow such modifications at scale.

In 2017, former LTFRB chairman Martin Delgra III said that achieving Euro-4 compliance is not just about replacing engines, adding that it is not a “holistic rehabilitation.”

A 2017 study by Clean Air Asia also noted that changing the engines is not advisable. The report said that Euro-4 technology is “significantly more complicated to be retrofitted to existing units,” which may result in costs and operational issues.

Asked about the Department of Transportation’s (DOTr) current stance on this proposal, Secretary Giovanni Lopez told PCIJ that it is worth looking into.

“Give me some time to personally study this. But the swapping sounds sensible. I’m not a mechanical engineer though, so let me have a look into it,” Lopez said.

Lopez was designated acting transportation chief in September 2025. Prior to this, he held senior positions in the DOTr, overseeing finance and major infrastructure projects, and previously served as the head of the Land Transportation Office.

When the city warms

Baguio’s appeal is its cool air. Climate change is putting that appeal—and the city’s already strained lungs—under new pressure.

As temperatures rise globally, this dynamic is likely to intensify. Warmer conditions could deepen thermal inversions, where warm air above acts as a lid on cooler, pollution-laden air below.

In a city already sitting on a plateau surrounded by taller peaks that block horizontal dispersal, those inversions compound what the roads already produce.

As lowland temperatures rise, more people might seek the cool. More tourists could mean more vehicles on the roads.

But for drivers like Nathaniel Pepin, pine trees were a thing of the past: before the condominiums, the traffic, before tourists started coming in numbers the city was never built to hold.

Asked what he thinks should be done, he doesn’t mention standards, enforcement, or electric vehicles. He talks about keeping the engine clean and making sure the exhaust passes the smoke test. Things that are under his power to control.

“Parang mas maganda na lang na sa kondisyon na lang sasakyan bumawi. Para, at least, kahit kaunti, mabawasan ‘yong usok ng mga sasakyan,” Pepin said.

(It seems like it would be better if the vehicles were in good condition instead. So that, at least, even for a bit, smoke from the vehicles would be reduced.)

Reporting for this story was supported by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and is part of Following the Fumes: A Cross-Border Report on Under-Reported Air Pollution Stories in Asia.

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At 1,500 meters above sea level, the air changes. The fog moves in through the pine trees, and the cold bites the skin. This is Baguio, the Philippines’ summer capital, the city that has sold itself on the promise of clean mountain air.

More than a million tourists make the climb every year to escape the heat and the smog of the lowlands. What many do not know is that the air waiting for them could be as dangerous—if not more dangerous—than the one they left behind.

For Baguio is, at times, possibly the Philippines’ most polluted city.

Nathaniel Pepin, 32, has been driving jeepneys through these winding roads for nearly a decade. He remembers when the city smelled like its postcards.

“Dati talaga naamoy mo ‘yung pine tree. Pero ngayon, hindi na. Halos usok na talaga ‘yung naaamoy. (Before, you could really smell the pine trees. Now you can’t. What you smell is exhaust),” Pepin said. 

For eight to twelve hours a day, Pepin and 2,000 other jeepney drivers navigate the northern Philippine city that is slowly losing its ability to breathe.

The city government knows this, but tourism is among Baguio’s key economic drivers.

When tourism hit an all-time low after pandemic lockdowns, the city launched a tourism campaign, “Breathe Baguio,” aimed at marketing the mountain city as a health sanctuary, banking on its natural attractions and the cool weather.

But those who work its roads are caught in a paradox—the very geography that keeps Baguio so cool may also act as a trap, limiting where toxic emissions may go.

Satellite-derived data analyzed by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism shows that even as Baguio’s air quality improved since its worst years, vehicle emissions have kept it in a persistently precarious state, threatening the health of the people who keep the city moving. In the second part of this investigation, PCIJ asks who bears that burden and who is accountable for a problem that neither the national nor local government has truly solved.

During this year’s Holy Week, March 29 to April 5, Baguio City’s air quality breached “unhealthy” levels multiple times according to the environment department’s air quality monitoring, and was more than twice the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 24-hour exposure guidelines to fine particle pollution.

Despite showing improvement compared to pre-pandemic averages, fine particulate matter in Baguio small enough to enter the bloodstream remains at four times a separate WHO benchmark—the annual safe limit that the Philippines has yet to adopt. 

