THE Dapat Isa Lang (D1L) Movement relaunched its anti-political dynasty campaign in Davao City on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, targeting 110,000 signatures through a digital platform to support a proposed law restricting political dynasties.
Led locally by Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU), the campaign forms part of a nationwide People’s Initiative seeking approximately 7.5 million signatures to push for a stricter anti-political dynasty law.
Atty. Romeo “Meong” Cabarde Jr., director of the Ateneo Public Interest and Legal Advocacy Center (Apila), said the shift to online signature collection through D1L.org aims to expand the campaign’s reach.
“We will be able to reach a lot of people; we can educate them, we can convince them to support the anti-political dynasty law through the digital platform,” Cabarde said.
The movement initially launched its local campaign in June through manual signature collection. However, Cabarde clarified that previously collected signatures would no longer count, requiring supporters to sign again through the digital platform.
“Actually, this is a level up. Our launching in June was mainly starting the campaign for a manual signature gathering,” he said.
Cabarde said the movement remains hopeful of reaching its local target by January 2027, although he could not confirm the exact number of signatures already collected.
“Ambitious, but we are not hopeless,” he said.
Fourth-degree restriction pushed
The movement’s proposed Anti-Political Dynasty Act seeks to prohibit certain simultaneous or successive candidacies and officeholding among relatives within the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity, a broader restriction than the second-degree limitation in the House-approved version.
Cabarde described the congressional proposal as insufficient to prevent political families from retaining power.
“But we feel that it’s a watered-down version of what is a real anti-political dynasty law,” he said.
Under Section 4 of D1L’s proposed measure, members of the same political family may still simultaneously occupy one national elective position and one local elective position within the same province.
During the press conference, SunStar Davao questioned whether the provision could still allow established political families to retain significant influence despite the movement’s goal of dismantling political monopolies.
“Because that’s still part of democracy. But what we wanted to do here is to regulate as much as we could,” Cabarde responded, explaining that the proposal seeks to balance restrictions with voters’ freedom to choose their leaders.
“This is opening doors for a lot of other qualified leaders we have on the field,” he added.
SunStar Davao also questioned Section 5, which gives preference to a family member seeking or holding the higher elective office when relatives cannot agree on who should remain in an electoral contest.
Asked why political rank should determine who remains instead of allowing voters’ preferences to prevail, Cabarde explained that the provision gives political families an opportunity to resolve conflicting candidacies.
“So we give them also the chance to decide for themselves,” he said.
“And once they decided, we open the arena now for the people to choose,” he added.
Under the proposed measure, individuals found guilty of knowingly and willfully violating its restrictions would face imprisonment of one to six years and perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
Campaign not targeting specific families
The movement maintained that its campaign is not directed against particular political personalities but seeks to address unequal opportunities in public service.
“We are not targeting specific names or political families on this matter,” a movement representative said.
The representative added that public positions should remain accessible to qualified individuals who may otherwise struggle to compete against established political families.
Cabarde also acknowledged that some voters may continue supporting political dynasties but emphasized that the Constitution mandates their prohibition.
“We respect their decision if they still believe in the political families that are governing them as of the moment. But we cannot also deny the fact that our Constitution prohibits political dynasties,” he said.
The campaign follows the Supreme Court’s ruling directing Congress to enact an anti-political dynasty law pursuant to Article II, Section 26 of the 1987 Constitution.
Youth participation, political education
Beyond gathering signatures, Cabarde said the movement is intensifying political education activities, with approximately 150 to 200 volunteers trained in August to support the local campaign.
“We are not simply gathering signatures. We are also raising the awareness of people on the ground,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mickyla Loriene Almadin, president of AdDU’s Samahan Central Board, emphasized the importance of informed youth participation.
“It’s very important for us, for the students and the student leaders, to take part in this initiative,” Almadin said, stressing that students should understand the proposed legislation before signing the petition.
Cabarde said AdDU took the initiative to lead the campaign locally after earlier efforts to involve other educational institutions.
“We decided, as Ateneo Davao, we might as well take that initiative to lead this campaign in Davao City,” he said.
He added that the University of the Immaculate Conception is expected to hold its own discussion on the movement on Friday, October 16.
Under the People’s Initiative process, proponents must gather signatures from at least 10 percent of registered voters nationwide, including at least three percent from every legislative district.
The movement aims to complete signature collection by January 31, 2027, and pursue a national referendum by mid-2027, hoping to secure passage of the proposed law before the 2028 elections. ACA