Reform and Abolition: The Philippine Party-list System 193 considered as deadwood: many of them have proven to be capable of ascending back to power. The classic example are the Marcoses who ruled the Philippines like monarchs during martial rule, were ousted by a civilian uprising in 1986, but lost no time in recovering lost grounds after a few years. The Marcos family and their loyal supporters aim to recapture the presidency by 2022. The system of dynasties perpetuates old political families and serves as the breeding ground of new dynasties. Introduced as a formal political institution by American colonialists, the election has served to provide legitimacy and resiliency to the traditional elite. Election was enforced by U.S. colonial rulers at the turn of the 20th century to recruit the local elite for colonial administration at the local and national levels. Held regularly as a constitutional mechanism where voters choose candidates for national and local positions, the election has been equated with democracy even if it provides unfair competition to non-dynastic candidates and voters themselves don't really get to choose the candidates they believe can best represent their interests. There is increasing skepticism among many people about the viability of the electoral exercise given the absence of any tangible evidence that it has resulted in effective governance and, more important, in improving the quality of life. In the current presidential elections, this widespread frustration over the ineptness of traditional politicians has also pushed many voters to gamble with strong, authoritarian gures perceived to be more effective in addressing the endemic dysfunctions of the political system. The key to understanding the persistence of political families and their dominance as a permanent xture of electoral exercises is to look at this socalled modern institution patterned after the U.S. model as being borne out of a feudal, oligarchic society. Enforced by colonial powers, this modern bourgeois political institution was transplanted in a backward society dominated by an oligarchic elite – political families – who subsequently used it as an instrument for power perpetuation or, more accurately, class dominance over the lower classes of peasants, workers, sherfolks, indigenous peoples or national minorities, and other marginal sectors. The colonial-era state formation precongured the political dominance of elite families in the Philippines10 given that the country's class structure dates back to pre-Spanish and Spanish colonial rule. The country's presidential system has vested the central government headed by the chief executive with vast powers even if the Local Government Code which came into force in 1991 was supposed to decentralize government operations and establish local autonomy. The current structure in the allocation of government powers supports the current system of political dynasties which confers on the president the status of “primus inter pares”. Members of local political families gravitate to the winning president in an election by partyswitching or aligning with the chief executive's ruling coalition. Membership in