This puts Pepin and the thousands of drivers like him, who spend their days on its roads, at a higher risk than the general population.

25 years of bad air

Baguio’s air has never met the WHO’s annual safety standard—not even once in 25 years.

Using remote sensing, atmospheric modelling, and ground-based sources, researchers from the Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group (ACAG) at Washington University in St. Louis have estimated global pollution levels going back decades. 

Among what is being tracked is fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, called PM2.5. Too small to see, these toxic particles, largely produced by burning fuel and other combustion sources, penetrate deep into the lungs and can pass into the bloodstream.

Their estimates show that Baguio’s annual PM2.5 concentrations have not fallen below the WHO’s annual safe limit since 1998. Between that year and 2023, Baguio averaged 25.15 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3), or five times the WHO threshold of 5 μg/m³ annually, which is the final safety guideline. 

The Philippines uses a far more lenient standard than WHO’s. (See sidebar: Measuring Baguio’s Air) 

At its worst, in 2010, Baguio was the most polluted city in the country.

Rhenan Diwas, head of Baguio City Environment and Parks Management Office, attributes this peak to the land conversion boom in the city: the transformation of green to grey, the rise of condominiums, and the conversion of residential land to commercial use.

Even during the pandemic lockdowns, when traffic vanished and air pollution fell to a record low of 15.51 μg/m3 in 2020, the air remained three times the global threshold. 

Since then, concentrations have been creeping back up, reaching 22.84 μg/m3 in 2023, though still below the city’s pre-pandemic average of 26.17 μg/m3.

In 2023, Baguio recorded lower PM2.5 concentrations than most cities in Metro Manila, a shift that Diwas said could be due to stricter zoning enforcement and roadside emissions testing, where drivers are fined and vehicles might be taken off the road if their exhaust appears black. 

Reading the air up close

Satellite-derived data like ACAG’s estimates may show the long view. But ground stations offer high-accuracy measurements at specific local points, directly at the breathing level.

Environment regulators had long relied on a manual system that exposed paper filters for 24 hours, then weighed them to measure fine particulate matter in the air.

But in April 2025, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Monitoring Board (DENR-EMB) in the Cordilleras launched a continuous air quality monitoring station at Burnham Park—the region’s first official real-time sensor—with readings updated every 15 minutes on a public portal.

One year of readings, from April 11, 2025 to April 5, 2026, recorded an average PM2.5 concentration of 14.41 μg/m3. It is well within the Philippines’ AQI of “good,” but about three times the WHO annual guideline.

The worst single day was New Year’s Day, when concentrations spiked at 73.23 μg/m3. Jean Borromeo, the officer-in-charge of the DENR-EMB Cordillera, attributed this peak to firecracker use.

But outside the expected peak brought by New Year festivities, PM2.5 concentrations began bordering and crossing into unhealthy territory during the days leading to Holy Week and the December holidays. 

This period is what experts and officials say is linked to the surge of tourists into the city. 

Baguio receives over a million tourists annually. The tourism department recorded about 118,000 visitors in the final two weeks of 2025 alone.

Measured against the WHO’s 24-hour exposure guideline of 15 μg/m3, which should not be exceeded more than three to four times a year, Baguio’s air crossed that threshold two out of every five days between April 2025 and 2026.

Borromeo said Baguio’s readings are “mostly good and fair,” following the country’s standards. 

Yet the city had already hit the WHO’s allowance in just the first week of monitoring when the new station launched.

When asked about the gap between the Philippine AQI’s “good” at 25 μg/m3 and the WHO’s final guideline at 5 μg/m3 per year, Borromeo responded, “We just follow WHO.”

The Philippine standards align with the WHO’s least stringent interim target, which is five times less strict than the final guideline.

But environmental group Greenpeace Philippines had said the country’s current standards are not enough.

“[I]n the Philippines, air pollution is still left unchecked. There is a lack of data on how bad the problem is because of the outdated air quality standards and the lack of adequate air pollution monitoring systems,” it said in a statement in 2023.

A city choking on its own success

The volume of vehicles compounds the problem. Baguio’s streets were designed for 20,000 vehicles, which was breached as early as 1988, according to a 2019 study by the now Department of Economy, Planning, and Development.

Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong has said the city has 59,000 registered vehicles, with an additional 28,000 vehicles passing through daily.

City environment chief Diwas also said the mountain city has a resident population of 360,000, which nearly doubles during the day.

Those numbers come at a cost.

International air quality monitoring group Clean Air Asia, which partnered with the city government, found that road emissions dominate Baguio’s pollution profile: 94% of criteria air pollutants and 24% of climate pollutants come from the transport sector.

Clean Air Asia found that jeepneys are the leading source of carbon dioxide emissions. UV Express units contribute most of the particulate matter and black carbon, while motorcycles emit large amounts of non-methane volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide. Buses, meanwhile, are the main source of sulfur dioxide.

But it is not just the volume of vehicles. Baguio’s geography is working against it too. 

Experts like Dymphna Javier, a professor at the University of the Philippines Baguio and former dean of its College of Science, explained the city’s cool climate makes thermal inversion more likely–a phenomenon that acts like a kind of lid where warm air above traps cooler, pollution-laden air close to the ground, preventing it from dispersing upward. The inversion typically breaks after sunrise, when the sunlight heats the ground.

Sitting on a plateau surrounded by higher peaks, the city also has little room for pollutants to escape horizontally.

In effect, the city holds its own pollution in place until rain washes it down or a shift in wind direction provides an escape.

Breathing it in

Air pollution is often called a “silent killer.” In 2023, it was the second leading risk factor for early death globally, linked to one in eight deaths, according to the State of Global Air Report.

Long-term exposure to PM2.5 is associated with heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and lung damage. Children face impaired lung development, while older adults face increased risks of neurodegenerative disease and dementia.

In Baguio, the latest city-level State of Global Air Report data showed that an estimated 130 people died from air pollution-related causes in 2019. Because these deaths are difficult to attribute directly, scientists estimate the number could be as high as 191—nearly four lives lost each week.

The risks are even higher for those most exposed—jeepney drivers, whose open-air vehicles and long shifts of 10 to 12 hours on congested roads leave them continuously breathing the exhaust around them.

A 2023 study by the Manila Observatory tracked jeepney drivers in Quezon City using portable air sensors. Over 10 to 12-hour shifts, drivers were exposed to PM2.5 levels averaging 36.4 μg/m3.

This number is twice the average exposure of the general public and seven times higher than the WHO annual guideline, said Maria Obiminda Cambaliza, a research scientist at the Manila Observatory and former chairperson of the physics department at the Ateneo de Manila University.

Compared to the Philippines’ standards, the Quezon City jeepney drivers’ exposure is already classified as unhealthy.

Peak exposure recorded in the study exceeded 90 μg/m3, falling under the country’s “emergency” category.

She said the highest readings occurred near a shopping mall, at transport terminals, and at intersections where vehicles idled. The study also recorded elevated heart rates from drivers during the morning rush hour and when PM2.5 concentrations are high.

While conducted in Metro Manila, the findings offer a window into conditions faced by drivers elsewhere.

Archie Loyosen, 67, has been a jeepney driver and operator for almost 30 years. He describes the air now as polluted.

“Wala na ‘yung mga pine trees. Naputol, pinalitan na ng mga bahay at dumami na ang mga sasakyan. Kaya nadaragdagan na ng usok sa hangin. Parang, imbis na fresh na fresh, may kasamang mga usok,” said Loyosen, who is also the president of CABPHSJODA or Campo Sioco, BGH Compound, Balsigan, Philam, Happy Homes Jeepney Operators Drivers Association.

(We don’t have that many pine trees anymore. They were cut down, replaced by houses, plus there are more vehicles. That’s why there is more exhaust in the air. Instead of the air being fresh, it has smoke with it.)

Dr. John Wong, an epidemiologist and president of public health research firm EpiMetrics, said that drivers in Baguio could have a parallel experience, if not worse. Wong also contributed to the Quezon City jeepney driver study. 

“In some cases, Baguio could be worse. Steep inclines cause more exhaust. There’s also the topography of the city, which might actually be making it worse,” said Wong.

The upshot is this: The people most exposed—the drivers who keep the city moving—are left to manage the health risks on their own. Everyone points to the same culprit: emissions. But no one owns the problem, and the drivers are left to breathe polluted air.

More in Part 2: Baguio’s jeepney drivers are paying the cost of bad air.

Reporting for this story was supported by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and is part of Following the Fumes: A Cross-Border Report on Under-Reported Air Pollution Stories in Asia.

SIDEBAR

The standard

The current global threshold for particulates—5 μg/m³ annually—is not the standard used by the Philippines.

The Department of the Environment and Natural Resources, which introduced PM2.5 guidelines only in 2013, established the Air Quality Index breakpoints in 2020. It set the limit of up to 25 μg/m3 as “good” and up to 35 μg/m3 as “fair.” Beyond that is unhealthy territory.

This appears to be in line with the interim targets that WHO introduced as “stepping stones” for highly polluted regions still working toward the final safety guideline, with 35 μg/m3 as the least stringent. The final safety guideline was previously set at 10 μg/m3, then it was tightened to 5 μg/m3 in 2021—a year after the Philippines set its AQI.

The 2010 peak 

In 2010, Baguio’s PM2.5 concentration peaked at 46.45 μg/m3—the highest recorded that year among all cities and municipalities—and was considered “very unhealthy” under Philippine standards. Neighboring La Trinidad recorded the second highest at 37.5 μg/m3, followed by San Juan City in Metro Manila at 30.93 μg/m3.

What’s polluting the air

Criteria air pollutants, such as particle pollution, ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide, are directly linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Climate pollutants, or superpollutants, including methane, black carbon, and ozone, contribute to warming temperatures while 

Where the air quality is worse

Pollution in Baguio is not spread evenly across the city.

The city is closely monitoring four critical hotspots identified through the city’s own air quality devices: Bokawkan Road, University of the Philippines Drive, Leonard Wood Road, and Veterans Park along Harrison Road—streets with uphill stretches where drivers tend to accelerate to climb.

Diwas of the city’s environment office explains that the difference is due to the terrain—driving uphill causes more emissions. He recommends a careful study of how public transport routes can be rethought to lessen vehicle emissions.

The post In Baguio, the air that draws crowds isn’t as clean as it seems appeared first on PCIJ.org.

Monday’s drama in the Senate was surprising only for its theatrics—a leadership coup in the afternoon, a fugitive senator hiding in the chamber’s inner recesses by early evening, and law enforcers kept at bay by closed doors and barbed wire. 

The Senate has long been the place where senators charged with serious crimes elsewhere have managed to keep their seats. PCIJ research shows that all but a few members of the current chamber have faced charges or investigations at the Ombudsman, the Sandiganbayan, the justice department, the courts, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and now also the International Criminal Court. 

Our list of charges against senators (see table) includes a few frivolous or unsubstantiated accusations, but nearly all of them are serious enough to warrant more thorough scrutiny. 

In a few instances, the Senate itself has helped trigger those investigations—like in 2014 when 13 senators signed a blue ribbon committee report that recommended plunder charges against three members of the Upper House. More recently,  the flood-control hearings by the blue ribbon committee headed by Senator Panfilo Lacson have produced testimony now driving Ombudsman probes of three sitting senators. Lacson’s findings, however, are not an official committee report, having gotten only seven of the nine signatures needed to pass in committee; a partial report was instead submitted this week to the Ombudsman. 

Holding senators to account has been challenging. On Monday, the new Senate leadership shielded Senator Ronald dela Rosa from an unsealed ICC warrant. Can the new Senate majority—many of whom are themselves being investigated—hold the impeached Vice President Sara Duterte accountable? 

Consider this:

1) Eleven of the 13 senators behind Monday’s Senate coup are facing active or unresolved investigations. Six of them—Jinggoy Estrada, Chiz Escudero, Joel Villanueva, Mark Villar, Camille Villar, and Bong Go—are tied to ongoing flood-control corruption probes. The coalition currently behind Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano is based as much on legal vulnerability as by political alignment with Vice President Duterte—and the two are connected.

2) The charges against all but a handful of senators span every administration since martial law, indicating that the problem is not attributable to any political faction or form of government. They show the persistence of the Philippine political elite’s entanglement in both state violence and corruption.

3) Senators have largely emerged unscathed from the charges due to political connections, timing, and a justice system that is marked by long delays and a tendency to produce outcomes favorable to the powerful. The senators most likely to vote for acquitting Vice President Duterte are also those whose own legal exposure most closely mirrors hers: unexplained wealth and misuse of public funds. 

4) The Senate, which will judge the Vice President, embodies the accountability gap her impeachment is meant to address. By placing dela Rosa under protective custody, the new majority has signaled how it intends to handle the impeachment trial.—PCIJ.org

The post The Senate’s accountability gap in 4 points appeared first on PCIJ.org.

Why it matters: When a foreign embassy’s narrative attacks are amplified by weaponized inauthentic networks, it signals a sophisticated level of interference designed to drown out the truth and leave the public confused about what is real.

For context: This targeted digital assault on the PCIJ unfolded while the Chinese Embassy in Manila was already leveraging its official Facebook platform to reshape the narrative about the Philippines’ sovereign claims over the West Philippine Sea and delegitimize the landmark 2016 Arbitral Ruling.

• In January 2026, a report detailed the embassy’s shift toward a more combative social media strategy, releasing consecutive statements to attack Philippine officials and defend Beijing’s maritime actions.
• A separate analysis detailed how the embassy was actively waging “public opinion warfare on Facebook,” cultivating a digital ecosystem designed to amplify pro-Beijing sentiments and push back against the arbitral ruling.
• In October 2025, the PCIJ published a guide on identifying pro-China propaganda, which was rereleased as a viral social media video on Feb. 21, 2026.
• A few days later, the Chinese Embassy retaliated through a series of Facebook posts accusing the PCIJ of being a “tool” for the United States.
• The embassy specifically targeted the PCIJ’s funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to question the watchdog’s editorial independence.

READ: Have you come across pro-China propaganda? Here are 5 ways to find out.

What we found: In response, PCIJ tracked the engagement garnered by the Chinese Embassy’s post and uncovered a coordinated network of local partisans who moved quickly to amplify the narrative.

• The embassy’s post, published just before midnight on Feb. 25, was immediately picked up and shared by prominent pro-Duterte content creators within minutes.
• These primary “spreaders” included well-known pro-Duterte influencers such as Elizabeth Joie Cruz who goes by online as Joie De Vivre, Anna Malindog-Uy, Mark Anthony Lopez, Tio Moreno and Richard Poon who provided the initial spark for the narrative to go viral. 
• While most Filipinos were asleep, 107 accounts with a combined reach of nearly 3 million followers shared the embassy’s attack within a two-hour window.
• This coordinated early-morning surge ensured the anti-PCIJ narrative was already widespread in the information ecosystem by the time users woke up.

By the numbers: Data compiled by Democracy.Net.PH reveals that a significant portion of the engagement surrounding the embassy’s attacks originated from accounts with a high probability of being fake.

• Analysts examined and evaluated the behavior of more than 640 unique Facebook accounts and found 219 accounts showed medium to high likelihood of being inauthentic.
• These accounts had suspicious usernames, mismatches between URLs and names, few original media and exhibited erratic bursts of activity between long periods of dormancy. 
• From 21.4% to 34.6% of the accounts commenting on five Chinese Embassy anti-PCIJ posts were flagged as having high inauthenticity signals.
• Inauthenticity was not limited to comments. Suspicious accounts also made up from 9% to 25% of the users sharing the embassy’s posts to wider audiences.
• The campaign was sustained over a month, with the March 11 post seeing the highest concentration of activity from dubious accounts.

Zoom in: A closer inspection of the flagged profiles reveals the anatomy of a coordinated network relying on automation and low-effort amplification.

• Many flagged profiles function strictly as “single-purpose accounts” existing almost exclusively to push heavily partisan political narratives.
• Profiles were caught posting 24/7 and at “inhuman hours” or firing off content with impossible one-minute gaps, heavily implying the use of bots or organized shift work.
• The network relied on generic, low-quality comments to boost the embassy’s posts. To appear legitimate, some accounts interspersed these attacks with random fluff, such as inspirational or religious quotes.
• These digital personas consistently lacked original photos of friends and family, instead hiding behind blank default photos, AI-generated portraits, generic memes, or stolen stock images

The narratives: The coordinated network systematically parroted the Chinese Embassy’s talking points.

• The network repeatedly echoed the embassy’s assertions that PCIJ’s journalism is biased, one-sided, and anti-China.
• This attack eventually expanded to, sans evidence, accuse PCIJ of colluding with other media welfare and investigative watchdog organizations, such as the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and Reporters Without Borders, to orchestrate an anti-China smear campaign.
• The analyzed inauthentic accounts actively reinforced these talking points in the comment sections, with data showing their sentiment overwhelmingly favored the pro-embassy narrative across multiple posts.
• Despite this overarching trend, the data also revealed that just over 20 of the 128 accounts flagged for high inauthenticity actually posted comments against the Chinese Embassy.

However: The core narrative and the strategy used to amplify it fall apart under basic scrutiny, relying entirely on a recycled playbook.

• In 2019, Manila Times columnist Rigoberto Tiglao said U.S.-funded media violated the Constitution and are “tools to advance US hegemony over Filipino consciousness.” This attack is straight from the playbook of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who accused foreign-funded NGOs of being “foreign agents” and then shuttered most of them.  The Putin playbook — aimed at crushing critical voices and silencing civil society – has been used in Hungary, Brazil, India, and other places. Now China is using it, too.
• Investigative reporting is time consuming and resource incentive. But it is a public good, holding institutions accountable, and so needs to be subsidized by philanthropic or public funds. In more than 100 countries, investigative reporting gets philanthropic support, mostly from overseas donors. PCIJ has described its donor-based funding model countless times; there’s no basis to the accusation it’s a covert foreign operation. 
• Weaponizing foreign funding to discredit news organizations is a well-worn strategy used by state actors to distract the public when their own actions are exposed. China frequently discredits critics by framing their dissent as a product of “foreign hostile forces” rather than genuine domestic concern. By labeling protest movements in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, human rights lawyers, and social activists as “puppets” or “black hands” of the West, Beijing characterizes advocacy for reform as a geopolitical strategy to destabilize the country. This narrative allows the Beijing to delegitimize opposition and justify crackdowns under the guise of protecting national sovereignty
• In 2024, after Philippine newsroom PressOne.PH exposed Chinese state media China Daily’s use of AI in influence efforts, the state outlet retaliated by attacking PressOne.PH over its ties to Internews, and later lobbed the same accusations at U.S. network CNN when it picked up on the investigation.

What this does: This coordinated harassment campaign extends beyond a single newsroom, threatening the broader integrity of the Philippine information space.

• The artificial surge in engagement is designed to make the Chinese Embassy’s narratives appear more popular and widely accepted by Filipinos than they actually are, muddying the waters for everyday social media users.
• Utilizing local pro-Duterte influencers and fake accounts allows foreign entities to disguise state-sponsored attacks as organic, homegrown outrage, bypassing the natural skepticism people have toward official embassy statements.
• By weaponizing troll networks against investigative journalists, foreign actors can also chill local media and discourage future reporting on sensitive topics like the West Philippine Sea and covert influence operations.
• For Center for Information Resilience and Integrity Studies Executive Director André Del Rosario, the attack was a deliberate strike against “media literacy and counter-FIMI education” efforts meant to arm citizens.
• “The target itself is significant,” Del Rosario said, “Attacking journalism about propaganda reveals the strategic intent to erode information-integrity capacity, not just defend China’s image.”

The bottom line: The frontline of the West Philippine Sea dispute has shifted from the ocean to manipulated algorithms, where foreign actors use fake networks to wage a battle for Philippine sovereignty directly on the screens of everyday Filipinos before they even get out of bed. With reports from Carlos Nazareno, Democracy.net.ph

The post Fake Facebook accounts bolster Chinese Embassy attacks vs PCIJ appeared first on PCIJ.org.

Day 3: Building IJ Culture and Resilience Amid Pressures and Change

The post PHOTO GALLERY: #IJPH2025 Day 3 appeared first on PCIJ.org.

Leveraging AI for IJ

The post PHOTO GALLERY: #IJPH2025 Day 2 appeared first on PCIJ.org.

OPENING PROGRAM AND PLENARY SESSION 1: Holding Power to Account

Photos by Cindy Aquino for PCIJ

The post PHOTO GALLERY: #IJPH2025 Day 1 appeared first on PCIJ.org.

Nearly 40 years ago, the framers of the post-Marcos constitution provided for a party-list system to ensure that Congress would not be dominated by political families.

Today, the hope—that party list representatives would provide a counterweight to the power of dynasties—has been completely dashed.

In the 20th Congress, half of the 64 party-list representatives come from political clans whose members currently hold national and local office, or held elective posts immediately before them. These include relatives of the president and vice president—the first time in Philippine electoral history that the kin of the country’s two highest officials simultaneously clinched party-list seats in Congress.

Marcos Jr.’s cousin-in-law Yedda Romualdez and her son Andrew Julian Romualdez ran under the Leyte-based Tingog Sinirangan, while Harold Duterte, a cousin of Vice President Sara Duterte, won a seat through Pwersa ng Pilipinong Pandagat. 

The framers of the 1987 Constitution designed the party-list system to serve as a platform for issue-based lawmakers representing alternative views, not the pillars of the establishment like the Marcoses and Dutertes who have monopolized elective office in their bailiwicks for decades. The party-list seats are on top of other elective posts held by members of these dynasties.

The president’s sister Imee is a senator. Marcos Jr.’s son Sandro represents the first district of Ilocos Norte; his cousin-in-law is Ilocos Norte governor; and his nephew is vice governor of the same province.

The Marcoses’ reach goes all the way to Leyte. Leyte’s first district representative is Ferdindand Martin Romualdez, Marcos Jr.’s cousin and Yedda’s husband. Another presidential cousin is mayor of Tacloban City, Leyte’s capital; Marcos Jr.’s nephew, the mayor’s son, is vice mayor of the same city; and another nephew is a Tacloban City councilor.

Meanwhile, the vice president’s brother Paolo represents the first district of Davao; her nephew represents the second district; her other brother Sebastian is acting Davao City mayor; and another nephew is Davao City vice mayor.

By the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism’s count, 32 of the 64 party-list representatives in the 20th Congress come from active political clans although the parties they belong to claim to represent the poor, farmers, and ordinary folk from their provinces.

Government contractors, too, have penetrated the 20th Congress through the party-list route.

PCIJ research shows that nearly a third of party-list lawmakers are either founders or shareholders of companies that have been awarded government contracts, have relatives who are government contractors, or received campaign donations from such individuals. They claim to represent multiple sectors and regional constituencies. 

“Groups associated with powerful political families have used the party-list as a ‘backdoor’ to expand dynastic influence in the House of Representative,” said the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL). The system has been “captured by political dynasties and economic elites,” they further asserted.

The flood control corruption scandal that rocked the country in mid-2025 gave way to government probes and media reports that unravelled ties between public works contractors and lawmakers, including party-list representatives.

Amid public pressure, President Marcos Jr. instructed Congress to prioritize passage of a party-list reform bill. The Senate is now deliberating various proposals aimed at reorienting the party-list system to its original purpose.

The 1987 Constitution reserved 20% of House seats for party-list lawmakers or those who represent national, regional, and sectoral parties. Party-list elections adopt proportional representation, which means that the more votes a group gets, the more seats they can assume.

During the first party-list election in 1998, a total of 13 party-lists—mostly sectoral organizations—were able to cross the 2% vote threshold to win seats. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that party-list groups must represent marginalized and underrepresented sectors.

But in 2013, the high court reversed itself and decided that party-list groups “do not need to represent any marginalized and underrepresented sector.” 

This ruling “opened avenues for wealthy and politically connected individuals to lead party-lists without any substantive sectoral track record or genuine advocacy,” according to NAMFREL.

After the ruling, political clans fielded candidates, easily winning party list seats by mobilizing their political machines. All it takes to win a party list seat is around 250,000 votes.

Opening up party list representation to clans allows them to amass even more power than they already have. Lawmakers have considerable clout in deciding how public funds are distributed across government agencies, who then bid out contracts to private companies.

Getting appointed chairperson of the House appropriations committee, in particular, could give a lawmaker wide discretion in deciding where public funds go. This panel is in charge of the national government’s spending bill.

In the 19th Congress, former Ako Bicol Rep. Elizaldy Co held the post. Later on, the Ombudsman said that Co is a beneficial owner of Sunwest Inc., which happened to be the top contractor for flood-control works during the same period he chaired the appropriations committee.

The Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act bans public officials from directly or indirectly having financial interests in any business, contract or transaction with the government. The Code of Conduct of Public Officials mandates public officials to divest from companies whose activities “could affect” the performance of their duty.

Meanwhile, the Omnibus Election Code prohibits electoral candidates from receiving campaign donations from government contractors, franchisees, and licensees.

“Everybody knows about it in Congress that many of their colleagues are contractors also, and that this is a prohibited activity,” Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, a former lawmaker himself, said in October last year. His office is tasked with investigating public officers involved in wrongdoing.

“I don’t know if it’s known to them, or it’s just the impunity of it all that people don’t care anymore if it’s against the law because they think no one’s going to run after them. But it’s something we have to address,” he added.

Magbubukid Rep. Ferdinand Beltran, a member of the House appropriations committee, is one of the party-list lawmakers who are also contractors. He is the owner of Pampanga-based public works contracting company Ferdstar Builders Inc., according to the company’s August 2024 General Information Sheet. 

Beltran’s wife, son and daughter-in-law are co-owners of 11-16 Construction Corp., another public works contractor. PCIJ found that a technical staff of the same company, Nikko Alfaro, donated P300,000 to Magbubukid’s 2025 electoral campaign.

Some have more indirect links to contractors. FPJ Panday Bayanihan Rep. Brian, the son of former Senator Grace Poe, is not a contractor but records show that his party accepted donations from government contractors Maynard Ngu and Joseph Quirante worth P500,000 each.

Ngu is the chief executive of Cosmic Technologies, Inc., a contractor for the Department of Education. In a Senate hearing last year, former public works undersecretary Roberto Bernardo alleged that Ngu is the  bagman of Senator Francis Escudero.

Meanwhile, Quirante is the chief financial officer of Octagon Concrete Solutions, a contractor for the Department of Public Works and Highways. He happens to be the brother-in-law of Escudero.

Poe, now a vice chairperson of the House appropriations committee, also ran alongside Batangas contractor Mark Patron, the second nominee of FPJ Panday Bayanihan.

Electoral reform groups and academics are lobbying for a range of proposals to revamp the party-list system, including:

• Requiring party-list nominees to have a documented track record of at least three to five years of sectoral advocacy within the sector they seek to represent (NAMFREL)
• Conducting thorough background vetting and evidentiary public hearings on applicant party-lists (NAMFREL)
• Disqualifying party-list nominees who hold interests in businesses with government licenses, franchises, or contracts (Legal Network of Truthful Elections or LENTE)
• Mandating public disclosure of party-list campaign donations before election day, rather than 30 days after (LENTE and NAMFREL)
• Barring relatives of sitting elective officials up to at least the second degree of consanguinity or affinity from being party-list nominees (NAMFREL and LENTE)

In addition, political science professor Alicor Panao proposed removing the three-seat limit for party-lists. Under the current law, a group can only secure three seats at most regardless of the percentage of votes they get.

The limit, he said, betrays the concept of proportional representation which means that the percentage of votes each party-list garners should correspond to the number of seats they get. If, for example, a group received 30% of party-list votes, they should also get 30% of available seats.

Panao said it also forces groups who may have similar advocacies to split into smaller parties to get as many seats, rather than consolidate into potentially larger and stronger parties.

A number of party-lists who have significant electoral bases have sustained their numbers or staged comebacks in the 20th Congress.

The progressive Makabayan bloc still has three seats—one each for ACT Teachers, Gabriela and Kabataan. Social democratic Akbayan garnered the highest number of votes and secured three spots. First-timer Mamamayang Liberal, the sectoral organization of the Liberal Party, also won a seat. 

Representatives of these groups have track records of organizing along political or sectoral lines. They have no ties to ruling political families. And they have no known links to contractors. But, they are more of the exception rather than the rule.

Professor Panao said that educational campaigns on how the party-list system works must be sustained.

“Let’s simplify our technical knowledge. What should voters pay attention to? For example: If you’re voting for a party-list, you don’t look at the personalities behind it. So even if they dance, you don’t automatically vote for them. You read the platform, not the dance,” he said.

He added that the challenge now is fostering ordinary citizens’ participation in politics beyond elections.

“If we really want to change our political system, are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to join a party-list group? Are you willing to take part in the party’s campaigns?” he said.—PCIJ.org

Editor’s Note: The article was updated to correct the composition of party-lists that were allowed to participate in the 1998 elections.

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